Peter Clark
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Posts posted by Peter Clark
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Having received the following via e-mail, I just can't resist sharing it with you all.
Victoria Hall, Hanley, Stoke-on-Trent
Dr Jennifer Bate FRCO
Saturday September 8th 2007
12 noon Organ Prom ( £4 -concessions £3.50) and
2.45pm Illustrated Lecture - 'Mendelssohn & the Organ (£6)
Organ Prom programme
Imperial March - Sir Edward Elgar
Fantasia in G - Johann Sebastian Bach
Canon in B minor - Robert Schumann
Suite Boutique - Leon Boellmann
Two movements from Sonata V - Alexandre Guilmant
Variations on a theme of Paganini - Sir George Thalban Ball
Toccata on a theme of Martin Shaw - Jennifer Bate
Tickets available on walk-up or box office 0870 060 6649
Other enquiries-
Michael Rhodes 01782 410961
Now, where can I find a copy of the newly discovered Boellmann work? It sounds irresistible.
P.S. I wonder whether (quoting the Trade Descriptions Act) one could turn up and demand to hear this exact work rather than any of the works by Boellmann we already know?
Perhaps it could be progammed together with March Of The Mannikins (by David Onivas)
Peter
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Yesterday I played for a wedding which was clearly being recorded on a camcorder by one of the wedding party, although he was trying not to make it look too obvious. When I received my fee after the service, there was no video fee included. The vicar said that the bride and groom informed him that there would be no videos taken of the ceremony, although he said that he did suspect that this particular person was using a camcorder, and that he spoke to this fellow beforehand to inform him that he wasn't allowed to use his camcorder unless an additional fee was paid.
This sort of thing has happened several times this year despite the fact that the bride and groom are always told that they should ensure that no recordings are made of the service unless the additional fee is paid beforehand. Unfortunately, with human nature being what it is, people often try to get away with paying less than they should.
I've lost out on several video fees this year and wonder if anybody else on this forum has encountered this problem and - better still - found a solution to it!
I symapthise entirely and would guess that most if not all here would. If you have already received your fee and discover this happening, as a last resort you could down tools - but that might bring the church and our profession into disrepute! I have been hit by similar behaviour, as well as (which you may have read about here) "guest" organists coming in and playing without me being informed. Do you belong to a musicians' union? If so, they could probably help. I also suggest you consult Barry Williams' excellent book "Everything Else..." which provides clear (and often entertaining) advice on this sort of thing.
Peter
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.........photographers and video recording persons wandering around willy-nilly during weddings (and occasionally funerals!)
.... and those who come up to the organ/choir loft, who click away while you are playing and who grin in a "friendly" way because they know damn well they are annoying you! (And, incidentally, who are going to make about 10 times as much dosh as you are.)
Peter
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Smoking and taking snuff were both forbidden by a papal bull of 1650!
Barry Williams
But Benedict XVI is reputed to be a 20 Malborough a day man!
Peter
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I rember on a holiday to Germany, my father and I came across a lovely church (cannot remember where) in the southern wine strasse, where on entering and talking to the organist who was practicing, he lit up a cigar, I asked if that was legal in Germany, well iI was only young at the time (28yrs
) but he said,as his full time job was as a church musician, and he was at work, he would have a smoke. I suppose you could get away with this maybe if the console was "up a height", but the cosole was of a newly built organ sat at ground level and only a few yards from the altar.Regards
Peter
When a student in Spain I attended Mass quite often in a little village church in Viana de Cega, near Valladolid where I was studying. The priest (now dead) would be smoking while he vested for Mass and as soon as Mass finished would get back to the sacristy and light up again before removing his vestments! Another somewhat eccentric brother I knew (of the Rosminian order, also now deceased) often lit his cigarettes from the sanctuary lamp!
Peter
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Cymbelstern (s as in bus) or Zimbelstern (z as is buzz)?
P
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I've been pressganged into buying tickets for the Vicar's Cheese and Wine party by some old codger (not the vicar!) whilst I was playing the communion hymn! His sales pitch started with "are you busy?"!
That reminds me of a time, before my present appointtment and in a place far away, when the choir was singing an offertory motet with me playing, and someone coming up to the choir gallery with the collection plate which he tried to pass round the singers! I had not seen him before and I don't recall seeing him again....
Peter
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Few things annoyed me more as an organist than people turning the lights out before the voluntary has ended. I consider that a height of rudeness and would express that so.
Needlessly interrupted voluntaries:
How about choir members who start talking during the voluntary?
Or clergy who suddenly realise they have forgotten an "important" announcement and shout "stop for just a minute Peter!" over the PA system while they remind people that Thursday's bingo has been cancelled?
Ot future brides and brides mothers who gawp and then try to talk to you during a quiet passage?
Or, once, a nun who tried to start a conversation....
Yes, it's all happened to me!
Peter
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Brilliant!!!!
Can I have it?Jenny
it's all yours!
p
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Yep thanks VH, but I did know it wasn't the people first named; but do wonder if there is the slight tinge of truth somewhere there?
How many organists have "died in harness"? Probably quite a few apart from famous ones such as Vierne....
Vox, can you tell any other stories about Sydney Campbell? He sounds a character...
cheers
Jenny
I posted this elsewhere - Campbell, not in any conventional sense a "believer" was once asked, when at Southwark, "what's the cathedral for?" to which he replied "to keep the organ dry".
Peter
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Hi
Sensible - so do I (and a small selection of music)
Every Blessing
Tony
Yes I brought some music too Tony! Sacred Heart Blackpool here I come!
Peter
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I take my organ shoes with me on holiday - sad or sensible?
Peter
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Does anyone else share my amusement at the way some people inflate their biographies in recital programmes? Obviously you're going to make the most of what you've done, but some people do seem to go a bit far. You know the sort of thing:
1) Someone describes himself as Assistant Organist of St Freidegg's Cathedral when in reality he's no such thing. All he probably does is to play hymns on Sundays during August or help out in other peripheral ways. (I've come across this one more than once!)
2) "She has just released her first CD." All this involved was getting a local chap in to make a small batch for her to sell privately to friends and on the church's bookstall.
Does it matter? Am I just being a Victor Meldrew?
I trust it is obvious that the above is in no way aimed at the professional players on this forum. They don't need to exaggerate anything. More likely they have the opposite problem – deciding what to leave out!
As far as my own biog goes I must admit that there's one word that I really ought to tone down a bit, though I think the subtle inflection would be lost on most people. Otherwise I think it sticks to the facts. Heaven knows it strikes me as a bit thin – but, hey! something about me needs to be!
Related to this topic - there is inevitably going to be a degree of "ego" in anyone who performs in public, because without self-confidence and a belief in your ability you will not give a persusasive performance. This week's issue of Private Eye carries a lengthy letter from the composer Keith Burstein (of whom I knew nothing until recently), a composer who is best described as a neo-tonalist, one who disapproves strongly of unremitting dissonace and who has, it seems, heckled performances of music by, inter ali, Harrison Birtwhistle. He also once described his own music as "ravishingly beautiful". He defends this by arguing that Beethoven, for example, didn't finish the Eroica and then say to himself "that's not all that impressive"; Burstein continues: "(T)here is of course an internal self-critical process, but that has to allow the composer to be moved and astonished by their own work. Why else write?". Could the same critical process be applied to the recitalist, I wonder?
Peter
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Good names!
I once called a raucous Abyssinian cat Schalmei (he had a twin called Refety - anyone who gets that reference deserves respect!)
Paul
Well come on then Paul ..... I tried Google but got nowhere!
(BTW I hope you're not smirking at we lesser beings!)
P
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All comes to a horrible end when a new band of cleaning ladies take over the church cleaning and decide to polish the pedalboard to a magnificent high gloss without even asking.
FF
And the organ bench too - I nearly slid off and eventually had to ask the dears not to polish anything to do with the organ ever again!
Peter
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Forgive me if I have asked this before - has anybody else experienced this apparent new trend of having two entry processions accompanied by two pices of music - one for groom (with groomsmen, best men and so on) and one for the bride (with whoever is bringing her up the aisle, and bridesmaids/page boys)?
Peter
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As we're on the subject of inappropriate music.....I've just played for a Tridentine (1962) low Mass (I was still on the organ bench 10 mins ago and am using the parish computer!). Started off with a piece by Paul Copeland called Acceptance. Offertory was some Reger (the first bit of Wienachten which I know is hardly seasonal but it is suitably dunkel); at Communion I played the Adagio bit from Franck no. 3 and I sent them home, having played the Salve Regina which they enjoyed singing, to the Thunderbirds theme tune.
Lee, I was once asked for the Titanic but I pointed out that a film about a ship sinking with huge loss of life hardly makes for an auspicious start to married life!
Peter
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I Played for a wedding yesterday and during the signing, there was a CD of Pavarotti singing - wait for it - Nessun Dorma. Either people are perverse or they just don't speak Italian.
Peter
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I never pander to popularity, or try to "work the street" and give them what you think they want.
I really do not think there is need to do this.
Apart from the fact that I was playing (and the auience were hearing) a recital under very difficult circumstances during a recent flower-festival, with old biddies clanking around with their zimmer-frames and all shouting at each other as they struggled to converse over the cacophony of music and colliding crockery, the programme which included the Reubke and largely former Eastern Bloc music caused a great deal of interest and enthusiasm, with people rushing up to ask more about it.
MM
I think this is my point, partly, MM. The Mad Rush inclusion caused interest with one or two people wanting to know more about it and its composer. One member of the audience - an organist - asked to see the score. But in general I think if you are expecting people to pay, whether you personally or as in my example to give money to charity you have a responisbility to make people believe that it is money well spent - and it might also encourage those who wold not normally attend a recital to come again!
Peter
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While this board was down, I came accross another discussion list for organists (Viva Organ) in which I lurked. One thread was that of recital programmes and the inclusion of a "big" piece. My view is that where possible one should tailor one's programme to your anticipated audience, maybe including one surprise item (Barry Jordan on this forum says he does this and by coincidence he is including Glass's Mad Rush in a recital, which is what I did recently.)
When I gave a recital a few weeks back, I knew that the audience would be made up not so much of organ "buffs" but supporters of the parish and also of the charities for which the retiring collection would be taken. (This was one in a series of such recitals in which the recitalist names his/her charity.) It was also at lunchtime. I thus construced a recital of mailny shorter, lighter pieces, but included a Bach chorale prelude, a Brahms ditto and a Peeters ditto. I also introduced the already mentioned Glass, and included one of my own modest offerings. This mix seemed to work quite well. A programme devised for an audience where there were likely to be a number of organists would probably contain some more esoteric, and, dare I use the term "heavier" items.
Any thoughts?
P
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I must pick up copies of his Love Divine, excerpts from which were heard during the Radio 4 broadcast about his (absolutely fascinating) life heard sometime in late May this year, and also available on the Invocation CD - delightful music.
All the best,
Tony
I agree Tony, Love Divine is a gem. I think you can get it in a Mayhew collection of WLW's anthems.
Best
Peter
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In the charging-for-organ-practice thread someone wrote: "The same applies to charging for the use of the organ for lessons: I've had three teachers in the last decade, none charging more than £10 a lesson. Two of them are FRCO, one of whom is an ex-Cambridge organ scholar. The suggested charge for use of the organ would double the price!"
I live in London and I suppose everything is more expensive here, but £10 a lesson seems remarkably cheap. My daughter's piano lessons are £24 and my wife charges £28 or £30 per hour pro rata. It's possible that these rates deter some from learning but music teachers should consider themselves professionals on a par with doctors and lawyers, in my opinion. As a performer I would be reluctant to work for less than £30 ph; £40 is what I would charge for coaching.
I started off at school and we had a very good organist on the staff so that was part of my overall musical education. But I was paying £10.00 over twenty years ago in London. I was quoted £21.00 about fifteen years ago. I suppose an organist could feasibly charge for a lesson what he/she receives for a wedding, but pro-rata. Although a wedding ceremony only lasts about an hour, there is the before and after stuff to do which takes it to about two hours realistically. And then there is travel (fortunately I live in the my parish so this is not an issue). A wedding fee of £75.00 for this could thus be shaved down to about £40 for a lesson, assuming an hour's worth of teaching.
Peter
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Loking at the bottem of this page I read that 61 users are currently reading messaages in General Discussion. This must be a record!
P
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At the church where I play the local college, lacking its own, uses the instrument for its one organ student, and he is taught by a lecturer in music. Now the lecturer is teaching as part of his overall job so doesn't get paid extra for this pupil. In the circumstances we feel entitled to charge the college for the use of the organ.
Peter
) but he said,as his full time job was as a church musician, and he was at work, he would have a smoke. I suppose you could get away with this maybe if the console was "up a height", but the cosole was of a newly built organ sat at ground level and only a few yards from the altar.
Can I have it?
Publicity Gaffes
in General discussion
Posted
Try this, MM! (Scroll down past the boring organ bits and you can even see yours truly with a couple of terriers!)
http://www.stpeters-roath.co.uk/events.htm
P