sbarber49
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Posts posted by sbarber49
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Yes - I was in the Essex Man Organ Gala at St. Paul's to help raise money for that. I was avoiding roses called by other names -
Fair enough, though you were the one who brought up trompetas real!
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There are sundry Trombas scattered around, and the firing squad at Saffron Walden. With regard to the latter, an old Rector of mine who had previously been curate at Walden said that they materialised because a bride asked for a certain piece of music and the organist said he couldn't play it because the organ didn't have a Tuba, whereupon the bride's father produced a cheque-book. They cheated somewhat by having a Trompeta Real instead.
There's the the Ophicleide in Chelmsford Cathedral.
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Holy Horrors
‘All things bright…..’ and ‘Lord of the Dance’ were at the top of the list. Royal Oak is a fine English folk song that deserves a good set of words and musically it surely cannot be faulted. W.H. Monk’s more familiar tune is not easy to sing well. There are many leaps and the chromatics call for careful tuning so it rarely gets the performance it deserves. The hymn’s text is shallow to the point of being untrue. All things are not beautiful and life is tough for many. True, the last verse preaches thankfulness but otherwise the theological content is nil. Could it be that congregations and respondents to the survey object to singing what is in effect a lie and for that reason they dislike the hymn?
David Rogers
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.
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On the subject of the hymn book, I don't hugely mind the one I have, I was only concerned because of all the bad coverage it gets on here. I've been able to play many hymns for years using my own improvised (and simplistic) accompaniment. My aim now is to learn how to do it properly and I was worried that I would spend all this time trying to read the real music only to find that the music in the book I am using differs wildly from more respected publications. If that isn't the case then I shall happily continue to use it.em.
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).
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I agree, and do not share the disappointment which some have expressed about the film. I do hope that the Magnificat will be recorded in due course, and while Parry's Piano Concerto is available for discovery on the Hyperion label, I can safely say that Boult's rather elusive last-ever recording - the 5th Symphony, no less - will be finding a place on my CD shelves in the next few days.
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.
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There are still very many of these fine little jobs going strong and, thankfully, unaltered.
We restored this one last year http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=N09603
DW
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)?
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A bit bigger, but a wonderful sound.
http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=N11289
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Is any member of the Forum able to advise me where I can replace my lost copy of `Elegy for Strings` from the Downland Suite arranged for organ by Alec Rowley?
I think this this is it, but there are no details. I'd have to check the number on my copy to be sure.
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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.
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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.
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I don't really undestand the "King James Bible" thing.
Surely, all Bibles agree to within about 99%, so long as they're not some dreadful modern trasnlation.
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!
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In my view the Fantasie in C (BWV 573), of which only 12 splendid bars survive, was Stockmeier's best effort: the fragment ends in A minor, and he added six bars to bring it back into C. Unfortunately he then went on add several pages more which I find less inspired.
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!)
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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
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Following on from the interesting topic regarding the smallest 3 manual organ, and with apologies for stealing and adapting a good idea, what about the smallest 4 manual ever?
I am sure many are smaller, but a few years ago I played the organ in Turvey (Beds) which is very small (see below)....I found it quite delightful and with only 30 stops, suprisingly versatile!
Best wishes
Richard
I have a recording of Paul Edwards playing his Turvey Tuba Tune on it.
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So, are we to understand that as an American Citizen (for Yon was organist at St Francis Xavier New York) that we in Europe are breaking the law downloading his music from a site (IMSLP) that positively invites us to propagate his music, and that other music by this composer is freely available on the CPDL, but if you live in America (his Home) that it is perfectly alright?
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.
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Hi
Unless the current copyright holder has given permission for downloads!
Every Blessing
Tony
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?
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There is always "Christmas in Sicily" by Petro Yon. Free download available too!
Not a legal download, of course, in this country.
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Hi Peter
Are you forgetting the few of us who do listen and put heat on (as you should remember from when I was in your neck of the woods!)
Every Blessing
Tony
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?
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Don't know, but did you also see the vacancy at All Saint's Peterborough where the organ looks particularly interesting....."a small but flexible tractor-action organ in excellent acoustic"!!
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.)
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There's plenty (?) of music written for just the feet, but usually it's intended to be played on the pedalboard.
This takes some beating...
...which just goes to show that even if you lose both arms in an accident you can still continue to play the piano.
Of course, you don't even have to be human to play the piano!
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I have this publication in my village church (where I am a parishioner) and the offerings are often purgatorial. The Antiphon in my mind, should end in an Imperfect Cadence. It needs to be resolved with the beginning of the next verse and then end with a feeling of expectancy that is resolved by the Epistle. However, the scanning and the harmony are banal at best and I squirm in the pew at some of the progressions and the 'starts'. Bring back the English Gradual.
N
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.
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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
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Couldn't agree more. I've always found MM to be entertaining and informed, and have not enjoyed some recent comments and tone here very much at all.
Also agree.
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The fact that HWD was the dedicatee is not necessarily inconsistent with the Elegy being a parody of Solemn Melody. According to Jonathan Rennert's biography of GTB, and other sources, working relationship between the two was far from easy.
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.'
Holy Horrors
in General discussion
Posted
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.