Liam Taylor
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Posts posted by Liam Taylor
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I am looking forward to this as well, Colin Walsh and the Organ at Lincoln Cathedral there is nothing better! I think those in charge of programming at Radio 3 should take note and allow more Organ Recitals on the schedule.
Liam
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A very tough blow to all of the Organ community , I have enjoyed many of his fine recordings but sadly never got to see him perform live. I remember sending him an email years ago via the ask Carlo link on his website as a youngster first coming to the Organ. He responded rather promplty and took the time to send me a rather nice email full of encouragement, he seemed to nurture anyones interest in the king of Instruments. Carlo was a true Gent, a fine musician and an ambassador for the Organ.
Rest In peace, Carlo
LT
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Hello all
Someone has very kindly uploaded the 1978 documentary Paul's Children featuring Barry Rose and a young Paul Phoenix onto Youtube in five parts. Below is a link to part one incase anyone is interested. The others can be found by typing paul's children into youtube. I thoroughly enjoyed watching this as a follow on from the recent BBC documentary Angelic Voices at Salisbury
Happy Viewing
Liam
Part 1
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I watched it aswell thoroughly enjoyed it, if you missed it you can catch it on Iplayer. I ended up watching it again it was that good!
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Hello all
I was thinking the other day about the first service I played at and it was a total nightmare. I was asked to play for a first holy communion service and the church I played at did not have an Organ. Instead it had one of these Viscount Cantorum keyboard electric jobs ( you may know where this is going). The keys were similar to those you would find on a child's Keyboard and were very unresponsive. It was an absolute nightmare my fingers were slipping everywhere, it felt like I applied copius amounts of butter to my hands before I set off playing, eventually I just had to stop as I could not take anymore of this instrument ( if you can call it one). The most awkward thing about it was that I was positioned slap bang right at the side of the altar in front of the entire congregation! Yes public humiliation at its finest, naturally people thought it was my playing which of course it was not. A craftsman never blames his tools.......unless you play one of those!
I was wondering if anyone else had any similar musical nightmares. Or is it just me?
Liam
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I knew of an eccentric Irish Catholic priest who was an expert shot at clay pigeon shooting. He used to test new cartridges by shooting a hymn book and he would by all accounts judge the results by seeing which hymn number the shot penetrated to. This was a good 25 years ago and the Father is no longer in this life. I thought his behaviour was amusing and scandalous in equal measures at the time. These days, I’d just be amused. In fact he’d have a limitless supply of naff literature to take aim at!
What an interesting Gentleman, it is certainly a unique way of picking Hymns for the Sunday Morning service, perhaps more of us should try it......... Liam
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I'd like to see a "folk group" tell me what I had to play! (At this point, I tried to find the "angry" Gif....not available) (Insert your own Gif, consisting of a little face with a dagger in its mouth
)I think I shall start a new movement, which seeks to banish any music older than ten years, so as to appeal to the yuff of to-day.
To me, there is nothing worse than the bleeding heart piety of religious "folk music," usually sung and strummed by hippies of a certain age; all wearing wool in some deathly earth-colour, flat shoes and no make-up.
Amusingly, someone once asked me if I could possibly write a worship song. In the time it took for a modest sermon, I had written the words, sketched out a really catchy tune and could improvise the rest after morning mass. The person who asked was beside themselves with joy, but I can say with absolute certainty, that it was total garbage from beginning to end; both musically and theologically. The sad thing is, I knew they would love it.
I'm afraid I have little time for religion which wallows in mawkish sentimentality, milk and honey....opium is apparently far more effective, though a little expensive.
I find myself agreeing with Liam, because "Songs of Praise" is a fine tome, yet it never truly caught on as it should have done.
MM
Yes songs of praise is a fine hymnal as is the New English and we use them for the traditional hymns instead of playing the inaccurate HO & N versions. You will be pleased to know that not all of the "Yuff of- today" worship that garbage being 21 myself I love hearing and playing good old tradtional hymns. I find the problem lies within the schools, they insist on teaching children this rubbish so they go on to think that it is perfectly acceptable material.Getting slightly off topic one of the reasons why I never formally studied music when I attended School was that the syllabus seemed to focus more around music of different cultures. Now I believe it is imperative that we should embrace music from different cultures but perhaps they should look at teaching them music of our OWN culture before we look at anybody elses. Getting back to the point ( I do apologise for that rant) I often find that the congregation at our place belt out the traditional stuff yet when the contemporary stuff is requested you hardly hear a whimper.
Liam
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Absolutely. I had a slightly surreal experience last Sunday. His Nibs is away in the Phillipines for a couple of weeks, so I got to choose the hymns. It goes without saying that the faithful flock got an unadulterated diet of decent, solid, traditional fare. Afterwards the not-so-old priest who was deputising sought me out and congratulated me on my choice of hymns, saying how much he enjoyed the old, traditional hymns and how good it was to have tunes "you can get your throat around". At last I understand exactly how an ornithologist feels when he hacks his way through some far eastern jungle and rediscovers a species long thought extinct. It made my day.
Good to hear that, we had a similar experience to that as well. We seem to have a mix at our place although its not exactly a 'healthy' balance between tradtional and contemporary the problem is we have one priest looking after two churches and the 'folk group' at the other church pick our hymns ( personally I think this is completely wrong) but it looks like it will never change in the near future. I was given by someone an unwanted copy of Songs of Praise The Enlarged Edtion edited partly by Vaughan Williams, mine is the twelth impression so it was printed around the 1950's and it is a fabulous book a real treasure trove of Tradtional worship music. I just wish there was more people who actually cared about the choice of music in churches today.
Liam
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Because some of us can't see them if they are any smaller!! Another topic perhaps but I discovered this at a nearby crematorium yesterday. My organ glasses which work perfectly well at home or at church gave a decidedly dodgy view on the 2 manual electronic I played - following two minutes of 'getting used to'. The book that worked the best was H O & N - mind you I only had to cope with its wonky version of Dear Lord and Father.... and a bit of left foot bass for Give me Joy in my Heart. My A5 folder of 'useful music' was only just useful too. Probably a sign of age.
A
I was wondering how long it would take before someone mentioned HO & N. I'm ashamed to say I have to put up with it every week, there are some very unusual arrangements in that book. One of the worst being a one called Eagle's Wings ( cannot stand it) it the only hymn i've seen that starts on a leading note. I do have a copy of the New English Hymnal and use instead of the HO & N if the hymns needed are in it. I've noticed that many of the hymns in HO & N do not appear to have authors, I can understand why as I wouldn't put my name on some of the music in it! But getting back to the main point yes it is quite heavy, if you had a few copies they would make the perfect height adjustment accessory for any Organ Bench!
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOES-dS0pG0
The greatest film in which organ music is deployed. Discuss.
Absolutely Paul forgot about the Godfather I believe its Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor BWV 582 or at least part of it is. I have the box set and listened to the commentary with Francis Ford Coppola and he said he scrapped the original Soundtrack for the Organ music as it created much more tension (which it does!).
Liam
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There is the Stomping Dutchman. Only he starts with a Ton.
Best,
Friedrich
Ton Koopman I believe you're thinking of.
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Not long ago since I caught this on Televsion
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqWdAdVZydk...D0D51CB253CEADE
This is an episode of Rosemary and Thyme,if you skip to around the 9:50 mark you can see / hear the Chichester Cathedral Organ ( there is also a quick view of the console). Forgive me if i'm wrong but the Gentleman sitting in choir stalls to the right of Pam Ferris appears to be Mark Wardell the former Assistant Organist. Just Incase any of you were wondering the fictional DOM turns out to be the Murderer in this episode! (Don't worry im not a huge fan of the show as this post appears to indicate)
Liam
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Hello all,
I thought some of you may be interested to know that an exciting new Organ Building project is underway in Newcastle Upon Tyne. A three Manual 46 stop Organ is currently being built for St Mary's Roman Catholic Cathedral by Kenneth Tickell replacing the Nigel Church Organ. Have a look at the link below for the full specification and a Computer Generated Image of the new Instrument.
Liam
What an interesting Gentleman, it is certainly a unique way of picking Hymns for the Sunday Morning service, perhaps more of us should try it......... 
)
Parish church organs - the future?
in General discussion
Posted
I'm pleased I've come across this discussion as I have experienced this myself very recently. A Church nearby was looking for an Organist to play for the Sunday Morning service and a member of the Parish who I know suggested I go and take a look. It was by no means a nice pipe organ instead I was greeted by a Viscount Jubileum 232. They said they would let me know and I went off on holiday for a week or so. When I returned I was told that the Parish Council thought it would be better to buy one of these Hymnal Plus Sound systems ( which cost £1800 +) and they looked rather pleased with themselves. However, Karma did strike when they kicked off with the first hymn Immortal Invisible. Not only was there no introduction but it was way too fast for anyone to sing to. I may have left with no Organ to Play/Practice on but I certainly left smiling.
More like immortal invisible not very wise!
Liam