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Jephtha

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Everything posted by Jephtha

  1. Hamburger Totentanz? Or maybe that's more for a funeral.
  2. Why did they do Blaenwern in F major (a dull, flat key) and not the more usual G (much better and brighter)? Were they using a Mayhew 'anything above treble D is far too high' hymnbook?
  3. I think there is some difficulty here about what constitutes a 'professional' musician in the case of organists and choir members. Professionals deserve to be paid at a professional rate. Many of us organists are professionally qualified and play to a high standard (I include myself in this category), but I am not a professional organist in the sense that I don't make my living primarily from playing and choir directing. But does that make me any less a professional musician, really? Or am I just a competent amateur? If I play for a wedding at my church, I will provide an excellent, professional service, but if I'm not available they'll ask the guy from the congregation to play -- he plays the piano with two fingers and can just about manage on the organ if he takes it slowly, doesn't have to use his feet too much, has several months' notice, and they don't ask for Widor. We are both paid the same fee. As for doubling fees, I think I'm entitled to ask for the reasons that have already been stated by others in earlier posts, but I rarely do. In the light of this thread, however, I tried it recently: the result? -- the couple called back later to tell me they had now decided not to have a video after all! Even my doubled fee would have been comparatively low judging by other responses on here, and certainly less than the bride will spend on her hairdo for the big day ...
  4. How do you explain the additional video recording fee to prospective couples? I know it's to do with performance rights and copyright in my performance, but it can be difficult to put this across succinctly to those who have no idea, and I just wonder how others do it in order to avoid a reaction of utter astonishment that I should have the nerve to claim an additional fee for apparently doing nothing!
  5. I wonder whether anyone could point me in the direction of a recording of this work, please? I'm pretty sure it's not commercially available, but perhaps someone has an off-air recording that they would be willing to share with me. As a young lad, I was involved in some of the early performances of the concerto, and met the composer. But I've never heard it since (and can recall tantalizingly little of it).
  6. Looks like the photo in the Guardian is taken from this set. http://www.zimbio.com/pictures/I1tmJNlhSMn...ent/6T_Cd-FkOfv
  7. An edition of the D major concerto of Samuel Wesley has been prepared for publication in a forthcoming volume of Musica Britannica (together with various other organ concertos of the period).
  8. Perhaps they will also be used to control this ... (see 2007 entry at the top of the page and spec below). Anyone have any further info? http://www.die-orgelseite.de/disp/GB_Liver...nCathedral1.htm
  9. Should the news about Liverpool Cathedral turn out to be accurate, then it is a most interesting development. Back in the days when both of Liverpool's cathedrals had split posts, it was seen as an unusual and (by some) unnecessary arrangement. But while I don't disagree that separate appointments as organist and DOM is a perfectly good way of running a cathedral music department, and one that seems to be becoming quite fashionable, surely it is not necessarily any better than having one person do both jobs. There seems to be a feeling around that cathedral organists should stick to playing the organ and let the professionals -- i.e. choral specialists -- run the choirs. Odd, but I always thought that cathedral organists were choral specialists. At any rate, the wording for the Liverpool job ad as given earlier in this thread, that the chapter wishes to appoint a choral specialist, could be considered rather insulting to the current jobholder given what has been achieved at Liverpool since he took over. I suspect that what really lies behind the revival of the split-post arrangement is that cathedrals are now being run as businesses by administrators, and the burden of administration on cathedral musicians is becoming too much for one person to oversee alongside everything else. I'd be interested to learn whether that's the case at Liverpool, which, as someone else has said, seems to be in the process of reinventing itself more as a business venue than a place of worship (perhaps as a refectory with cathedral attachment). What cathedral musician would really want all the hassle?
  10. It's not just their proofreading either. Some time ago I wrote to tell them that the numerical code in one of their CD booklets, indicating for each track the registration being used by the organist, was useless because the booklet didn't include the organ's specification (and therefore the stops couldn't be matched to the code). They replied that the specification was readily available elsewhere (well, yes, but not necessarily with the same numbering system!), but in any case they had now got the spec off the internet (!) and would print it in the booklet accompanying their next release from that venue! I think they missed the point entirely. Still, it was a nice CD.
  11. Jephtha

    Duets

    Stainer & Bell will probably sell you an offprint.
  12. My original copy of the John Scott/Hyperion Durufle CD, which I bought when it was released, succumbed to the infamous brown rot that has affected many Hyperion discs, and I only recently got round to replacing it. But here's the thing: on my original disc, I'm sure the Prelude to the Suite began with what I always assumed was another variant, subsequently revised and not present in my score: while the opening Bb is held, and before the pedal entry, there was a nice squishy chord on the strings. I rather liked it. But on my new copy of the CD, which is apparently an exact replacement for the old one, the string chord has vanished! It's some years since I listened to the old CD, but I'm sure I can't have imagined the different opening. Can anyone with an original copy of the CD confirm this?
  13. Thanks for that David. As you say -- all very interesting. Are the remains at all recognizable? I'd love to see what it looks like now.
  14. There's nothing in any literature I've ever read to suggest a six-manual console was ever envisaged -- certainly not for the instrument as originally contracted, and neither as far as I know to cater for the additions that were planned in 1940. I've never heard anyone mention this before either. As for the fate of the five-manual 1940 console, it was disconnected by 1965, when the mobile two-manual console was installed, and removed from the cathedral in the early 1970s (by Willis, I think). I believe that when plans were forming for the 1989 mobile five-manual console, the remains (if indeed there were any) of the 1940 console were considered for use. But I've no idea whether any of it still existed by that date. The two-manual console is stored in the cathedral basement and is from time to time mooted as a possible mobile console for use with the Lady Chapel organ.
  15. Oh, in that case I do know no. 8! And I agree it's a fine piece. Never heard it in its solo guise though. Apart from no. 1, I don't know any of the other sonatas actually. I wonder whether they are like Vierne symphonies -- you hunt down an unfamiliar one, then immediately realize why people only ever play one or two of the others! Quite a lot of dull and tedious music there -- do you agree?
  16. Well, Mr Bouffant, you can hardly criticize a recitalist for including the Reubke in programmes five years apart -- it's hardly overdoing it! I don't think I know Guilmant 8, though. Interesting piece? How many times have you actually had your hubcaps nicked in Liverpool?
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