sjf1967

Excellent terms and conditions for a recitalist Barry - over here alas it's often a different story...

same thing happened at Brownhill - 2 manual Hunter I think, already in atrocious condition when I knew it (early 80s or so) and now as far as I know walled up and replaced by a skiffle combo. Sic transit. How long were you at St Andrew's?

A little light summer reading if you're interested....James Barr - Scope and Authority of the Bible; Keith Ward - What the Bible really teaches. Interesting stuff.

Ahhh - I lived 1 minute from St Andrew's as a small boy - and the thing that got me started on playing the organ was hearing Paul Derrett at St Andrew's for the Guinness Book of Records marathon organ playing record - in fact I was sitting next to him on the bench some of the time, and was there when he finished. I don['t expect him to remember that but it's a small world. Now you know who to blame....

Do you mean Brownhill Road Baptist in Catford? I had my first organ lesson there...wasn't working well then either.

Fairly peripatetic, but most definitely not a virtuoso.... for what it's worth, the absolute ideal for me is the evening before in a quiet building, with a couple of hours or so on the day to check registration changes, plus a bit of slow practice on 8' flutes - I try not to play the whole prgramme through (knackering, and if I can't play it the night before then one morning won't make any difference). You really need somewhere to stay for that though, otherwise you risk ending up in the pub...If I'm doing something particularly hard (Riff-Raff or similar) I always make a separate trip at my own expense to work at that in advance. A couple of big concert halls allow a whole day, or even two, in advance, which is bliss. Sometimes you end up having to do it all on the day but this is not ideal. I sometimes find that the first day you play an organ it is disastrous - had one of those in Denmark last year, and had a sleepless night over it - but the next day you have somehow 'learnt' the feel of the organ and it feels comfortable. That scenario, as much as the business of registration etc, is the thing which I find always merits the extra time. Here we give recitalists the night before, plus the day itself from 10-4, during which time they can play as loud as they like (within reasonable limits) - that may be unusual but then the D and C here like music. Westminster Cathedral, by the way, is among the most terrifying organs to play - it's very loud (even the strings are fortissimo at the console), you sit right underneath it, the touch is simultaneously light and deep with almost no resistance, and the pedal board is strangely placed. Sunday pm recitalists only get a couple of hours to prepare and then straight in cold - not easy....

David - I think it's a visual overload problem - there are so many accidentals and double sharps in the second section that your brain can't process them fast enough; you lose any sense of tonal centre and end up trying to read each chord again from scratch. Have you tried writing out the passage in question in enharmonic notation? It's essentially in a minor but just doesn't look like it, and I suspect that is part of the problem...the other thing that might help is piling up the arpeggiated groups and chordal clusters that follow as block chords, so you're programming your fingers to find the position quickly. Do you know what I mean? Haven't explained it very well. And choose your instrument carefully - any time lag and you'll come unstuck, as I discovered at the Methuen Music Hall in Boston....

Hmmm. Nothing like a reasoned assessment, is there! The stop you disliked so much is a Cromorne...I'm saying no more on the subject. I know the instrument very well indeed and I am still certain it's a fine thing. Sound clips (from a couple of my CDs I'm afraid) for those who haven't heard it may be found at http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000025...lance&n=229816;

I'm sure everyone who is pronouncing on the defects Ch Ch organ has experienced hearing it in the building.......just checking.....

In defence of Ch Ch - I played, or stood underneath it, pretty much every day for 6 years and I don't ever remember being screamed at.....it's an admirable bit of voicing - the building gives no help at all, and at Christmas or other big occasions, with 1000 people in the building, there was almost a negative acoustic. It still sounded beautifully blended and could do a more convincing job of Howells than the old organ could do of Stravinsky or Leighton - it was also quite colourful enough for psalms, but you had to know it well to make them work. Of course it needed using carefully - not compulsory to use the Positif Cymbale every bar - some people hated it because you couldn't just push pistons but had to prepare registration schemes carefully. You also had to play right notes all the time! But a really tremendous organ - still one of my favourites. Anyway, no point arguing about taste in tonal finishing. My personal worst? Derby Cathedral, by some distance.

Do come and say hello, Jeremy....I might even buy you a pint! indeed......

Alas no....but the rebuilt organ looks very fine - one of my favourites.

Andrew - having seen your posting on another forum that it was a boy singing it, have you thought of trawling throught the Better Land series of recordings? It may well be on there somewhere. Roffensis may be able to advise....

Crikey - one for the Chamber of Horrors and no mistake. No idea if it's the original melody, but Kingsfold will fit very well (NEH 376) - and so would any DCM tune.

Try that here and see what you get - one side of the choir is too far away for the other to hear.....I'd like to see any choir get through James Macmillan or Judith Bingham without a bit of help from someone out front under those circumstances...

That would be telling! ££££ might have something to do with it....

mjf - you are much too kind. I am sure you are at least as good a musician - I'm a cathedral organist remember. I wonder if we're related.....

This might be up your collective street, chamade fans - http://www.orgelsindrenthe.nl/engels/index.htm - follow links to organs, then to Havelte hermorvde kerk, tower.....

Vox- I'm sorry to say I don't but I'll dig it out and have a look...

MM - There is an original solo version of the Shostakovich piece - it appears in a Peters Edition compilation of music from the Soviet Republic. This edition can be quite hard to find, and for a long time I resorted to rearranging a piano transcription of the Passacaglia - this piano version was itself a transcription of the orchestral version of the piece. I have a feeling (but don't know why) that the organ piece was the original, and S replaced it with an orchestral movement for the very good reason that not many opera houses have organs. But I could be wrong on that point..

Andrew - the one that sounds best to you is the best I suppose - sometimes it's a small chorus, sometimes you can find a colourful quiet reed/flute combination (if you have a good Dulzian or something at your disposal) - andthey can sound very effective on just a 4' flute or a really singing 8' principal. Anything that dosn't obscure the polyphony.

Interesting point Paul...a cursory look throws up the following examples of relatively short final notes (one tactus worth or shorter) without fermata and with rests precisely notated in non-organ works, in a variety of media; B minor Mass Christe (crotchet), Et in spiritum Sanctum (dotted crotchet); Double violin concerto slow movement - (dotted crotchet) and all three movements of the E major concerto are without fermata and relatively short; several examples in the violin and harpsichord obbligato sonatas; more than one in the Magnificat; several in the Brandenburgs 5 and 3). There are more, although of course the fermata in recaps of da capo arias does double duty. Williams suggests that with the increase in weight of musical sonorities in general over the last couple of centuries, we have lost the art of distinguishing cadence types, and I suspect he's right....as for publications - Schubler chorale BWV 646; Clav'ubung III - BWV 689; BWV 675 has the fermata over the double bar, not the last note; BWV 684; BWV 676. Countless examples in Clav. Part I, II and IV...I don't think BWV 544 is all that isolated an example of this phenomenon.

Paul - I think politically correct is a bit loaded. The issue is complicated slightly by the issue of notational conventions and so forth - but the question for me is why in some cases - eg BWV 544i, 547ii - Bach and his copyists should have gone to the considerable trouble of notating a very specific value for the final chord, and rests in each idividual part to complete the bar if the duration of the last chord were of no consequence. If a grandiose ending feels better, fine - but you can't pretend that it's what the notation (as reproduced in a half decent edition, of course) implies. It's not about a correct official line - it's about looking properly at what's in the score, which after all is all there is. Very good article on all this in Peter Williams Vol 3 - "Certain details of performance - finals, fermatas and repeats" - 'the rests [in BWV 544i] have been written in so carefully as to leave the matter quite unambiguous'. Another quote from Williams - 'if the abruptness seems to offend common sense, does it do so because that common sense is an anachronism, or because the notation is implying something else as well - namely that there must be a rallentando?' Your idea of finishing 'properly' might be different from Bach's, but it's his piece after all....

Chris - sorry, it's already been snapped up....S

The middle section is harmonically very reminiscent of French Grand Plein Jeu movements, if the French title is going to influence registration choice - I can't think of a Grand Jeu movement which uses this kind of 'durezza' harmony. And one very reliable source for the piece (Walther's) indicates 'gayement' for the central section..