gazman

I couldn't abide an organist talking for so long - it would drive me up the wall! But I wonder why so many people seem to object to organists giving their audiences a little (interesting and informative!) detail about the pieces being played. Surely it's our job to educate, arouse interest and inform as well as to entertain, is it not?

Sorry, but I don't agree. Such electronic organs are, by their very nature, imitations of pipe organs. I find it quite frustrating on such instruments to find lots of MIDI switches, pistons and the like being installed in place of other more traditional registrational aids. On an electronic Nave Organ in a certain Cathedral I played on for a Sunday morning a couple of weeks ago, I found that - where a Swell to Great thumb piston would normally be expected - there was some sort of MIDI piston instead, and the Swell to Great piston had been placed in a rather unrealistic position towards the treble end of the Great manual. I wonder what use these MIDI devices are in the actual playing of the instrument. And why, too, include such devices as "Harp" and "Chimes" in an electronic which tries to imitate a pipe instrument? I'm not a stick-in-the-mud (I hope! ) but I wonder why it is generally quite easy to spot an electronic imitation of a pipe organ from its console even before "switching on the wind"....

Thank you. I'm glad you agree. The recording 'sends' me. There was one attempt last year at an organ recital in Liverpool Cathedral (which required as much registering as the whole of the rest of the programme put together), which elicited a certain amount of praise from the Cathedral's titulaire organist and members of the audience (who were probably being far too generous!)...

Google reveals a slightly naff arrangement here, but it could easily be improved. http://www.musicandyou.com/freesheetmusic/nearermygod.pdf

Wasn''t he the one responsible for drastically reducing the tonal resources of the organ at Canterbury Cathedral?

Nah! I'd go for an F major 6th chord instead!

Albeit with a slightly altered - and more logical - ending!

Thank you, Vox. That's just the sort of thing I was looking for. I noticed 'left-hand solo bits' in another recording on YouTube . I presume that this is 'Cantabile no. 2' and that the one the OP gave us is actually number 30, despite what it says.

I think that, sometimes, you just have to bite the bullet and be blunt. It's probably better for the person to have to suffer hurt in the short term, rather than having them continue to inflict their offerings on an unfortunate congregation. An organist friend of mine managed to get his fairly incompetent predecessor out of his post by saying each Sunday how sorry he was to hear that the poor fellow's arthritis was obviously playing him up.

I was disappointed not to find any biographical details about the composer there, although perhaps I overlooked them. Google doesn't seem helpful either. Does anybody know anything about him?

Ok, then! I do! And the old girl made a really credible impression of a theatre organ too. I agree about the last chord, and am rather tempted to change it.

Well, I played it to my lot as the opening voluntary this morning to put them in a good mood, as I wanted to ask them to contribute to my sponsored slim for Lent in aid of the organ fund. Several people afterwards commented favourably, and asked what the piece was. Of course nobody would say that the music has great substance, but if it gets people listening favourably to the organ and enjoying the music it makes, that's a good thing in my book! And they're sponsoring generously too!

I think the old dears would love it! Pity that a lot of scores (including the one for the piece on YouTube) don't seem to be readable with Scorch on any browser I try. Am I doing something wrong, I wonder...

Thanks. Your subsequent edits make a little more sense of it all, and help to clarify the meaning of the 'Congregation'.

Poor old boy! I guess the arthritis was playing up by then.

Ooops! I could have made a bit of a gaff, then, thinking that it looked like a correction on mine. The wisdom of hindsight, eh?!

You could always ask the person who posted the video, I guess.

Thanks, Peter! I wonder why I've got 103 typed on mine, and why he said 103 in his email...

Interesting! His Facebook reply to me (above) also suggested it was psalm/hymn 103. On the front cover of mine, the number 103 has definitely been printed at a later stage next to the number 303 on the title page. Perhaps we should ask him again! You or I?

Another organ 'played on by Handel'. And on his way to the first performance of Messiah too!

So I see! To quote the good gentleman himself: 'This is a misunderstanding. The swedish word for Hymn is "Psalm". So what I refer to is the nr 103 in the Swedish Hymn book. Not the bible. The name of this hymn is "There is only one way to heaven, it´s the way through Jesus Christ"'

I dunno. I'll ask him!

It's a typo. My copy was amended to read Psalm 103 when Fredrik sent it. I've enjoyed playing that piece for quite a while now, and have got quite a lot of his other scores. All very good stuff indeed.

I think that this is probably true around certain cities or university towns, but I've certainly not found it to be the case out in my neck of the woods. Such organists are very few and far between, I find, alas.

Agreed, MM. But we always have to adapt the music for whatever organ we play. We have to adapt it rather more, I would argue, in terms of registration and playing to the acoustic than we do due to the action. Or, at least we should do, if a decent action (of whatever type) is installed. I'm going to stick my neck out here and say that, whilst it can be very rewarding to play on a modern well-built and well-maintained tracker action (and I'm very grateful for having spent my teenage years learning and practising on one of Bill Drake's finest), for me the main concern about the action is that it shouldn't hinder the performance in any way. I have in mind heavy and/or uneven tracker actions and slow pneumatic/e.p. actions especially. If the action facilitates a good performance, the choice of action is very much of secondary importance to me behind the overall tonal resources of the instrument. *ducks*