Peter Clark

You got it in one! My favourite setter - in "real life" he is actually an Anglican priest, Revd. John Graham. And yes, it was console. Extra cream cakes for Patrick. Peter

In yesterday's Guardian cryptic: Comfort for the organist (7)

Thanks David - I shall be getting on board the crusade wagon! When the Wetherspoons pub chain started it made the assurance that there would be no canned music, TV or ay other aural and visual distractions but bit by bit they have crept in. This is especially true on big match days, and I asked the manager of my local branch, who also happens to be a parishoner where I play, why this is happening it was because it was what the public demanded. Really? To address your second point, during my time as an organist I have often been instructed by officiating clergy to "twiddle" if there is a prolonged silence duting the liturgy; this instruction, when verbal communication is not possible, is usually conveyed by their making only half-successfully concealed twiddling movements with the fingers accompanied by an imploring stare which often looks more like the pained expression of one who has found out too late and after many years that the best way of defrosting frozen peas in not by sitting on them for half an hour. Anyway neither my parents initially nor I latterly did not pay out significant sums in order that I might twiddle. Peter

(taken from the thread "What's happening in the schools") But do people generally listen to music? Or do they just hear it? There is a Peanuts cartoon where Lucy meets Schroeder (the great Bethoven fan and pianist) who has just bought a record of a Brahms symphony. She asks him what he is going to do with it. "I am going to listen to it," he says. "You mean you are going to dance to it?" asks Lucy "No, I am going to listen to it," says Schreoder again. "You mean you are going to march round the room to it?" "No, I am going to listen to it," says Schroeder again, to which Lucy replies, "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard". There is truth in this. To hear music is passive - it is something that is done to you wheras to listen to music is active in that it is something you do so there is engagement between you and the performer. The proliferation of canned music everywhere we go means that music itself is no longer regarded as something special. And one theory states that the louder music is playing in a pub the more you drink since conversation becomes increasingly difficult as the noise level rises. If you are talking you are not drinking.... Just a few Saturday morning thoughts. Peter

Yes, the 5th bar, third (& fourth) pedal f should be natural. Peter (re-learning it)

If you want to get your own back on any of our reverend brothers and sisters (excepting, of course, those regular contributers to this forum) , Ecce Lignum Crucis on Good Friday and Lumen Christe on Holy Saturday can both provide very fertile ground. Petrus irascibilis

The Leduc edition of this piece gives a tempo of 48 quavers per minute but the suggested duration is 6 minutes. At 48 per minute the piece lasts just under 3 minutes, so which is right? Thanks Peter

A couple of weeks ago I reported a bride 25 minutes late ; yesterday's was 20 minutes. How about a competition, and the one with the latest recorded bride at the end of the year gets a prize? (A case of something liquid perhaps! ) Peter

The piece I refer to is Fantasia - The Christmas Light (Lux flugebit hodie) based on the introit for the dawn Mass of Christmas and published by OUP. It looks like a piece whose appeal is principally to the player. Clever music. Peter

Or his Trumpet Minuet? Also Finlandia seems to make 'em grin! Peter

Alastair I've been meaning to ask you: what was the name of the piece? Peter

I wonder, cynically possibly (sorry Paul!), if some of these pieces would have been published had they not been by "known names" in the organ world. Were they anonymously peer reviewed, I wonder? By the way, has anybody played the Christmas fantasia-type piece by Preston, also publshed by OUP, the full name of which evades me? Peter

Ah, he of the Passacaglia and Fugue in c minor (Novello Modern Organ Series), a piece I have never got to grips with, neither to play nor to understand what it is all about, an observation which will probably get me shot down in flames. Is it still considered to be in the repotoire? I have never seen it programmed and nor am I aware of any recording of it... Peter

What do you do when you make such an obvious (as opposed to slight) mistake in a public performance that even the most organ-illiterate listener will know you have made a spheroid ascension? I was playing - rehearsing - the Bach Fantasia in G and, having negotiated the tres vif section, I steeled myself for the 5-part Grave and struck not a pedal G but the A. Taking my cue from Liszt, who once ended a piano piece in a concert on a major seventh instead of the octave and then improvised a cadenza based on the major seventh, I played a very slow ascending pedal passage A-B-C-D (held for at least a semibreve) and then went back to the G to continue the movement. Trouble is, I'm not sure I'd have the nerve to do this in public! I'd probably clam up and crawl away! Are there any stories out there - I am sure there must be a few - of others people to face such a situation in public? (Perhaps Chruchmouse might find a place for these in her book!) Peter

And the Mushel Toccata from book 2? Peter

Are you in contact with, or do you know, the person who played it? It would be interesting to compare arrangements and registratons &c! Thanks Peter

On the whole I enjoyed this. Good to see the Beeb stirring things up in the bishops debate! BUT I thought the Harris was taken too fast as I take it quite a bit slower than that. Were the microphones poorly situated as I could have sworn I heard a descant trying to push its way through the last verse of Westmister Abbey.... Peter

It is, in my opinion one of the few pieces from that era which has stood the test of time. The Matthais Processional from the same book remains popular, and I quite like the McCabe (? the book isn't to hand at the moment) Nocturne. Peter

And the most otiose of all, surely: "lady doctor" and "male nurse". Peter

I'm doing the Priere apres la Comnunion from Livre du Saint Sacrement soon; this is a pretty gentle introduction to Messiaen, and could serve as an introduction to his sterner stuff. With someone like Messiaen of course programme notes or a spoken introduction to the music can be of help in getting people to see what the composer is trying to say in his work. Peter

After I did the Brownies evening I jokingly suggested that I had enough "popular" (ie film, TV themes &c) music to put on a programme called "A Night at the Movies". This was the running order for the Brownies evening: The Pink Panther by Henry Mancini Indiana Jones Theme by John Williams James Bond Theme by Monty Norman Thunderbirds Theme by Barry Gray Dance Macabre by Camille Saint-Seans I can see a case for maybe including one or two of these in a "serious" programme - probably items 2 and 4, and alerting the potential audience that there will be some lighter moments. The reason I included Danse Macabre was that unknown to me it formed part of the soundtrack for both Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Jonothan Creek. Peter

The problem is that both Latin and Greek have two words translated into English as "man". In Latin homine (human) and vir (man in the gender sense); similarly in Greek anthropos and aner. When I recite the creed I always say "for us ... and for our salvation" (the lacuna indicating the missing "man"); I also say at the et homo factus est bit "and became human". These however are not "fixed" texts in that they have been modified over the centuries as language alters. For example one part of the (Apostles'? I think it may be) Creed says "the quick and the dead" which is a geat sounding title for a detective novel but wouldn't mean much to the modern first-tine church-goer. In an attempt to wrench this thread back to something to do with the organ (even though I was the instigator of the tangent!) a new English translation of the Mass is due soon, which will mean new settings being required, though I trust that the authorities will allow for the contnued use of present settings at least for a transition period. I only hope that we won't get what happened in the wake of the 2nd Vatican Council when we were forced to sing those dire Israeli-type settings. Peter

1) I recently started to re-learn the St Anne Fantasia by Parry and remember reading somewhere - though I can't remember where - that Parry had a dislike of religious ritual. If this is the case, and I currently have no way of confirming it, then it might account for his setting of Blake's words which have become known as Jerusalem and now seems to be one of two unofficial national anthems. Well known is the fact that Blake too had a distrust of organised religion and the words here set are in fact a satire on, particularly, the established church. The "dark satanic mills" are said to be code for the (anglican) curches of England. This being the case I can't help wondering if Parry's setting, given its overall majesty but sweeping melody particularly, is not a tongue-in-cheek statement, adding to the satirical character of Blake's words. Any thoughts, anone. (MM I somehow feel this may appeak to you!) 2) Yesterday's funeral. The coffin went out to The Battle Hymn of the Republic. I thought then and I think now, what a fine hymn it actually is, words and music. The eschatological dimension of liberation theology comes iin such phrases as "as he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free" (despite the exclusive language). I have no idea why this was chosen. Perhaps the deceased was an Elvis fan. Leading on to.... 3) Do people like it when hymns are updated? I once saw the fiirst line of a well-known hymn rendered "Dear Lord and Father of us all....." Oh dear. Peter

Thank you! Peter

Not too off-topic I hope, but does anyone know where I might get a copy of the piano solo arrangement (NB not the song version) of this which I need to transcribe, hastily, for organ. I remember learning the piano version as a child and it is full of schmaltzy harmonies which would seem to demand plenty of celestes and salicionels on the organ! Thanks in advance. Peter