sbarber49

What's wrong with it? Cecile Frances Alexander wrote this hymn for "Little Children" - it's not an adult hymn. The following comes from a church magazine (http://www.oystermouthparish.com/home.php?page_id=144): There is a green hill was written to illustrate the words of the creed, ‘Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.’ Mrs Alexander begins the first verse by painting a picture. As a skilled teacher she knew that her first task was to capture a child’s imagination. In the second line she originally wrote ‘without’ a city wall, but changed it to ‘outside’ to remove any ambiguity. The second verse celebrates the mystery of the cross, ‘We may not know, we cannot tell....’ The passion of Jesus, though difficult to comprehend, is something he endured for us and for our salvation. This is celebrated in the next two verses, ‘He died that we might be forgiven, he died to make us good... There was no other good enough to pay the price of sin.’ The noted New Testament scholar, Professor A. H. Hunter, once wrote, ‘It was given to an Irish woman, in a hymn she wrote for little children, to express better than many a learned tome the purpose, the necessity and the challenge of that sacrifice which has in principle redeemed our prodigal race.’ The hymn ends with a call for us to ‘love as he has loved us.’ According to this article, the composer Charles Gounod once remarked that "There is a green hill" was ‘the most perfect hymn in the English language because of its charming simplicity.... the lyrics seemed to set themselves to music.

Fair enough, though you were the one who brought up trompetas real!

There's the the Ophicleide in Chelmsford Cathedral.

I fail to see what is wrong with the words of "All things b & B" - it's a hymn for children and goes through various wonders of nature - "God made them all". What on earth is wrong with that? It does NOT say that All things are beautiful; but those that are - God made them. The one objectionable verse (the rich man in his castle etc.) is not in any hymn book nowadays. It amazes me that adult congregations sing so many children's hymns these days: Once in Royal, O little town of Bethlehem, It is a thing most wonderful, There is a green hill, etc. All for children, not to be solemnly sung by adults. I wouldn't expect a hymn for little Sunday School children to be full of weighty theology, myself. I also don't see what is wrong with the versification of St Patrick's Breastplate. Wonderful words, I think, and probably give a flavour of the original, although I know no Irish.

The only thing to be careful of is the key the hymns are in. If you go to the trouble to learn a hymn, you don't want to find that the congregation, who are wimps these days), can't manage the high notes (though they could if it was a football match or The Last Night of the Proms!). The tunes, in my view, are sometimes set too low in Hymns Old and New but at least congregations won't complain. I think that Common Praise has probably got it about right (some have gone up again from New Standard).

I also will buy a recording of the 5th Symphony (once I've tracked it down). I was also rather taken with the extract from the Lady Radnor's Suite.

dated c.1902 So did Henry Willis 2 finish a design by Father Willis (Like St Patrick's Cathedral, Dublin - an organ I used to play every day)?

A bit bigger, but a wonderful sound. http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=N11289

I think this this is it, but there are no details. I'd have to check the number on my copy to be sure. http://www.musicroom.com/se/ID_No/046346/details.html

Yes, lots of perfectly good pieces. Personally I didn't find any of the modern pieces very inspiring. I love the Howells and the Rutter piece is lovely. I will certainly also play the Bridge (although I will use 16ft pedal tone, contrary to the editor's comments - just as I do in Vierne's Pièces en Style Libre). I don't know what to make of the Macmillan. There is so much wonderful music that I still haven't learnt, or haven't played for 30 years, that I don't want to spend time learning music which seems to me to be a bit "run of the mill". What do people think of the new Oxford Books of Service music? I bought all 6, since many of them have exam pieces in. Quite a lot of very good pieces, some of which I have enjoyed playing. The interludes, especially, are very short, and I don't think much of the specially commissioned pieces. I'm a bit disappointed that there isn't more editorial comment.

Divisionals for accompanying a choir, with just the odd general. There isn't enough time to reset too many generals between practice and service. I always copy a set of divisionals from the assistant organist's accompaniment channel to a free one. Then I can use these but make any changes I want. Time-consuming, I find it's time well spent. Steppers are far too dangerous for me - great for voluntaries if there is time to set them up, but for accompanying, if you have to make any changes after the practice it's far too easy (for me, anyway!) to muck it up.

They're not all celebrating their 400th anniversary, though. It would be better to describe the recital as on "The St James Bible, to celebrate it's 400th Anniversary" or something. Dupre Vespers antiphons - some on biblical words, Magnificats, "Mit fried und Freud", Vater Unsers. Good luck with it!

I play the Hermann Keller completion of BWV 573 and I think it's excellent. 36 bars in total and just right for a short voluntary. (I'd wanted to get a copy ever since hearing Thalben Ball's recording in the 60s. but only got round to getting it a few months ago!)

I recommend using Open Office. Paste a Sibelius graphics file into it and then you can make a pdf. http://www.openoffice.org (it's free!) I use the open office format as I don't want to pay a vast amount to upgrade my old version of MS Office. (I actually use Lotus Symphony - also free - which uses open office format files.) Why pay Microsoft when you can get it for nothing! http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/s...y/home.nsf/home

I have a recording of Paul Edwards playing his Turvey Tuba Tune on it.

Actually, I think it 70 years in America as well, but I could be wrong about that. The IMSLP site is very clear that it is the user's responsibility to make sure any download is legal. Same applies to CPDL as well, of course. The fact that there are sites inviting you to share illegal music and video files, not to mention software, doesn't make it legal.

Even if he has, it's still copyright, surely? Just waived. I was assuming the download of the Yon piece was from IMSLP. Is it available somewhere else, where permission has been given?

Not a legal download, of course, in this country.

We're lucky at the two churches I am currently responsible for - the tuners try to came on a day when there's a service, so the heating can just be extended. Do all organists not make sure the heating is on far a tuning visit?

Well, it is an interesting organ in an ideal acoustic, but not quite as innovative as that! (I wrote out this advert in longhand, but the Priest-in-charge seems to think the action is rather more agricultural than it actually is!) If anyone wants more info, please PM me. I am currently acting DOM, but I am DOM of another church so I can't be there on Sundays which makes it a bit difficult! (I was in charge for over 14 years in the last millenium.)

Of course, you don't even have to be human to play the piano!

Yes, I wasn't really recommending it! I haven't a choice as long as we've got the congregational sheets and it saves me writing them. Not sure what's wrong with the starts, though (I always add a little introduction for the unaccompanied choir anyway) and I would be very unhappy if the response didn't end with a perfect (or plagal) cadence. Since the Epistle is read rather than sung, I'm not sure how it could resolve anything: it doesn't usually follow the train of thought of the psalm. When I write my own I occasionally finish the response with a phrygian cadence (or the like) and change it to end on the tonic the last time. I do like the format of the NEH psalms (as also in the RSCM Psalms for Singers collection of 26 psalms by Gregory Murray) except that the psalms are simplified, rather in Grail style.

My church uses readings sheets from Redemptorist Publications which include the psalm response and they provide all the musical settings of the complete psalms for each week. I find the responses okay (sometimes the accompaniments are way over the top) and the words are Common Worship. The tones used are different every week which doesn't suit me - the choir sings the verses rather than a cantor and I use a repertoire of tones - I just cut and paste. The pointing is inconsistent and often more than two verses are squeezed into one "verse" which I think misses the point of singing poetry. So I often end up rewriting the verses as well. You can see what the service leaflet looks like here (I presume you can buy the psalm booklets separately): http://www.rpbooks.co.uk/product_details.p...mp;item_id=1123

Also agree.

I think there was a great friendship between the two and there was a good working relationship, albeit with the odd disagreement. Re: Elegy: [from the Rennert book] Thalben-Ball also assisted in Sir Walford's weekly broadcasts of choral evensong from the BBC concert hall. Before one such service Davies said: 'At the end, play a beautiful melody.' GTB know what he wanted: a long, singable, rising and dipping line, such as that found in Sir Walford's own Solemn Melody. The piece he improvised, which resulted in many letters from listeners, and which Davies said was 'exactly right, absolutely perfect', was the well-known Elegy. Ever modest, Thalben-Ball admits its similarity to Solemn Melody: 'It's a crib of the style, but not of the tune, to be perfectly honest.'