Peter Clark
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Posts posted by Peter Clark
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I've been holding back on this because I don't want to seem to be blowing my own krummhorn but the 2006 Spath organ in St Peter's Cardiff has been very well received by those who have been to see/play it.
Peter
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Fair enough. If one is preaching one should base one's arguments on the most authentic reading available, so from that perspective, yes, you are right. But the early translators would not have been aware of this nicety. I was concentrating on what might have been the understanding of those who made the earliest vernacular versions - my argument being that we can't really hold The Crucifixion 90% responsible for the misinterpretation of the text when that misinterpretation is inherent in the vernacular texts current at the time.
Thanks Vox! My suggestion that The Crucifixion was 90% responsible for misinterpreting that text was probably facetious and almost certainly as probably unjustified. An enjoyable exchange though.
Regards
Peter
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I’m fairly sure contrabordun was, and I definitely was, being a little childish. Sorry.
No, childish is OK. Let's face it, grown men who fling their arms and legs around in the feeble hope of sounding vaguely musical and in the slightly greater hope of making a little money can hardly shrink away from the decription with anything like dignity.
Peter
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Is that the Vidor V stoccato? My mistake.
Since when did batteries write music? Shouild this not be Widor we're talking about?
Peter
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I played the Compton several times about 20 years ago - for what it was, it did a good job. Are there any plans to replace it (could St Peter's stand the competition?!)
I doubt if they could afford it as the cathedral does not attract a large congregation, being as you will know in awholly non-residential area. If they got some kind of large donation or a long-term fund raising scheme going they might be in with a chance. Marx and Spencer were once very keen to acquire the property and would have given St David's enough money to build a new cathedral and get a new organ but it seems that the cathedral is staying put for the time being.
St Peter's can stand anything!
Peter
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Would I be right in thinking it was Princess Margaret's wedding that popularised it as a wedding recessional?
I am pretty sure it was Princess Anne; I also think it was played, bizzarely, at the end of Diana's funeral.
Peter
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After days of fruitless internet trawling* (internetting?) I hope you won't mind me seeking help here.
I am under instruction to get a copy of Dorothy Pilling's "Harmonisation of Melodies At The Keyboard, Book One". It is out of print and the publishers, Forsyths, say they don't know when they will print any more.
If anyone has a copy they no longer use or require for their library, please PM me and name your price.
Thanks in advance.
J
I had an order in with Musicroom.com which appears to have it in stock but they cancelled the order because, well, they didn't have it and couldn't get it. I found a guy in London claiming to have a the only copy on the internet in the UK but the site he was offering it through gave him a 1/5 reliability rating and he hasn't replied to my enquiry.
I sympathise there, Justadad - I think I mentioned before that I had an order with them which they sent but put insufficient postage on the parcel and so I had not only to pay the difference but also a £1.00 fee to the post office and the parcel was delayed!
P
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Hang on a mo... Is this really so? It seems to me that the clergy are right.
Firstly, no blame can be laid at Stainer's door. What he set was exactly what appears in the St James bible, minus the first word ("For God so loved the world...")
However, most church-goers are probably more familiar with the variant "So God loved the world" that appears in the "comfortable words" in the communion service of the Book of Common Prayer. These "comfortable words" originated in that prototype vernacular service The Order of the Communion of 1548 and thus predate even the first Prayer Book of 1549 (from which, incidentally, they were omitted; they were reinstated in 1552).
In fact, the 1548/BCP version is the more literal translation of the vulgate from which both it and the authorised version ultimately dervive: Sic enim Deus dilexit mundum... Now my Latin is decidedly creaky, but while sic usually means simply "thus" or "so" my dictionary tells me that it can also imply "in such a manner" or "to such a degree" and since enim surely functions as an intensifier, is this not the intention here? - "So indeed did God love the world..."? So it seems to me that both versions are actually saying the same thing, though the authorised version puts it better.
But the Greek in which this text was originally written reads houtos gar which is "so therefore" indicating the son coming into the world as a result of God's love and is not a commentary on the extent of that love which is what most people seem to want it to be. The Vulgate does make these little slip-ups at times (cf nolle me tangere at Jn 20:17and compare the original!). So I am happy with your "in such a manner" but not with your "to such a degree".
Peter
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Was the broadcast recorded?
The cathedral Compton did not sound impressive - gather Roger Taylor is making a professional job of keeping it in one piece!
It's on R4 listen again, that's how I heard it Sunday afternoon. Beieve me, the cathedral Compton is NOT impressive! I've had to play it many times....
Which bears out the piece of sage advice I was once given by the priest at St. Joseph's, Cardiff - "Never trust a man who doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, and doesn't swear!"He likes a G&T as well -but I've never heard him swear!
Peter
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What about the individual counters (traditionally dog, top hat &c)? Organ stops maybe?
P
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A bit expensive for 2 pages but might make interesting reading for those who have been active in this topic.
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0027-4666...%3E2.0.CO%3B2-B
Anyway, I got to play it for a Mass yesterday - the Archbishop presiding - and I think it did well to support a completely liturgical programme given that it is essentially a concert instrument. The actual programme was quite modest:
Ecce Sacerdos - Elgar
Laudate Dominum - Mozart
Ave Verum - Elgar
Panis Angelicus - Franck
The Lord Bless you - Rutter
(this last was the least succesful because the deacon announced the dismissal while I was playing the introduction! He didn't read his order of service properly.)
Plainsong Kyrie and Sanctus with a modern responsorial Gloria by Peter Jones (used when the Pope came to Britain in 1982), Psalm, Gospel Greeting and hymns.
Mind you, the crescendo pedal is dangerous!
BTW did anybody hear the broadcast from the other St David's in Cardsiff yesterday? The Arch was at that too. He had a busy Sunday but I saw him sneaking off for a quick fag after Mass - in the pouring rain!
Peter
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I'd welcome a thread entitled "Did anybody NOT screw up this week?". It would guarantee my total absence from this forum, probably to the delight of 99% of the membership.
Peter
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Great sounds, beautifully recorded, but, in my very humble opinion, played far too fast to enjoy. I have a double cd of 'standard' organ works played by Ton Koopman, and although I really can appreciate the skill and technique required for this, I just don't enjoy performances at these sort of speeds (Waynespeed anyone?).
Mind you, I once heard that Peter Hurford complained about the speed of some Buxtehude on his own recording!
Peter
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I once owned a record by the St Alban's Choir under Darlington. One of the tracks was the Te Deum by Bryan Kelly. A tuneful melodic setting. Why then has it never gained currency in Cathedral music lists? Too tuneful? Below the salt?
I don't knwo the Te Deum but dodn't he write a jazzy (rumba or calypso style) Mag and Nunc?
Peter
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I had always understood that they were written for the cantata, but now you mention it I'm not sure why. As you say, they are very fine tunes.
It is a shame that The Crucifixion has been so influential in shaping our opinion of Stainer.
It does seem stange that he wssd capableof writing such fine tunes yet often such weak material as in the topic under discussion. (Remember the famnoure "here in a basement"?!
) Love Divine is another fine tune that springs to mind.I think that The Crucifixion is also probably 90% responsible for the misinterpretation of Jn3:16 since it is probably the most famous setting of that text. (Are there ary others?). I have even heard clergy preach on the "so much" suggestion which is simply not in the original text which means merely "therefore" so a correct translation would be more like "God loved the world therefore he sent his son....." ie as a result of this and not that he loved the world "so much" and so what a good bloke he is which is how, alas, it often comes across.
Peter
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Despite living in Cardiff for 17 years it was only last night that I got to play the organ in St David's Hall, rehearsing for a Mass on Sunday. Here's the NOPR entry:
http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch...ec_index=N09211
I understand there were problems when it was first opened and that a firm other than the original was brought in to sort things out, the 1990 rebuild being done by "unknown". Why the mystery, I wonder? Anybody know anything?
(Not to be confused with St David's Cathedral, Cardiff, which needs a lot of work.... but which can be heard on R4's morning worship this coming Sunday.)
P
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So I suppose we can now add the Doctor to our list of celebrity organists!
P
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On that basis we'd all think Stainer's Crucifixion is good - and not even Stainer himself thought that.
Maybe but he did leave us what I think are two very fine hymn tunes in the Crucifixion: Cross of Jesus and All for Jesus. Not sure however if these were writtn for the Crucifixion or wherther they were pre-composed and he incorporated them. Is there any information on this (and yes I realise this is really another thread!).
Peter
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I had very brief dealings due to a commission he received in 1986 which resulted in the composition of his "Fanfare for Theatre Organ". This was written to commemorate the opening of (and was the first piece performed on) the Christie theatre organ at the Memorial Hall, Barry in South Wales on March 1st 1987.
Is this piece still in print - indeed, was it ever? OUP were/are his publishers but I don't recall seeing this in the catalogue.
Peter
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Indeed, Peter: that was the part of the point I was making.
Your graffitto reminds me of a slightly more on topic one I once saw in the gents at the British Museum when it was still in Great Russell Street: "If music be the food of love, Stockhausen is a banker" - except that wasn't quite how the last word read.
But who said "have you heard any Stockhausen?" to which the reply was "no, but I've trodden in some"
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I am not aware of whether Mathias played the organ or not, but his music is very effective and written idiomatically for the instrument, which suggests a good working knowledge, even if he was not a skilled performer.
As with all these things, one has to be choosy ; I play 'Invocations' which can sound stunning on the right organ and in the right environment. I played it at Blackburn Cathedral a couple of years ago where it sounded terrific.
(A friend of mine at Oxford was a composer. After hearing one performance of a piece of Mathias sung by the Christ Church choir, he raised his pint and said 'Ah, Mathias ... the lack of inspiration in every bar'. Cruel, perhaps, but also quite funny).
I am in touch with Robert and can confirm that he did, indeed, have a stroke last a few years ago. However, he has made a good recovery and continues to play as well as ever, albeit with a lighter schedule. He recently played on the Aubertin in Aberdeen and is playing at Kings College Cambridge on 19th May.
M
First, M, I am glad to hear that Robert Munns has recovered. My info was obviously somewhat out of date!
I suppose that as far as Matthias is concerned (two tees as I now believe is correct!) the "lack of inspiration" jibe was a litle cruel though he does have a fondness for:
consecutive fifths/fourths
addeds (normally 6th though often 9ths)
frequent changes of time...
all of which are splendid in the way he handles them.
Failures? The Bercuese doen't inspire too much and I even think that the Variations on a Welsh Hymn Tune is fairly mundane. But yes, the Invocations is splendid - dramatic, spiritual and very arresting in equal measure... when at college I was involved in a production of Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern and I used the opening fanfare passage for the entrance on the royals at the end.
Peter
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In principle I don't have a problem with this at all since all I ever ask of music is that it both moves and sustains the intellect .
Forgive me, but just because the unwashed like a piece of music doesn't mean it's good. On that basis we'd all think Stainer's Crucifixion is good - and not even Stainer himself thought that. No. All it means is that the unwashed like it. That of course is a perfectly valid response on its own level and ample justification for performing such music. Nothing wrong with a bit of harmless enjoyment; after all, what on earth do we listen to music for? But we shouldn't make the mistake of equating popularity with quality.
But even the great unwashed as you call them have intellects and if this is sustained and enriched by Stainer's Crucifixion then who are we to argue? No, it's not my cup of tea either but there are those who are moved and, dare I say it, spiritually uplifted by it.
Scrawled on a wall at the RAM:
Q: What do you think of Stainer's Crucifixion?
A: I'm all for it.
Peter
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MAB's response regarding Robert Munns in MM's thread about rewriting bits of music puts me in mind of William Mathias. MAB said that Robert Munns rewrote a piece that was written by a non-organist and that the composer, Montague, was delighted with the result.
I seem to recall reading somewhere that Mathias was not an organist although he did contribute to the modern organ literature quite extensively - Toccata Giocosa and Processional are probably found in many organists' repetoire. So has anyone else heard about Mathias not being a player as such?
On a sadder note I also heard that Robert Munns recently suffered a stroke. At one stage there was talk of his coming to Cardiff to give a recital but alas that seems now to to be. He recorded on the organ at St Michael's, Croydon, an organ I played once or twice in my youth and a jolly fine instrument it is too.
Regards
Peter
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Before you go around accusing people of being narrow-minded, perhaps you would have the courtesy to answer my post #2. Show me where the talent and skill is in minimalistic music and you'll find me ready enough to appreciate it. But then, it seems from your post above that you don't agree with the concept of musical education, so I guess I may have a long wait.
Roffensis doesn't need me to defend his position, but I'd like to chip in with a few thoughts as I happen to share his enthusiasm for Glass and the like. To me, the talent and skill of minimalist music and its composers lie in part in the apparently simple but really deceptively difficult task of maintaining for 10, 15 or even 20 minutes (I here refer to Glass's organ works - there are much lengthier examples of the form) a musically coherent argument which maintains interest derived from the simplest of musical cells - maybe just one or two of them in any given piece.
I think too that there is a certain politico-philosophical element to the music with its apparent rejection of certain of the compexities seen in the development of western music and its possible call to what the composers (though not necessarily their advocates) might understand to be a simpler or even purer form of music which is in reality as difficult to sustain as the more obviously complex forms of contemporary music. (I don't agree with this thinking, but that will not stop me appreciating minimalist music alongside other styles of composition.)
Vox you will have read on this thread that both R and I have received positive "feedback" (dread word!) from our respective congregations having exposed them, to some Glass - and so if we as church musicians (and I am aware that not all on this forum are) can elicit positive comments from people (some of whom said they had never heard of Glass before) then tjhis musit count for something.
There is talent and skill evident in every musical form as well as a complete lack of it and if this goes for pop music (compare the Beatles to the Venga Boys for example), Victorian hymnody or even contemporary organ music it is surely true of minimalism.
Peter
) Love Divine is another fine tune that springs to mind.
New Organs In Britain Since 1980
in General discussion
Posted
How usual is it to have a tremulant to each division? I confess I have never seen a tremulant on a pedal organ before. Any others?
Peter