Barry Jordan

Interesting. These are not in the "Chamber of horrors" volume of the Chopin Academy edition.

Feliks Nowowiejski was a Pole ("Are you a pole-vaulter?" "No, I am a Tscherman, but how did you know my name is Walter?").... 1877 - 1946. Learned briefly at the Stern Conservatorium in Berlin as a young man (and one a prize at the "London Peace Musician Competition" for a military march called "Under the banner of Peace"!) Returned to Poland as cathedral organist at Olsztyn (Allenstein) in 1898, but two years later gave up the post again and went to Berlin as a student of Max Bruch. An oratorio "Quo vadis?" was performed 1909 in Amsterdam; the Poles regard Now. as the first Polish composer since Chopin to have won international recgnition. He was drafted into the Prssian army in 1914; after te end of the war he worked amongst the Polish community in Berlin for a while until returning to Warsaw and then Poznan, where he became director of the Music Academy. He was considered the best organist in the country. At the outbreak of WW II he fled to Cracow, but had a stroke in 1941 and was partially paralysed. The name has been surfacing occasionally for a while now; I played in Warsaw a few years ago and was curious, so I had a polish friend send me the symphonies and a further volume of occasional pieces, all published (very badly) by the the Chopin Academy. I haven't explored all the symphonies in depth yet; they need a firm control, as they can ramble a bit, but it's very colourful and imaginative music. A bit like slightly eastern Reger without the pomposity; but the 9th also has some fairly obvious formal influences from, eg, the Widor IVth. Incidentally, FN gave a recital in London in 1931. Here he was already mentioned as the composer of 9 Symphonies for the organ. His Opus list is a mess. Hope this is enough to whet your appetite. I'd put up a bit of the music, but unfortunately it's embargoed until the CD officially comes out at the end of June. Cheers Barry

Thanks to our hosts........

Here: http://www.magdeburgerdommusik.de/html/klangbeispiele.html

None of the events were recorded. I recorded two CD's in the weeks immediately before the opening: "Eroica" contains: Jongen Sonata eroica, Nowowiejski Symphony No. 9; Stanford Sonata eroica. Label "Organ" ORG 7227.2 "Symphonic Impressions" has smaller pieces by Cocker, Whitlock, Vierne, Karg-Elert, Rheinberger et al. Label IFO 00 312 We have copies available, but they should show up in the online shop at www.ifo-records.de quite soon. They are widely distributed (the OHS carries them, for example). I'll put up a few sound samples soon. Cheers Barry

Our festival week "Organo pleno" was a great success. There was a lot of very good organ playing (Martin Haselböck, Thomas Murray, Vincent Dubois, Thomas Trotter, Ludger Lohmann - and myself bringing up the rear), with an average of 600 people at each of the solo recitals, 1500 at the opening Choral/orchestral/organ concert (Jongen Symphonie concertante and Janacek's Glagolitic Mass, conducted by me with M. Has. at the organ). The winner of the concurrent 4th August Gottfried Ritter Competition, finals in the cathedral last Friday night, was the 23 year old Drahuslav Gric from the Czech Republic, who followed a slightly humdrum performance of the Franck b minor Choral with a staggering Dupré 2nd Symphony. Runners up were Hee-Jung Min (Korea, currently studying in Freiburg) and Eric Kolind (Denmark). German Daniel Beilschmidt won the Ritter prize, and might even have won the competition if he had not courageously confined his final round programm to 5 movements of Messiaen's "Livre d'orgue". It was an excellent week! B

1965, renovated 1992. A concert series is being relaunched. I will be playing "Livre du Saint Sacrement" there on the 30th November. Condition of the building permitting! B

Just for the record (no definite takers, John, apart from you!), the bus X9 from Tegel gets you to Zoo station. From Schoenefeld, you take the suburban train to Berlin Ost and change there. It costs € 26.50 all in. Just in case this might help anyone else to take the plunge, let me spell out what I had in mind: Friday evening, concert with JS, glass of wine in the cloisters afterwards and then a dinner somewhere with JS, who is usually game for this sort of thing. Sleep a bit. Saturday morning: Niederndodelen, organ by Schnitgers apprentice Hartmann, containing material from Esaias Compenius. Return to Magdeburg, catholic cathedral, Eule 2005 (III/56). Trip to Tangermünde for the afternoon recital on the Scherer organ of 1623. A beer.... Sunday: trip to Brandenburg: Reubke organ in Kyritz an der Knatter (the only still extant larger instrument by Julius Reubkes father), Wagner organ in Wusterhausen or Brandenburg cathedral. And on that note: Manders tuba arrived here on Monday and it is spectacularly good! Cheers Barry

Hi everyone, there've been a few tentative nibbles at the idea of a weekend over here (25th - 27th July). If enough people were interested (perhaps 6-10?) I'd be very pleased to set it up for you, but I would need to know pretty soon so as to organise accomodation, transport etc. 4 star hotel with swimming pool (so don't forget the snorkel) for €48 per night B&B, you don't get it better than that....I will organise everything except getting here. Cheers Barry

Romantich symphonic, also good for the moderns. Although that wasn't the main point, it is contrapuntally clear and gives a good account of Bach too. Fairly useless for north German romantic, which however works well on the neo-baroque transept organ. Hard to typify really; the idea was to try to invent an "international romantic" style. I suppose if the Principlas sound as though they were modelled on anyone else's work, it would be Ladegast. But the reeds are totally different, except for the two free reeds. Cheers Barry

Sleasy Jet gets you from Luton to Berlin-Schönefeld for a few quid in an hour or so, then its 90 minutes on the train. Come to think of it, what about any of you who interested coming over on Friday, 25th July, listening to John Scott playing it, spending the rest of the weekend here and letting me show you around some of the other interesting instruments around here? Cheers B

Hi everybody, the new organ here will be finished next week - thanks in part to John Mander and Michael Blighton, who have had made and voiced a new tuba for us. Applause. I've put up some rather poor pictures of the interior of the instrument at http://www.magdeburgerdommusik.de/html/inside_the_organ.html and some quite good ones, which hve the disadvantag of having me in them, but which give a good idea of the console and of the way the case appears from the church at http://www.magdeburgerdommusik.de/html/downloads.html Do have a look and rejoice with me. Cheers Barry

To quote Gryttpype-Thynne: "It's something to do with the shortage of money, Neddy."

Now I'm not going to to buy the Bärenreiter as well so that I can tell you that. B

So: I ordered this on Wednesday at midday, and the postman brought it 24 hours later, so it's 10 out of 10 for service to Carus, at least. Obviously, I haven't really had the opportunity to go through it all carefully. First impressions: the print is large and clear, the volumes are bound not stapled; the critical commentary is detailed and seems excellent. What does this mean? It means: that the volumes don't stay open very well, until you break the bindings; and that there are many more page turns (for example, the third symphony now has 45 pages of musical text as opposed to 35 in the Durand edition. Somehow the print looks a little clinical, one has got so used to the look of French organ music! It seems to me that this is a very valuable edition - but I don't know whether I might not end up correcting my old copies from it, rather than transferring my fingerings to the new ones! Cheers Barry

It's a chance for the much-needed "Neueinstudierung"!::::::::::

I've now ordered this and will report on it when it arrives. Music from Carus often has one problem: it doesn't stay open very well! And of course the A4 format is a bit boring. David Sanger wrote a few articles entitled "Towards more accurate scores of Vierne's organ symphonies" in OR some years back; he had a lot of corrections that others have missed, so this might well be something to be grateful for. Cheers Barry

Allan Wicks premiered "O maximum hysterium". He told me that he practised it for a year and was certain that he could play all of the very complex rhythms correctly. He then played it for "Max", who said, "Oh very good! But you must play it much more freely!" Cheers B

How embarrassing, this is not the piece I was thinking of. You are quite right. There is no option, it must be a bass cf - which often sounds a bit odd, doesn't it, as at the end of "Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend'". B who only opens his mouth to change feet...

Sorry Vox, stupid mistake, I wrote without thinking properly - it's a tenor c.f. of course, so the pedal is 4', the lh 16' B

Hello Vox,, I think without any evidence at all except some suppositions that while the pedal is at 8', the left hand is at 16'. I tried it out at Naumburg on that now famous Fagott 16 on the RP; it worked perfectly. Cheers B

Sorry, go ahead and ban me for not knowing Frog. Bet I speak better Afrikaans than you do.

Banned for not being pedantic enough to say "Cantilenae".

Hallo all, just wanted to remind all the budding Scotts and Trotters out there that the closing date for entries for the organ competition here in May is the 15th January. No English or Irish yet, and that is a pity. Come and show the Jerry what you've got to offer...... Details: http://www.ritter-orgelwettbewerb.de/index_e.html With a first prize of € 7 500 it's worth winning, and it will give you a chance to play the new cathedral organ in the very week of its dedication. The rest of the festival programme is also worth hearing. See http://www.magdeburgerdommusik.de/assets/a...ts/Organo_pleno All the best for 2008! Cheers Barry

I disagree. A religious service has as much claim to be professionally conducted as any other part of life. Certainly the "clients" should be allowed to voice their wishes, but how these are to be carried out should be left to the professionals - clergy and musicians. Or do we regard religious services as so profoundly unimportant that anything goes? B