Peter Clark
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Posts posted by Peter Clark
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The late Dom Laurence Bevenot of Ampleforth Abbey and later St Mary's Cardiff wrote a lot of music for the Catholic Church, including some simple Mass settings in two parts, published in the mid 50s. I have three of the settings which I use now and then - Re, Sol and Fa; I cannot discover if any other settings were published or even composed. Doies anyone have any info? Thanks
Peter
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I played part of his Contrary Motion for Organ yesterday during communion, and received some positive comments such as "atmospheric" and "setting the mood nicely". This was a truly ecumenical occassion - one of the comments came from a former Anglican priest converted to Catholicism, and Philip Glass himself is a committed Buddhist!
Peter
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I can understand people's dislike of the organ, if it is through ignorance. It is quite a mysterious instrument in many ways.
Indeed Lee; ignorance and fear of the unknown is the root cause of all prejudice....
Peter
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The melody sounds like a WWI or II war song
Is that a good or a bad thing, Lee?
Peter
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Is it my imagination or do organists generally have a better developed sense of humour than many other species of musician? Hmmmmmmm . Could it be something to do with putting up with corny and inexhaustible supplies of wisecracks about organs? Sigh......
Jenny
Hi Jenny - I started a thread about this very subject last year, under the heading "Joke and 'joke'". I particularly liked Nigel's "comeback" and some other jokes there.
Peter
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Alphonse Schmitt (1875-1912) was an Alsatian composer, student of Guilmant and Widor. He was organist at St. Philip-de-Roule in Paris, and composed several works for organ, including this Toccatina.
The piece really doesn't deserve such a diminutive title - it is a sparkling rollicking romp across the keys that always leaves me smiling
http://www.evensongmusic.net/audio/SchmittToccatina.mp3
HQ mp3 - 5.75mb
http://www.evensongmusic.net/audio/LQ/SchmittToccatina.mp3
LQ mp3 - 977kb
Enjoy,
- G
I agree! Thanks for posting it - where do I get the score? (Like other here, I too thirst for more obscure music!)
Peter
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Certain notes are more difficult to reach than others. The problem is not the pitch but the vowel. Some high notes are easy on particular vowels and lower notes difficult on other vowels. That is the issue of singing and choir training. It has far more effect than the mere pitch. Choirmasters who do not understand these things produce unmusical sounds from their choirs, most especially on the high notes.
Barry Williams
Barry that is very interesting. Is it an individual thing, that is to say would, for example, chorister A find it fairly painless to sing "Praise" on a top G whereas chorister B might find he/she produces an unmusical sound? Does it depend on gender? (I can never forget Robert Tear, I think, on the Barbarolli recording of Elgars Dream singing "TIKE ME AWAY"!)
Peter
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At a recital I gave last week I was for the first time shown on screen and people said to me after that it did make a difference seeing a human being in action as it were and not just hearing a disembodied flow of sound from somewhere at the back of the church. Another thread on this forum recently discussed the "nerdy" image that organists sometimes have with the public. If this technology can help in showing the man or woman behind the music, then that can only be a good thing. And I bet many a football-crazy cynic could be persuaded to think again after watching as well as hearing someone play the Bach D major Prelude and Fugue!
Peter
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On the subject of pitching hymns in gnereal, if you look at Bach's Chorales (Oxford? Edited by Terry?) you will notice that the soprano/treble line frequently hovers around the G/F mark, often starting at that register. I wonder if this is an indication that in Bach's time the human voice was naturally higher and has lowered in pitch over the years and that composers write to accomodate this?
Peter
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What a splendid idea! I have been looking for an excuse to mention Romsey Abbey Recitals - season tickets now available, weekend breaks arranged for those coming from further afield! (Pierre?) First one is Friday May 4th.
I don't know whether Mr Cynic will thank me or not, but anyone knocking around the SW may not be aware of his imminent appearance at Portsmouth and Bristol Cathedrals - as anyone who came to Marlborough will testify, these would be well worth the journey - particularly the Portsmouth one, at a guess. Organrecitals.com has details.
Indeed David, thanks for that! And let us not forget the Westminster Cathedral Organ Festival starting soon.....
Peter
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Would it be a good idea for forum members to advertise here recitals they are giving in the near future so that others in their area (or even beyond) could come along to offer support and maybe even raise a glass or two afterwards? Just a thought.....
Peter
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Yes it's a gem, glad it went down so well. I am playing that and also his "Satyagraha" at my church in September. Plus the Aaron Copland "Episode", should be interesting!......
R
I don't know the Copeland, is it a transcription or an original organ piece? Have you met Glass's Music in Contrary Motion for Organ.?Musicroom have it but alas there are no sample pages to look at. (On which subject: does anyone know of any dealers which, like Amazon do with books, offer sight of a sample page or two of music?)
Peter
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It is probably an alarming gap in my education, but beyond being an attractive accessory, I have never understood the reason for a Zimbelstern or a situation where it would be useful. Please can you enlighten me?
JC
Try this website John....
http://www.zimbelstern.com/zMusic.htm
Peter
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I used to buy quite a lot of music from Oecemuse (is that how he spelt it?); as far as I could tell all the scores were kept on computer, printed off and bound on demand and sent out within a week or so of your cheque being cashed, usually less. But there seems to be no Oecemuse these days, and it is a long time since I have seen a review of any Oecemuse publications in the OR or CMQ; has it folded? The quality of the music varied I admit, especially in its reprints of fairly obscure Victorian stuff (have you seen the William Faulks piece beased on Ein Festenburg?), but some of the "house" compoisers - I think of Paul Edwards, Nicholas Clucas, Ronald Watson and others - were always good value for money.
I think Musicroom may operate a similar "print to demand" policy at times, because the last piece I got from them, the Philip Glass Mad Rush, was sent as a "special order edition" and the pagination started at page 30 or something. By the way, they didn't put sufficient pastage on the parcel and I had to pay the difference plus a £1.00 administration fee to the post office and it delayed its arrival!
But I played it in a recital last Friday - admittedly in a slightly shortened version - and it went down very well, comments after the recital over tea and biccies being "haunting", "serene", and even "disturbing" (in a positive way).
Peter
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I'd have to be a Zimbelstern - I spent a lot of time and perspiration persuading the powers that be to get one on our new instrument so it would be disloyal of me to be anything else.
Peter
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I had a vicar once who really worried whether people might be joining our choir as he said 'for the wrong reasons' which I took to mean that he suspected that they liked the music but not the worship. My answer was, 'does it matter exactly why anyone comes to church? For whatever reason they come, once they are there something may reach them ... even (perhaps) your sermons!'
My interest in, and continued involvement in, the Church came about as a result of my love of the organ from an early age. It happened that the nearest church to me was a Catholic one, and the priests allowed me to practice there - I remember being in that church (now alas demolished) seeing people coming and going and doing what to my then unchurched, unchristianised, mind were stange things; then in Holy Week I witnessed for the first time the Stations of the Cross and then I thought that there was something in this; I took the plunge as it were a couple of years later, went through a period of instruction and was received. I have found since that my beliefs helps my music and music my beliefs. Was I, as a teenager just discovering the organ, going to church "for the wrong reasons"? I wonder if Paul's vicar would have let me practice in his church!
Peter
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There is a hilarious website devoted to Music for Pleasure.... nothing to do with organs, but it did remind me of those cheap records we used to take to our teenage parties. It's at:
http://www.vinylvulture.co.uk/pages/mfp.htm
By the way for my 50th last month I arrived at the party to JSB's Passacaglia & Fugue - not my idea That would have been cheesy!) but a thoughtful gesture by the venue's manager.
Peter
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This holds true for all forms of art, I would have thought. An atheist can presumambly appreciate, and even be moved by, "religious" paintings (eg the Sistine Chapel) or recognise the beauty of the King James B=ble or the Book of Common Prayer. And atheists can produce spiritually stirring works. Berlioz as I under stand it was not a believer but his Te Deum has to rank anong the best. John Ireland and Peter Warlock both had a lrsanings towards the spiritualism and the occult (as I think did Debussy) but they still managed to write some good "church" music...
A intetresting topic, as you say John. Thanks for starting it.
Peter
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Oh my word! This was my first organ LP, too! I, too, was a teenager, and I bought it from W.H. Smith's in Burnley, as I recall, some time before 1972.
As for getting hold of a copy, you may be in luck: this site http://www.gilbertandsullivanonline.com/cb.../lps/organ.html seems to have one for sale.
Thanks Nick. I assume it hasn't been transferred to CD then - I can find noting on the web. Yes, I have fnd momeries of that album, but I think MFP also relaeased one by Virgil Fox, though once again the details escape me. Anyway I'll trace that link though what Bach is doing on a G&S website beats me!
Peter
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This being the season of rock and roll, bunny says Happy Easter.
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(")
MM
Thanks MM! Likewise (and to the rest of the forum!).
Peter
PS any distasters this time round? On Good Friday the tabernacle key went missing causing a slight delay in processedings!
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When I was a teenager I bought my first organ LP on the MFP label, Bach Organ Works by Carl Weinrich. It contained 4 works : T&F 565, the Passacaglia and Fugue, Prelude and Fugue in A minor and the little E minor Prelude and Fugue. I'm not sure how these pereformances would be rated now, but I have a nostalgic yearning to hear them again. Does anybody else remember this disc? Is is still available in any form?
Thanks
Peter
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The local Anglican parish church of St James has been closed for well over a year now: my concern is that the organ may be approaching the point where it may be beyond repair. It is listed on the NOPR at:
http://npor.emma.cam.ac.uk/cgi-bin/NPORSearch.cgi?
Not being Anglican, I am unsure of who, if anyone, I should approach to air my concerns. Yesterday I was able to go into the church and try out the instrument, much of which was not working. Advice please?
Peter
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About six months ago I applied for a DoM job at a church. Naturally this was a job I _really_ wanted.. Anyway, the incumbent appointed an "independent assessor" to oversee the interviews. Turned out I was the only candidate. After a rigorous going over, they decided not to offer me the job.
Fair dos. I was disappointed, but that's life.
Thing is, six months later, I have just heard that the "independent assessor" has been appointed permanently to the post! Now I feel like I've been taken for a mug. Bah. How would you feel in this situation? Is drink the only option to dull my pain? Your comments welcome...
First, may I say how sorry I am about the way you've been treated. A similar though not identical thing happened to me a few years ago. I had been dong some part-time work at the local crem and when I heard that a full time post was coming up I looked for the adverts - and eventually I contacted the manager asking why I had not been notified of the post being vacant as I had done quite a bit of work there before and seemed to be a satisfactory employee. I was asked to send in my CV which I did, only to disocver that the appointment had been made - to the partner of someone who works for the body which operates the crem. Seems a little to me that this was a case of nepotism, but of course there is no proof of this at all.
P
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In one of Reger's organ-works, there is a similar metamorphisis, transmorphisis; or whatever it is that they call neo-plagiarism.
In that, not only do you hear almost a direct copy of the Bach A Minor Prelude & Fugue (you know the one without my digging out the BWV number), and throughout the work, you just know that Reger followed the structure of the Bach, and possibly had the copy open as he wrote his own work.
I think it would be interesting if Glass wrote some sort of musical Labyrinth based on that of Bach.
Then we would be able to ask, "Anyone heard the Glass "Harmonica?"
MM
In Reger's short Chorale Prelude on Lobe den Herren there is at one point a remarkable resemblance to Bach's first piece from the 18, Komm heileger Geist and though Reger's is much smaller in scale of course one figure does seem to suggest again that Reger had a copy of his predecessor's piece before him as he wrote....
P
Swell To Solo
in The Organ
Posted
An organ I played recently has a stop "Choir Reeds on Swell" which does what it says, but you can't then play the reeds on the choir as well. How unusual is this for a stop?
Peter