Mark Taylor

A snippet on Francis Jackson from the local paper in York (with apologies if this has already been posted). https://www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/18758591.celebration-minster-music-master/

Anyone within striking distance of Foyles (London, Charing Cross Road branch) might like to know that they are currently selling a lot of L'Orgue Mystique at half price. Of course, it is worth bearing in mind that the whole thing is now available on IMSLP.

I have just found this site on which James Kibbie has provided Bach’s complete organ works for download; either as single pieces (MP3 or AAC), or in groups as compressed files. There is an interesting selection of organs: Dresden, Kathedrale - Gottfried Silbermann, Zacharias Hildebrandt and others, 1755 Rötha, Georgenkirche - Gottfried Silbermann, 1721 Rötha, Marienkirche - Gottfried Silbermann, 1722 Großengottern, St. Walpurgis - Tobias Heinrich Gottfried Trost, 1717 Stade, Ss. Cosmae et Damiani - Behrendt Huß and Arp Schnitger, 1675 Stade, St. Wilhadi - Erasmus Bielfeldt, 1736 Waltershausen, Stadtkirche - Tobias Heinrich Gottfried Trost, 1724-1730

Also MDT

I've just noted that EMI are about to re-issue the Great Cathedral Organ Series as a CD boxed set. To be released on 17th October, according to Amazon.

Thanks, Douglas, I've grabbed the PDF from your second link.

When I was there (a couple of years ago), there was a CD of the organ being played by Francis Jackson available from the shop (Amphion PHI CD 130). MT

And I believe this is another NT organ that they are quite amenable to visiting organists having a go on. MT

One of the (many) gaps in my musical knowledge concerns ornaments. They simply didn’t crop up much when I was learning as a child. I currently use as a reference William Lovelock’s Ornaments and Abbreviations, first published in the 1930s. However, I recently found this comment on the internet. “It is unfortunate that the majority of pianists of the late 19th and early 20th centuries have been "educated" to believe that the symbol [that Bach used for a trill] represents an "inverted mordent"… . Actually, the term "inverted mordent" was never used during Bach's lifetime, and Bach makes it very clear that the symbol indicates a trill, beginning on the auxiliary note.” Quote from here. It seems that I have been playing inverted mordents when I should have been playing trills in Bach's music! Presumably, this also applies to Boehm. I have recently being looking at Boehm’s Vater unser im Himmelreich in Anne Marsden Thomas’ Oxford Service Music for Organ and playing mordants and inverted mordants as (I thought) notated. However, is this issue as black and white as the above quote suggests? And when did the inverted mordent make its first appearance?

I have just discovered that the original reviews for the HMV Great Cathedral Organs series are available on the Gramophone web site. They make for fascinating reading. So far, I have only looked at the reviews for Coventry, Durham, Exeter, Norwich and Worcester, but I assume they are all there. They make for fascinating reading. Does any one recognise the reviewer of the Worcester recording, identified as SF?

Yesterday I paid my first visit ever to Gloucester Cathedral. Looking in the bookshop for something about the organ, I came across The organ of Gloucester Cathedral by John Balsdon. An excellent, well produced booklet which comes with a fascinating CD. Thirteen tracks providing a history of the organ and including five tracks by Herbert Sumsion from 1949 to 1967. Wonderful stuff, here is the full listing. Herbert Sumsion recorded in 1949 S S Wesley, Larghetto in f sharp J S Bach, CP: Komm, suesser Tod, komm, sel'ge Ruh!, BWV 478 Herbert Sumsion recorded in 1965 Whitlock, Five Short Pieces: Folk Tune and Scherzo Herbert Sumsion recorded in 1967 J S Bach, Prelude and Fugue in b, BWV 544 John Sanders recorded in 1980 C H Lloyd, Allegretto Guilmant, Marche funèbre et Chant séraphique Op. 17 David Briggs recorded in 1997 Improvised Variations on Baa Baa Black sheep David Briggs recorded in 2001 Saint-Saens, transcr. Briggs, Symphony No.3: Final Andrew Nethsingha recorded in 2006 Vierne, Organ Symphony No.2: allegro Adrian Partington recorded in 2010 Tomkins, A Fancy Saint-Saens, Prelude and Fugue, Op. 99, No.3 in E flat A Carter, Trumpet Tune

I tried vari-focals about a year ago. Like Malcolm, I had no difficulty using them for playing the organ. They were also good for working at a computer, but I could couldn’t get on with them in the rest of my life! I now use separate reading glasses and distance glasses. I tend to use the distance glasses for organ playing because that’s what I’ve always done, but it is becoming clear that I will have to switch over to using the reading glasses. I have an increasing tendency to mistake sharps for naturals and to confuse mordents and inverted mordents.

There is also a new Hyperion CD of Peeter’s organ music due out in January - D'Arcy Trinkwon playing the organ of Tonbridge School Chapel. While ordering it I also came across the organ concerto and Missa Festiva with Peter Pieters (organ) and the Flemish Radio Orchestra and Choir on the Klara label. I ended up ordering both. I need a New Year’s resolution to buy fewer CDs!

Thanks for your post JOR, but (and I’m really sorry if I wasn’t clear in my original post) it is recordings of Peter’s compositions rather than performances that we are looking for. That said, yes I do have the LP of Greene’s choral music and very enjoyable it is! I am also grateful to another member of this board who has sent me details of recordings on Herald, Lammas and Hyperion. In addition have traced a couple of recordings from Radio 3’s Choral Evensong: the introit: Through Christ Jesus ... from Liverpool in May 2005, and a setting of psalm 93 from Ely in February 2007. It could be that there is not much else around(?)

I am currently helping Peter’s son-in-law to compile a list of commercial recordings of Peter’s compositions. It would be very useful if anyone who knows of any recordings could let me know and I can pass the information on. We are particularly interested in currently available recordings of compositions for choir, but information on any recordings, including any now deleted would be of interest (we have details of the recordings on Priory).

On the DVD that comes with his recording of the Art of Fugue, George Ritichie talks about the way in which Helmut Walcha would learn polyphonic music. Walcha would listen to someone playing through each part separately. He would learn each part individually and then join them together. I haven’t tried this myself and I seriously doubt that I could do it! I have never been able to play from memory. Sometimes a piece has accidentally found its way into my memory through repetition, but I have never found an effective way of consciously setting out to learn something from memory. Has anyone come across any exercises or drills that they consider worthwhile in developing the facility to play from memory (in addition to the suggestions in this thread from a couple of years ago)? And I’d be interested to know how Holz Gedeckt got on playing the Widor blindfolded!

The tune used for The Carnival is over is taken from a Russian folk song Stenka Razin; according to Wikipedia it is also used in a Dutch hymn Vol Vervachting Blijf Ik Uitzien.

Building a Library on the Franck Chorals was always going to be a quick romp through a selection of available records. I listen to this programme a lot and I don’t expect to agree with everything the reviewer says. What I did find interesting was the opportunity to hear a number of recordings that I had not previously come across. The rules of the game are to get down to one “library” recording, therefore the reviewer has to come up with reasons for eliminating recordings. In this context, Graeme Kay’s stance that one might not want to listen to the same creak repeatedly seems fair enough. By the end of the programme, I wasn’t unhappy with his final choice, though my personal favourite is Marie-Claire Alain’s recording from Caen. My collection is already over-provided with Franck Chorals, but if I was looking for another version (and something more off the beaten track) then the one I would seek out from among those played on the programme is the one by Roberto Antonello on the 1999 Zeni organ at Salgareda.

This was a fascinating programme, thanks for pointing it out, Handsoff. Graeme Kay surveyed 16 currently available recordings, listed below in order of appearance – and the winner was ... Jennifer Bate’s recording from 1981 on the Danion-Gonzalez organ of the Cathedrale St. Pierre de Beauvais, with honourable mentions for Jean Guillou, Marie Claire Alain, Colin Walsh and Eric Lebrun. The sixteen versions reviewed: Charles Tournemire at Sainte-Clotilde, Paris Susan Landale at Saint-Etienne, Caen Torsten Laux at Laon Catharine Crozier at Wichita State University, Kansas Jennifer Bate at St. Pierre, Beauvais Marie-Claire Alain at Saint-Etienne, Caen Colin Walsh at Lincoln Cathedral Roberto Antonello at Parish Church of Salgareda, Treviso, Italy Maurice Clerc at Saint - Sernin, Toulouse Daniel Roth at Saint-Sulpice Paris Andre Isoir at Lucon Pierre Pincemaille at Saint - Sernin, Toulouse Eric Lebrun at Saint-Antoine des Quinze-Vingts, Paris Christoph Maria Moosmann at St. Georgskirche, Riedlingen Hans-Eberhard Ross at Church of St Martin, Memmingen Jean Guillou at St Eustache, Paris

Although it may be an unusual choice for a funeral, for me this song recalls many happy childhood memories. At Sunday school in the early sixties, we used to sing Jesus wants me for a sunbeam a lot. It may not be not great music, but surely in the category of “hymns for very young people” it's up there with the greats like Daisies are our silver.

Peter, Did you play “Sunbeam”? Assuming the PDF you were sent is the same one I found at Hymnary.org it’s a very pianistic arrangement. Did you play it as written or do any re-arrangement. I’d be interested to know what people do to make things like this work on the organ.

Last Saturday I bought a DVD of ‘The Likely Lads’ television programme. In one of the episodes, from 1964, there is a scene where an actress is lying on a sofa listening to records and the record covers are strewn across the floor. Among the LPs is Virgil Fox’s ‘Silhouettes’, from 1960. I may be reading too much into this, but it raised the question for me of just how big a star Virgil Fox was in the UK in the 1960s, and to what extent he might have had a wider public, outside the organ world. I don’t recall his name from the time (but I was only seven in 1964). Does anyone who was there, and can remember the sixties, have a view?

I believe series three is now available on DVD, it is on the Signum label (and they are calling it volume 1).

Another useful site is http://www.bh2000.net/score/ with a section dedicated to Bach's organ music. http://www.bh2000.net/score/orgbach/

Here are the recordings I know of Parry's Chorale Preludes (it looks like the Priory recordings, mentioned above, have re-appeared on Regis). Eventide - Carlo Curley at St Mary Redcliffe, Argo 433 450-2 Melcombe and Rockingham - John Kitchen playing the organ of Shettleston Old Parish Church, Glasgow, Delphian DCD 34032 Croft's 136th - John Kitchen at the Church of the Holy Rude, Sterling, Delphian DCD34064 Eventide, Hanover and Martydom - Catherine Ennis at Munster Cathedral, IFO 00072 Melcombe - Clive Driskill-Smith at Eton College Chapel (Snetzler), Priory PRCD 809 Croft's 136th – James Lancelot at Durham, Regis FRC 8102 Melcombe – Colin Walsh at Lincoln Cathedral, Regis FRC 8102 St Thomas - David Briggs at Truro, Regis FRC 8102 Christe Redemptor omnium - Arthur Wills at Ely, Regis FRC 8102