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DouglasCorr

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Posts posted by DouglasCorr

  1. Strangely out of synch with current opinion, but OMG, what a powerful performance the following is from the late Andre Marchal at St Moustache.

     

     

     

    MM

     

    Concerning the Fantasia - I don't believe you really do admire it MM - you surely like this one best and I'm sure you handle bars 31 to 35 in just the same way, or perhaps a few more ornaments?? :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

  2. With a group of Daniel Roth students from Saarbrücken, we found J-P Leguay smoking on the NDdP organ loft.

     

    The "Rauschwerk" on the Rieger of Ratzeburg Cathedral is still there (though its initiator, Neithard Bethke, has retired some years ago). But the tray was meant to be filled by the visiting organist! On my rare visits, I found it always empty....

    and so is there a Rauchwerk at NDdP?? :blink:

  3. A quick flick on the keyboard suggests you are looking for the Dupre Piano and organ scores

    Ballade op 30 Gray 1933

    Sinfonia op42 Gray 1947

     

     

    I think there may be an on line one for the Ballade at the British Library

     

     

    Ballade for piano and organ opus 30 enter UK as your location!!

     

    You could try on line searches of various music school/university libraries (where open access is available) to see if there are scores in downloadable format.

  4. It's a little while since we have talked about Bach and numerology in these postings. I have just come across this intriguing thesis on how the Unfinished Contrapunctus can be solved using clues in the numerology.... I don't want to say more in case I spoil your excitement in reading how to do it..!!!

     

    Take a break from practicing and put your feet up for a gripping read... :P

     

    (PS takes a little while to download)

  5. I think the Victorian era produced some fine hymns and quite a lot of rubbish at the same time.

     

     

    MM

     

    I'm not sure what catagories you would put "Christian seek not yet repose" (Vigilate) and "Christian dost thou see them" (Gute Bäume bringen ) into?

     

    At my church school in London, the Headmaster lead the daily hymn singing with the fanatical fervour necessary to ensure that everyone was cleansed from wickedness. We seemed to sing these hymns throughout the year, without regard to the church calendar. The consequence of this was that I spent most of the day wondering about the words- (from the first hymn) "thou art in the midst of foes", "thy unguarded hours", "the evil one"; and from the second hymn ".. troops of Midian, prowl and prowl around.. Christian up and smite them..", ....how they work within, striving, tempting, luring, goading into sin...". I spent most of the days wondering how wicked I was and if there were devils in the corners, under the stairs.... The only hymn that seemed to

    distract me from these issues, which also came up often, was "Hushed was the evening hymn" where the line "O give me Samuel's ear" always made me wonder just how exactly you would do this.. Fortunately we did not sing it to Sullivan's "Samuel", but to respectable tune whose name I have now forgotten.

     

    Anyway with all this day dreaming going on, while I watched a weather vane through the classrooom window, it was just as well that it wasn't until thirty years later that I came across Clough's "Say not the struggle naught availeth" (Weisse). Once I'm reminded of it I'm afraid all the words from the hymn whirl around in my head - "struggle naught availeth", "enemy faints not", "hopes were dupes, fear may be liars", "yon smoke concealed"... the whole thing!!!... think I had better lie down now... :P

  6. Personally, I don't think it makes the slightest damn difference. I imagine they're less inclined to go saggy, and the 32' front at Seattle is a truly impressive sight. Considering how much trouble the bottom 5 of the 16' front at New College have staying on speech, the promptness of speech Paul Fritts has got out of these babies is astonishing. (He re-erected it after the earthquake a few years back - and now it's fixed back to the wall!)

     

    Interesting about Seattle, if my memory is right I remember being a little shocked in 1970 by seeing that these pipes had beards. Otherwise the organ was magnificent to play and see!

  7. ================================

     

     

     

    MM (World authority and collector of "Shaun the sheep" DVD's)

     

    I think we could need an oscilloscope to settle this, but

     

     

    :P

  8. How many organ-stops closely imitate the sound of other instruments, or those of the same name?

    ......

     

    The real puizzle is why the Vox Humana was ever lebelled Vox Humana, because if anyone sang like that, they'd be sectioned.

     

     

    MM

     

    Well I think a Vox Humana + tremulant does sound like a singing voice, John McCormack for example. So there. ;)

  9. ==================

     

    I think we should have a category for "best pithy answers" of the year! :lol:

     

    Of course, there are organists, there are showmen (and Diane Bish), there is "Arty" Noble wearing a cape and THEN there was Liberace.

     

    "You like my solitaire diamond honey? Take a good look....touch it if you want to....you paid for it!"

     

    Whatever happend to showmanship?

     

    MM

     

    ummm. What do you ware? :lol:

  10. I've got my copy now. How blissful it is to wallow in accounts of the giants of an age. For example how Cavaille Coll, with Widor's help, demonstrated a new organ to Listz, and how they were subsequently invited by Listz to Erhard's salon to listen to him play the piano.... How Tournemire and Vierne thought lessons with Widor were going to be more demanding than with Franck... What Widor said to Dupre... The St Sulpice organ.... It's Paradise for me! :wub::P:rolleyes:

     

    Perhaps Prince Charles could be introduced to French Romantic organ music and Cavaille Coll organs, then we could have an hour and a half follow on to his entertaining BBC4 programme on Parry. :P

  11. =========================

     

    Mmmmmm!

     

    I can understand ........

    ......, I don''t think we have too much to worry about price for price; especially since Eastern Germany is now simply "Germany," Poland is no longer poverty stricken, the Czech Republic and Slovakia are very much on the rise economically etc etc. I don't know the current situation in Slovenia, and you're certainly not going to find much organ-building in places like Moldova, Turkey or Albania.

     

    I'll just go and prepare the foreign vegetables now, and the English strawberries picked by Polish workers in East Yorkshire.

     

    Bloody foreigners!

     

    MM

     

    Too much time in the vegetable patch?!...

     

    You've forgotten about Skrabl. Skrable has been mentioned previously on the Message Board.

     

    Installations are, for example, in Lyme Regis alsohere. I don't remember if any Message Boarders have reported on any recitals on Skrable organs.

  12. I am really shocked to see that in this year's programme for the St Albans Organ Festival there is no exhibition and demonstration of small organs!!!

     

    The demonstration of small organs has been a feature of the festival for as long as I can remember (from the late 60s ?). A very interesting showcase for a challenging aspect of organ building. In the early displays, in my view, only one builder stood out as understanding what a small organ was and what it's potential was, particularly in a domestic room. The others approached the issue as a scaled down church job and with inevitable unlikeable results. As the years passed the number of organs increased and more builders understood how to produce a refined sound from small resources. The demonstrations themselves improved, from the initial amateurish pile of music under the arm approach, to a well thought out programme suited to the potential of each instrument.

     

    Many listeners probably didn't appreciate the expense and labour falling on the organ builders in order to take part. I am sure that some orders resulted; it did so from me; but now is this all to be just a memory?

     

    It was exciting and a privilege to be able to meet leading organ builders from this country and abroad, to admire their craftsmanship at close quarters and often to see display boards with details of their other larger instruments. Oh dear, very sad.....

     

    PS The advertised demonstration of reconstructed "Early English" organs, may be of some historic interest but does it lead anywhere? It is hardly a replacement for the former type of exhibition. :(

  13. As a school boy in the early 60's I heard Langlais play this during a recital at St. Mary Magdalene Paddington. Apart from the magnificent church I remember three things. How short Langlais was and that he sat on the very edge of the bench and I expected him to slip off at any moment. How quickly he changed the registration by hand - even though the Compton organ had luminous stop touches!!! And the Pasticcio!! - a sort of medieval knights in armour pastiche. I rushed out and bought the Organ Book of ten pieces. I religiously checked score markings and I have two ticks against the metronome mark! Now I think maybe it is a bit slow, but they were written as simple pieces. And I would say that playing the repeated quaver chords cleanly at 116 is challenging enough for grade 5.

  14. The next couple of weekends in St. Sulpice; if this doesn't tempt anyone...

     

    I'm off to get my coat :(

     

     

    16h00 concert d’orgue (dans le cadre de la célébration du deux centième anniversaire de la naissance du facteur d’orgues Aristide Cavaillé-Coll)

    Sophie-V. Cauchefer-Choplin, Eric Lebrun, Yann Liorzou, Vincent Warnier, Daniel Roth

    OEuvres de Bach, Hesse, Lemmens, Guilmant, Widor, Franck, Vierne, Lebrun, Roth

    Concert enregistré par France-Musique

     

    I agonised about this as I couldn't go as I wasn't well, but.... it's recorded all here!!! :P:lol::P

     

    Radio France broadcast

    and/or

    Radio France full details

     

    ...anyway I'll be in the congregation for Easter Day High Mass :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

  15. Life is a brief lottery, but then you die anyway.

     

    MM

     

    There is a paradox here. As the probability of dying is exactly 1.0, any action taken to reduce the risk of dying from one cause must increase the risk of dying from others.

     

    I don't see a problem here. ;) If none of the risks occurred then you would live for ever.... <_<

  16. Not so easy when you already have a long-standing family dinner engagement!

     

    Then it is perhaps a good idea to put this one in your diary now!

     

    2012 avril 29 : cent cinquantenaire de l’inauguration du grand orgue

    de Saint - Sulpice :)

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