innate

The argument about repertoire is probably valid but fails to take into account particular installations in particular large buildings. I have absolutely no experience of playing organs with different divisions at, for example, opposite ends of a cathedral but I can imagine that getting ones head around multi-divisional organs is probably easier with more manuals particularly if antiphonal effects are being used.

Try here. £12.50 inc. VAT.

I think you can see the back of the organ very clearly from the street through a large plate glass window; chiefly the pipes for both stopped 16' wooden registers. I heard four recitals in one day there once, including some stunning playing from Paul Jacobs.

I'm sorry, MM, I didn't want to cast any doubt on your story!

I can't tell if you think that's a good or a bad thing Maybe one of the motives behind the C16 Lutheran adoptions was the same as C20 C of E adoptions of popular themes; to bridge that gulf. And whist it may jar and turn some people away it may have some intellectual and/or theological honesty behind it.

The Passion chorale used to be a secular love song sung quite fast in triple time.

Point taken, davidh. I'd rather have the opportunity to make up my own mind rather than rely on the generally opaque choices of an editor.

In my limited experience Bach often wrote a "Dorian mode" key signature for pieces in the minor; ie one fewer flat or one more sharp. I suspect these oddities were edited out in C18-earlyC20 editions and it is only with more modern urtext editions that we are becoming aware of them. A return to baroque practice with regard to accidentals might be interesting too.

(Continuing the tangent) There's a story of a then famous bassonist, possibly its dedicatee Edwin James, playing the Elgar Romance in the Queens Hall during the Blitz. After the piece had started the sirens rang out and the hall was evacuated but the bassoonist continued until the end. Also I was told that some orchestral musicians had left their instruments in the hall overnight when it was bombed and some of the valuable old string instruments were found, unglued from the heat, floating amid the water from the firefighters' hoses, and repaired. Maybe some of these stories need to be tagged apocryphal.

I saw a notice on an American-based organ discussion group for this arrangement of Moussorgsky's orchestral piece and thought it might be fun to try out for an extended Halloween voluntary so I coughed up US$14 via PayPal and downloaded the 28-page pdf from Mikune Music last night. I'll put a few first impressions here as a kind of mini review. The arrangement is mostly competent. I haven't compared it to the original but my guess is that it is in general quite faithful. I think the arranger has the American symphonic organ in mind, judging by the registration indications which include Chimes, Harp, Gt. Trem., 4' Celestes, Gt. sub- and super-octave couplers, Crescendo Pedal. The manual compass frequently extends above top G and there are at least 2 top Ds which, as far as I am aware, only exist on the Atlantic City organ and maybe some theatre instruments. Some hand stretches are beyond my (average) reach including a rh dotted-minim chord C-A-E with a trill on the E. What I consider unacceptable is the, frankly, lamentable standard of the computer engraving. There seems to have been no proof-reading involved in the preparation of the score which has © 2008 on the first page so plenty of time to make corrections. There are far too many wrong notes, ambiguous accidentals, misplaced slurs, ties, clefs and other symbols, and vertical misalignments making rhythms impossible to read. Most glaringly, 5 systems near the end have the right hand in the bass clef where it should obviously be in the treble clef. I suspect I won't even bother taping the pages together so I can play this on the organ. The $14 price tag is a special offer; at some point it will revert to the full price of $28.

Or Bulgaria.

I think Billy Connolly started out singing in clubs. He can certainly do a mean parody of Country music.

MM makes some valid points about the good to be found in pop. I think we have to accept that there is good and bad in every area of the creative arts and church music is no exception. There is, additionally, a large middle ground of stuff that is neither good nor bad but tolerable in small doses which can even be deeply loved by some. What we, as culturally educated musicians, find galling, when it occurs, is the pandering to lowest common denominator or anti-elitist views and the homogenisation of musical styles so that there is no true integrity about anything.

Apologies for bumping this up to the top. I didn't get any replies 4 years ago but maybe the membership of the board has expanded. Any helpful ideas about Responsorial Psalms? I am happy to compose my own music but can't find the words!

Love it!

Spotting it required peripheral vision, something I can't, obviously, rely on!

After contacting the organiser and receiving the password necessary to enter the survey I completed the survey this evening. Quite quick and painless.

There's a poem (I think it's in the Oxford Book of Early English Verse) called the Choirboy's Lot (or something) which suggests that not every chorister could read music particularly well. Which tallies with anecdotal evidence from peripatetic instrumental teachers that some cathedral choristers now "get by" by following their colleagues. On the other hand, I suspect that most of Peter Maxwell Davies' pupils at Cirencester could read music pretty well. I agree with Nigel and William Byrd that "singing is so good a thing I would that all men [and women] learnt to sing". It's not so long ago that the choral society movement was probably the most popular amateur activity in the UK.

When I passed the 11-plus in 1971 I was offered places at 3 state grammar schools in the Derby area. 2 had organs in their assembly halls and Heads of Music who were organists, one had no organ and no organist; guess where I went! In a way, I'm quite glad the way things turned out, but had I gone to a school with an organ I think my chances of getting an organ scholarship would have been higher. As it was, a scholarship to Christ Church without any practical duties seemed like a good deal. I suspect that neither Derby school organ survives.

My gut feeling is that the PCC should have nothing to do with fees for weddings and funerals. I would agree with the organist setting his own rate for these occasional services; if the vicar has concerns then he can get involved.

<tangent> I think you mean "couldn't care less" <and of tangent>.

The article on memory in music in the old Percy Scholes Oxford Companion to Music is worth a read; mention is made, IIRC, of von Bulow playing a recital tour of the USA in which he played the "48", all the Beethoven Sonatas, and much else besides without ever consulting a score. Also discussion of symphony orchestras playing whole programmes with no music on stage. The opposite experience is hearing a monotone Lord's Prayer almost grind to a halt as collective amnesia strikes all 12 Lay Clerks and Choral Scholars simultaneously.

What makes you sure that a new building would be easily maintained? Hasn't the first tranche of the last government's new building programme for schools resulted in buildings that are, according to the staff using them, not fit for purpose? The 1968 Community Centre extension to the 1957 church where I sang as a treble was condemned as unmaintainable a few years ago.

I have a dim recollection that, slightly oddly, an MA "trumps" a Ph.D at some universities.

We raised over £1000 this evening plus GiftAid. Huge thanks to all the performers and all the generous donors.