pwhodges

There are some SACDs which have no CD layer, but use the SACD layer to hold a much greater amount of stereo. For instance, BIS sell Fagius's complete Bach organ works on 17 CDs, or on 5 SACDs. Paul

Another aspect of Songs of Praise was the excellent companion. Not only did it have the usual sources and writer/composer info, but as I recall it was larded with some rather pointed essays by Percy Dearmer. A hymnbook that hardly ever gets mentioned is With One Voice (originally Australian). It may be lacking in the latest things now, but in 1980 it was an excellent way of bringing a congregation tastefully up to date without resorting to supplements (which in conservative country parishes often put people off by asserting their newness). I used it successfully in one place in the mid 1980s to move them on from the old blue A&M Standard. It also has an excellent companion. The slightly extended Catholic edition contains only one extra hymn that I would want added to the main collection. Paul

There are many small recording companies, and a number that specialise in organs; but dealing with a company may not be cheap. An alternative is to find a suitably dedicated amateur, if you feel able to judge their capability to produce the qualityof recording, editing and mastering that you would wish for - preferably by reference to samples of their work (this care may also be necessary when dealing with professionals, of course). Either way, there is probably no substitute for personal recommendation! The remark that digital editing is particularly expensive puzzled me a little - I guess that it simply refers to the cost of occupying a studio facility for the necessary time. Now if a recording is made (as I do) in a simple manner, with a single microphone (as for instance Nimbus do), then most of the complexity of the equipment that costs so much in a studio is irrelevant - even for a surround recording. As well as regularly recording concerts I am involved in, I have made a number of commercial CDs myself (calling on my past training and experience as a BBC recording engineer); these CDs all involved my son (a pianist) or friends, and so were done on a purely family or friendship basis. The editing (largely of fantastically complex contemporary piano music) took us an intensive weekend together for each disk. As he wanted more than merely to get the CDs pressed for his own use, my son then offered each master around likely companies until he found someone happy to publish it on terms they could agree. If anyone feels interested to work in such a way, as a stepping stone, rather than dealing fully commercially from the start, I would be happy to discuss it with them. Paul

Higginbottom (New College) does in a recording I have. Paul

Hurford's recording of the Hindemith Sonatas is coupled with a few Distler miniatures. Paul

There must be a place for such people (like me, too); but it can't be heathy for the future if they are the main body of the society. Paul

Hmm - the music I talked of was laid out in 1898; but perhaps adding the photocopying notice makes it a new page - if so, what a scam! Paul

Surely the copyright notice should reflect this; in any case, I don't think the librettist is the issue in the case of Stabat Mater! Paul

Verdi died in 1901 - more than one hundred years ago (the longest copyright period I know of - in Mexico). The copy of his Stabat Mater I am currently singing from* has clearly printed on it "Copyright 1898" - in other words, it is not a more recent edition. But next to that anouncement, added only in the most recent printings, is the ubiquitous "photocopying this music is forbidden" sign. :angry: How am I meant to take this seriously? I know what the law is for, and I aim to keep within it, even though I believe it is harming music. One reason, in my mind, that twentieth century music is generally not so well appreciated is that people are still not sufficiently familiar with it - precisely because much of it is priced out of part of the market that would help promulgate it. I agree with the concept of some level of copyright protection (and I disagree with flouting it), but I think the balance is wrong at present; and the instance above seems to show that publishers are not concerned with any rights but those they conceive to be their own. Maybe I'll feel better in the morning Paul * Hired from the public library for money - I am the choir's librarian.

I got it when a student in the 60s; when it resurfaced more recently, it went to Oxfam... Paul

Here's one on a stand - you can even annotate the music on it! Paul

Bit late for that. Typical patent with references to some other similar ones here Paul

When I played in a church, the vicar would introduce a completely new hymn with a congregational practice, replacing the sermon. He would speak about the hymn and why it was being introduced, and then they would be taught the tune; the hymn would then be sung in place later in the service to strengthen the memory. It seemed to work for us, and certainly eased the grumbles of a highly traditional country village congregation. Paul

But which one next? Salisbury is near by... Paul (also hugely enjoying Romsey)

I can see nothing wrong with this; the tune has associations with the deceased, and clearly the mourners feel that the reminder of the deceased is appropriate. I can't see that any tune, in that situation, is offensive in itself either to man or to God; nor that an organ is incapable of playing this one (with perhaps a tinge of solemnity, as far as its character allows). Paul

It is good, I agree - but I felt rather as you describe when I met the Messiaen setting. Paul

There is a theory that the tune we know for The First Noel was originally the descant to a now lost tune. Paul

Many rivers called Ouse, also so pronounced. Paul

The last funeral I was at, the talk was read out - having been written by the deceased in preparation... Paul

Last time I saw Sir Michael Scholar was when he played the organ for the wedding of one of the college staff (I was in the choir); not many heads of house could do that, I think. Paul

And another - say it as it is. Paul

They don't except in church. How can one accept that people so out of touch with their present world can realistically be in touch with any other? Paul

Lesser-known ones: Bartok: Bach's Trio Sonata No. 6 in G major, BWV 530, transcribed for piano [EMB]. Liberal use of octaves makes it look heavy-handed on the page - but accounts of his playing indicate that he could bring off things like this with unexpected lightness. In 1932 twelve leading British composers published a volume of rather literal transcriptions as A Bach Book for Harriet Cohen (many of which are organ pieces), and I understand that she herself published some Bach transcriptions (incidentally, the last six pieces in Bartok's Mikrokosmos are dedicated to her). This volume inspired my son to commission Bach transcriptions from a number of British composers in the 1990s, some of which are of organ pieces; they were never published as a volume, because of contract difficulties, though he broadcast them as a set with the composers explaining their thought before each piece - they were generally "compositions inspired by" rather than literal transcriptions like the Harriet Cohen volume. Judith Weir's (actually the most literal) is certainly published (from a cantata movement: "Roll off the ragged rocks of sin"). Paul

I also don't know it, but I would guess from your description that a cluster using the black notes might be what's required. Paul

If you have two trumpets, Bryan Kelly's Sonata for 2 Trumpets and Organ is reasonable fun (I have my recording of the premiere here, in which Merton College organ loses by miles - that's such a weedy instrument). Paul