DHM

On behalf of the friend to whom I referred in my post of 3 January, I have been asked to post the following: “The 2 manual Hoxne organ referred to in Hector5’s post of January 2 is still giving good service in Enon Baptist Church, Chatham, where it is in regular use mainly for hymn accompaniment. It does indeed still bear Mander’s Suffolk tel. no of East Soham plus their London numbers. The specification is as under. Should anyone wish to view and/or play it, then please contact Chris Clemence (email: c.clemence@blueyonder.co.uk) or ring 01634 401049.” As John mentioned above, it consists of three ranks: Principal, Flute and Tierce. The specification of this one is: UPPER MANUAL: Open Diapason 8, Stopt Diapason 8, Principal 4, Flute 4, Twelfth 2 2/3, Fifteenth 2. LOWER MANUAL: Open Diapason 8, Stopt Diapason 8, Principal 4, Flute 4, Nazard 2 2/3, Piccolo 2, Fifteenth 2, Tierce 1 3/5, Larigot 1 1/3.

If this is the one I think it is, referred to by Hector 5 above, I know the organist, who sings in my choir.

I was there then, just not full-time yet. From the circumstances described, I thought it might have been more recent...

Hmmm.... I wonder when that would have been?? I've been there 30+ years....

I wasn't implying any meaning - merely reporting something which I thought was relevant to this thread and might perhaps be of interest.

According to the German-language orgelforum.info, CC was awarded the Leonard Bernstein Prize, worth 10,000 Euro, on 17 August during the Prizewinners' Concert of the Schleswig-Holstein Music Festival in Lübeck.

In a word, YES. Go here: http://www.contrebom...all/home/browse and search for (for example) the Mutin/Cavaillé-Coll organ of Notre-Dame de Metz, or the Hereford Cathedral Willis.....

For the record, I thought submarines were normally referred to not as 'ships', but as 'boats'.

The two hospitals were completely separate and a few miles apart. Stone House is on the eastern outskirts of Dartford (probably less than a mile from where I was born and brought up), and Bexley Hospital is on the fringe of Bexley, bordering Dartford Heath (a few hundred yards from my Dad's parental home). As a teenager I deputised on several summer Sundays at Stone House, on the organ to which Hector5 refers (and am now wondering whether I ever took Vox Humana there....?)

Another fanfare which I have found works well as an intro to the National Anthem is "Dignified Occasion" by Bliss, though it needs transposing out of B flat to fit (either into G if you want to end the intro in the tonic, or into D if you want to end in the dominant and do a quasi-Jacob contrary-motion scale). [This also works well as an intro to "To God be the glory" - we have done this at Ordinations with a quartet of ex-Royal Engineers bandsmen. ]

Hi Tony, No problem. Thanks for looking.

@ Wolsey: Yes, I have that. Thank you. My question was directed more at anyone who may have been involved or had close knowledge of the proceedings at the time. @ Tony: Thank you - much appreciated.

My thanks to those who responded to my question above, and my apologies for the tardy acknowledgement. I wonder whether anyone has a copy of an article which Barry Ferguson wrote about Ashfield in "Choir & Organ" in (or about) 1999 that they might be kind enough to scan and send me? Also - forgive me for repeating my plea above - does anyone here have any knowledge of the workings of the so-called "Ashfield Committee" on church organists' pay scales?

And when was the last time a British cathedral musician was knighted? (Semi-rhetorical question; the answer is: far too long ago.) Probably too "elitist" for the powers-that-be who decide on these things nowadays. Grrrrr!

@VH: I have PM'd you.

I don't know whether he would be embarrassed; he might be. I don't know if he reads this Forum; I don't think he is a Board Member. Not being sure of the etiquette, and not wishing to offend either him or others, I refrained from naming. But I think that by re-reading the thread and noting the contributors' locations, the answer should be easily discoverable.

You are indeed on the right lines.

One can still - occasionally - experience similar thrills even in 21st-century Britain. One of our former Assistants, now at a northern cathedral, caused our collective jaws to drop in amazement and admiration many times. He would happily provide a Gospel improvisation in the style of the Mass setting, be it 18th-century Viennese, 19th-century French or whatever. His imitation Mozart and Duruflé were astonishing. Baroque-style chorale preludes were nothing unusual. A strict 5-part fugue on "Men of Harlech" finished Evensong on the anniversary of a particular Welsh military victory. But for that, one needs not only technical mastery and an intimate knowledge of the many different musical styles, but also, as someone else once described it, "a brain the size of a planet" that can process information almost as fast as a PC chip - the kind of brain that gets you a double first in an unrelated subject. Such a combination of talents is rare, and one is incredibly grateful to have witnessed and heard it.

I remember a similar incident at Rochester some years ago with Olivier Latry. The "Teddy Bears' Picnic" also figured on that evening, plus (if memory serves) "O come, O come, Emmanuel" (it being Advent). A multi-movement, 25-minute symphony ensued, which, of course, brought the house down (figuratively speaking) despite the occasional "vamp till ready" bars while he considered what to do next. But he obviously didn't know the Teddy Bears' Picnic, nor the humorous text that lay behind it, and one was left wondering how much better it would have been if he had.

That should read 15 *May*.

Yes. http://www.thepeerage.com/p23276.htm http://www.zipworld....ver/reviews.htm

According to a posting on another list, the German organist and teacher Heinz Wunderlich died on 10 March at the age of 92. More info here for those that can read German: http://www.hfmt-hamburg.de/aktuelles/detailansicht/article/zum-tode-von-heinz-wunderlich/

According to a post of the German Orgelforum, Hans-Erich Laukhuff, one of the managers of the Laukhuff firm in Weikersheim, was found dead in the factory. The local police described it as "not a natural death".

Depends on one's definition of the term. Did they mean... (i) a Cathedral Organist? - in which case the person concerned might have done very little organ playing recently, but spent most of his time directing the choir and ploughing through reams of paperwork and admin - or (ii) a cathedral organist? - i.e. someone (probably an Assistant Organist) who has done most of the organ-playing in his previous post.

I am currently working on a research project on the life and works of Robert Ashfield (Organist of Southwell Minster 1946-56 and of Rochester Cathedral 1956-77), the centenary of whose birth we celebrated last July, who first hired me as a supernumerary lay clerk over 40 years ago. Initially I am focusing on his choral and organ music, and his influence on English church and cathedral music post-WW2 (e.g. his work as a Professor of Theory and Composition at the RCM and the RSCM's so-called "Ashfield Committee" on organists' pay scales); but I hope to be able to take this further with an extended study of the large quantity of orchestral and chamber music (almost all unpublished and hitherto unperformed) which he wrote after retiring in 1977. If any of you knew Bobby, met him, or worked with him, I would be most grateful for any personal reminiscences, anecdotes, and any other information that you might consider relevant, either on- or off-list – particularly if you know of any previous performances of his Symphony, Violin Concerto, String Quartets, etc. Amongst all his choral music there is a Te Deum in E flat (now published by Encore) dated 1996; we have no idea why, or for whom, he wrote it, or whether it has ever been performed outside of Rochester. We also recently discovered a last-verse descant arrangement of “O come, all ye faithful”, and a unison setting (for congregation and organ) of the Gaelic Blessing, but can find no record of either of these pieces ever having been done here or elsewhere. Thanks in advance for your assistance. Douglas.