sbarber49

How does this compare to, say, St Alban's?

I see Llandaff has financial problems: http://llandaff.churchinwales.org.uk/news/2013/11/cathedral-tackles-budget-deficit/

Well, "A newspaper of the time announced his death on Good Friday, 13th April 1759" so Easter Saturday must have been 21st. I'm always pedantic anyway, but I get hot under the collar if Easter is anticipated: Good Friday, Holy Saturday or Easter Eve, Easter Day, Easter Monday etc. Bit sad, I know, I should get out more.

Easter Saturday was surely 21st April in 1759.

This has been an ongoing campaign for many years! I think Andrew Reid is responsible for getting it close to a reality.

Though this appears to be a scan of a published score, from IMSLP, not CPDL. Shouldn't have too many misprints or be poorly laid out. (At least I can't find it on CPDL)

True, but in this case they are just typed-out versions of the printed score, I think (though I've only glanced at them). I think CPDL is a fantastic resource for choirs: yes you need to proof-read scores and note any mistakes. I think, like wikipedia, that there is now more discussion of the scores and that reliability will improve. Wikipedia was a joke in the early days. Editions of music are a different matter - there you are in the hands of the editor. Very dangerous and, indeed, worrying. Scores which are just typed out from the published version can be easily checked, though I'm not sure what happens when no-one can afford to publish choral music and there are no authoritative scores to check with. IMSLP is very good and, because most of it is scans of old editions, you know what you're getting - and it's no different from all those Dover reprints, is it? (Though, admittedly, sometimes hard to read.) The "original compositions" on CPDL seem to be pretty dire, from the small number I've looked at: musical literacy and basic knowledge of harmony rather lacking in many cases.

You can find two versions on CPDL: http://www3.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/John_Ireland (Still under copyright here, of course)

To quote Stainer: "Shoes or boots worn when playing should not be made too narrow or too round at the toe; they should have fairly deep heel-pieces........." He goes on to say (I like this bit): "Lady-pupils should avoid very small and also very circular heel-pieces, unless they are prepared to undergo a temporary imprisonment or purchase liberty by the sacrifice of a boot."

To be fair, the church (St Peter's, Yaxley) does keep this organ in good condition. I played for a wedding here a couple of weeks ago. It's a lovely instrument though the console and swell are on one side of the arch and the great on the other: when you play you can hardly hear the great or congregation. (The latter is a good thing when playing before a wedding!)

Confirmation about St George's here: http://www.stgeorges...r-of-music.html

The Novello edition (especially the volumes edited by Emery) are fine: nicely laid out and with good page turns - as far as such a thing is possible. However this Fantasia in C minor is an exception - for some reason the Novello editors decided to strip the piece of its ornaments - a vital part of it. It's a graceful French-style piece (I've heard it played with notes inegales). Look up IMSLP if you want to play it.

Channel 301 on Freeview broadcasts Red Button stuff and I was able to record the service on it and avoid the commentary. Sadly the organ music before and after was drowned by other noise.

I'm interested in this. I've always preferred the harmonies on lines 1 & 2 to be repeated (as in the English Hymnal and New English Hymnal). The chromatic harmonies for lines 3 & 4 seem to be completely out of keeping with the rest of the harmony and the cadence at the end seems unnatural to me; at any rate I never play this version. I don't know what part Monk played in adapting Kocher's tune but I wonder if the altered harmonies were written by Nicholson at the same time as he wrote the descant in, for example, AMNS. Later: Just found this version of the original tune by Kocher. It seems very strange, used as we are to the Monk shortened version. http://www.hymnary.o...LG1876/page/154

Horrible habit! I have very occasionally done it to a worship song/chorus thing and I always do it to At the name of Jesus to Camberwell - though i have a slightly extended interlude and go up a tone with some silly harmonies. Goes down a treat and is at least as tasteful as the tune itself. (If anyone wants a copy, PM me.) I dare say Bach would have treated Camberwell with a little freedom as well!

I have just bought "12 short preludes on Old English Psalm Tunes" by W. T. Best and I think they're very good. Lots of Lenten ones, but one on Hanover which I played (badly) on Sunday. They are short to very short. There is a beautiful one on a tune by Purcell and one I intend to play this Sunday on "Southwell (Lord Jesus, think on me) - the tune being entitled "Bow down, thy gracious ear". Tunes that are still commonly sung include, as well as Southwell and Hanover, The Old Hundredth, Melcombe, Surrey, St Anne. But the others are well worth playing, I think. The point is that there is a prelude on Wareham ("Thy mercies, Lord, shall be my song"), but it is very short so may not be any use to you. However I do recommend these little preludes. They're published by Fitzjohn Music Publications (i.e. David Patrick. (http://www.impulse-m...tzjohnmusic.htm)

The editor is Robert Gower and it's a very nicely produced book: not in my view as authoritative as the Ceremonial and Christmas books, but that is only my impression. The introduction gives no information on the pieces or composers - a missed opportunity?

Yes, it is. Never come across it - feel a fool now! Peter Williams certainly doesn't have the same certainty about the composer as OUP. The OUP book just gives CPE Bach as the composer, not even "formerly attrib to J.S." or any hint that the authorship is in doubt. I think that's a pity. The book has no information about the pieces at all and no biographical information (other than dates). No registration, fingering or metronome suggestions: that's fine if the book is a scholarly edition, but clearly it isn't. (The initial chorale harmonization is rather smoother than the version on IMSLP. Has it been quietly doctored without a mention or is it from a different copy?) Still, I'm very pleased to be introduced to this piece.

Well, I didn't mean to put anyone off buying it! It's all good music. I would prefer more austere music in Lent, but that's just a personal opinion. The very first piece in the book is super prelude on 40 Days and 40 Nights by CPE Bach. I will certainly play it on Sunday week. Nit-picking again, however, I wonder why O Mensch bewein is in the Lent section, rather than Passiontide?? Slightly surprised that Whitlock's Song 13 (Jesu, grant me this I pray) is in the Holy Week section - when there is so much wonderful Passiontide music around - all those Baroque preludes. The only prelude on the Passion Chorale is a Chorale and Variation by Mendelssohn: in the Variation only 25 of the 74 bars are by Mendelssohn, the rest is by the editor. He does a good job, of course, but I wonder if the composer didn't complete it because he felt that his initial good idea was unsustainable for the whole tune? Any opinions on the Sowerby "Were You there"? If Bednall had written his toccata on an Easter Hymn it would have been great - we need an exciting voluntary for Easter Day!

My copy arrived very promptly from Allegro (I had pre-ordered it). I played the Tambling Fanfare on “Shine, Jesus, shine” on Sunday as we had that for our All-age Candlemas service. Good fun, if a little light-weight for an “Oxford Book of………” Lots of interesting pieces, but not as useful to me as I’d hoped, I must say. Some of the Lent and Holy Week preludes (the likes of Parry, Whitlock and even Jackson seem too “comfortable” to make Lent sombre enough. And much as I like the Bednall Toccata on Aberystwyth, I don’t play flashy toccatas in Lent. For Palm Sunday the 3 pieces are all are based on hymns for the Liturgy of the Palms rather than the Liturgy of the Passion which is the 2nd and main part of the service. Yet they seem more suitable for post-service voluntaries, though I certainly wouldn’t play the ebullient Prelude by Alan Bullard after a Palm Sunday service. The Hakim and Moore variations look good (especially for recital use). Not sure about the Briggs. I won’t throw away my copies of Trevor’s “Seasonal Choral Preludes” and Marsden-Thomas’s “The Church’s Year” just yet.

I went to last year's event at Bloomsbury and will be going again to this one. Enough activity to make it worth the journey to London.

It was a glockenspiel in 1902. I assume a mixture rather than bells

I tried to "like this" but apparently I've "exceeded my quota of positive votes for today" - which is obviously none.

As I heard it, the layclerks told one of their number that they would indeed shout "B*****ks" at the end, but in fact they didn't shout anything at all, leaving the poor butt of the joke to shout it on his own. This was indeed alleged to have taken place in a cathedral in Kent, but not Rochester. I like the idea of this version.

Bad news about Ripon's Choir School: http://www.classical...ool-forced-shut