andyorgan
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Posts posted by andyorgan
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Thanks so far, keep them coming.
I also had the Hollins Minuet and the Karg Elert. Others so far include Toccata all rumba (Planyavsky), Dance Suite (Rawsthorne), Gavotte (Lemare), Resurrection Dances (Ridout), Fugue a la gigue (David Johnson), Toccata a la Gigue (Martinson).
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I'm putting together some recital prgrammes that are based around dance music and I'd like to tap into all of your collective creative libraries to see if you can help me with some ideas.
I've already got quite a few in my repertoire already, but they are very biased towards fast and loud. I have some rumbas, gigues etc, original pieces as well as transcriptions. As well as coming up with ideas to add to this list, I'm also really keen to find some slower dances/dance movements to provide some contrast. So, other than the Howells Sarabandes, anyone got more ideas?
Thanks, in advance!
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This is a bit like the way that Guildford Cathedral was sponsored brick by brick - I remember as a child going to the site several times, and each time buying another brick for them.
Paul
From the few years I spent there, I wouldn't mind finding out who paid for all the asbestos in the building? Bet that didn't have the same cache as paying for a brick.
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Speechless, no other word will do.
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I'm not reading that comment in the same way. I think (pardon if speaking out of turn), Tony possibly meant no Christian faith, rather than no faith at all. With the greatest respect for our Muslim brethren, I don't think they would be too keen to employ me because of my faith either. I'm not offended by that, though all faiths had trouble with the wretched new employment laws that seemed to make this illegal.
A similar issue has been raised a number of times in the teaching profession where schools are seen to be wanting to employ people who are sympathetic to their faith. Again, I wouldn't apply for a job in single faith Muslim school, and I don't find that offensive at all.
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I always thought it rather disappointing that one was never included in the new concert hall in Glasgow. Does anyone know if there is an electronic in there?
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Not trying to be provocative here, but what is the difference between the organist and the clergy? We're there to do a job to lead, encourage and nurture worship, so surely faith has to be a part of that. There's a difference between being a 'leader' which is what the organist is, and the kind of contributor to a church service that finds their faith that way. Although moments to be proud of children in choirs can be far between, nothing gave me more pleasure than seeing individuals come to a decision about their faith and choose to be confirmed. Particularly when I know that they don't have any support from home, and had they not been in the choir, they may not have ever set foot in the church.
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...since the earlier post? Any reason?
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We got rid of the one in our rebuild that extended on to the pedals. Huge pipes, hardly any noise at all. Losing the one stop (out of 45) meant we could redesign the inside of the organ to make a more satisfactory layout for the divisions. Various previous 'improvements' had resulted in trying to squeeze a reasonably sized 4 manual instrument in a hole designed for a more modest three manual instrument.
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Strongest and most symbolic of all is the Kreutzfigur, the sign of the cross which appears everywhere in Bach. His favourite Perfect Cadence has it in the bass. Imagine C, rising to G above, falling to G below and then settling back on C. you have four dots on the page - connect these and you have a visible cross. Even little intervals , say G, A flat, F, G can still give a cross pattern, they're everywhere! Numerology is everywhere too...anything with 3 is sacred, and to Bach the number 14 is very special - his own initials add up to 14. The letters of his two baptismal names add up to 14 as well...many works have 14 connections.
I'm intruiged by the 14 references, as I hadn't come across these before. Can you emlighten further? I had some post grad academic teaching (as well as him being my internal assesor) from a chap who wrote a book about, among other things, number structure in Clavierbung III. All that in the P and F; 3 flats, 3 distict ideas in the prelude, 3 fugue subjects, 3 to the power of 3 entries of the fugue subject in the fugue etc...
I went on one of the RCO courses a few years ago and had a couple of lessons from a very eminient Dutch organist, and a very nice chap too down the pub afterwards. Anyway, when I mentioned my liking for Koopman, and in this case with particular reference to his playing of Buxtehude and the Bach Harpsichord Concerto discs, there was a chilling silence, followed by a number of comments expressing surprise and disdain that we 'English' players are taken in with such very personal and often very extrovert interpretations.
I didn't know whether to feel chastened or not.
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Is my information correct that, in America, your appointment lasts only as long as current incumbent? Or have I misinterpreted information?
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Your knowledge of British rivers is so much better than mine of rivers in Belgium!
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Naturally I wish any scheme well, though AJJ's point is well made that there are other firms who could provide equally good work nothing like so far from Leeds. Of course, employing a firm from mainland Europe means that the work when complete will have to be paid for in Euros. Jolly UK purchasers are going to get a shock when they realise the huge change in price since these contracts were placed. By my reckoning, Euros are now worth at least 30% more than they were a year ago; put another way, it will take more than £3k to get from Europe what would have cost £2k a year ago.
Am I right those of you who can do sums?
Isn't there at least one famous example of a church being stung by precisley the point you make. Perhaps grapevine sources were inaccurrate, but was Kingston PC or one of the Schulze projects up north one of them. (No libel intended if my sources were wrong!)
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Returning to the subject, Roy Massey gave a splendid recital last night in Hereford Cathedral in a programme that made no concession to his just passing his 75th birthday in music by Hollins (Concert Overture in Cmin) , Bach (D maj P & F), Arrangements of 16c dances, Mozart (K608), Bertalot (Variations for pedals on Hanover), Jongen (Chant de Mai), and Liszt (BACH). Large screen projection meant that we had ot sit in the nave as there were no seats in the best position in the north transept. Organ sounded magnificent. There was also lovely Evensong beforehand - Sumsion in G and Hadley (My beloved spake). Well worth the very slow winding journey from here.
What was the Bertalot like? I haven't come across it before?
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I think you mean the Aire. By Severn, you are confusing it with the cathedral that had one pretty good organ from Rogers (which they have to hand back) and the dreadful one before it, that probably is already in the Severn.
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I have heard a tactic recommended whereby one learns the last page of the target work first, then work back from that. I have to say, this never appealed to me. Being a proficient sight-reader, when young I used to try everything at correct (final) volume and nearly correct (final) speed. Now I know a bit more about learning and how it works - I would say do it slowly. How slowly does not matter at all. Once you can play anything slowly, (always with the same fingering NB) getting it up to speed is nothing like the same challenge. You will have the benefit of knowing (amongst other things) that you are playing it accurately. Once again, I have heard a number of approximate performances of difficult works, usually from youngsters who have decided that effect is everything.
I had similar advice from one of my teachers. It differed slightly in that he suggested learning from start and end (section or page at a time), forward and backwards towards the middle. He argued that the end was often (but not always) the most difficult bit and that familiarity with the end was crucial. Its a technique I still use for most pieces, though not usually for Baroque pieces, but certainly in most 19th and 20th century literature I've tried to learn in the last few years.
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At the other end of the artistic scale, one might say, how about
Compton from the Ambassador Cinema in Hounslow. If you are not a seasoned traveller, sea sickness pills required as the amount of tremulant will make you feel queasy! -
Nice one here Pierre - I lived and worked close to Worcester in the early 80s and used to drop in too!
A
Me too, though quite a bit later than the 80s, and I've been trying to face spot, without any success.
Anyone recognise the organist, and is that a female I spotted under Hunt's left arm on the back row at 'Jerusalem is builded', or was it just a hangover from the long hair of the 1970s.
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And, as if someone from upstairs and the outside world was watching our forum, an article and advert for the man himself in the new OR.
Perhaps if we drop some other subtle hints about people/articles we'd like to see, they might also magically appear..........
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Poor humble and lowly peasant as I am, you may be quite correct about my computer set-up. However, even if I had the wherewithal to do it, I doubt whether I would find sufficient courage to attempt anything so scary as to update my desktop technology - until the time that it dies a natural death of course.
If you do decide to take the plunge; get a Mac! Can't go wrong.
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Anyone hear the broadcast from Worcester last week, still availble on BBC I-Player http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00js8l4 for the next four days. The organ part to Stanford in B flat was unusual and I assume a realisation of the orchestral version of the setting. The broadcast gave a good hearing of the new Tickell organ.
It could be bad memory here, but I thought I recalled reading somewhere that Adrian had made an edition of more or less what you describe, an organ reduction of the orchestral version. It couldn't remember which piece it was, but this seems to fit the bill.
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Yes, point taken, but given that in some cases perhaps no fee was originally exchanged and the costs of reissuing are pretty minimal compared with fresh recordings, wouldn't at least a letter and complimentary copy show some good will? A recent double CD set I bought contained about 20 organists on it (I'm almost certain that no fee changed hands on the organ and organist I bought the set for). By my pretty poor reckoning, around half of them are dead, so 10 comp copies to performers I think might have been a nice gesture (I'm assuming they didn't of course, perhaps they did). Particularly as the transfers from LPs have come out quite well, and the performances themselves (from nearly 50 years ago), may not have survived that well on the original LPs.
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I find it hard to believe that a company would do that, yet I know it happens.
About 5 years ago I was turning pages for a cathedral organist in the middle of the country, and we were leafing through the newly arrived OR during a rehearsal with the choir. I made an off hand comment about the favorable review his re-release had just got (from younger days and two organ posts previous), and he was staggered to find that recordings of his had been re-released without so much as a letter or note to say so much. He doubted whether he had any legal redress over the issue, in that he didn't think he owned the copyright to the disc (though, couldn't remember signing anything to say as much), but we both agreed that the company concerened surely would think they had a moral duty to at leats write to him, or as you suggest, possibly offer a complimentary copy.
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Does anyone know anything of Thomas F Boyle? I am presuming he was an AMerican from the early part of the 20th century, and is the dedicatee of a transcription by Edwin Lemare.
Any ideas/leads gratefully receieved, the usual google searches yet to yield anything.
Dance Music
in The Organ
Posted
Thanks for the SS suggestion, I'd forgotten about that, though the Lemare is a little out of my league. I do also have a few transcriptions ideas, I already play odd movements from the Nutcracker and the Die Fledermaus Overture, doesn't get more waltzy than that.