Another gem!

[Paul Isom]

I've been doing one of those completely fruitless tasks of trying to sort my music out.  It's supposed to be in alphabetical order but still seems to be a mess.  My organ music covers a wall of around 12' long by 6' high, so there's an awful lot of music (and I have still run out of room for all my Bach, the letter M and N) - and another trip to Ikea is needed!

 In amongst the music I found a wonderful piece by George Henschel - Prelude on a Hymn of All Saints (published by Crescendo Music Publications).  It was written for Walter Vale who was Director of Music at All Saints, Margaret Street.  The basis for the piece is the tune for the hymn 'In our day of thanksgiving'.  It is a wonderful piece with the tune cleverly woven in the texture of the piece.  There is more than a nod to JSB in the writing and it's generally beautifully crafted.  There is also an extra arrangement for brass an organ included with the piece.  Crescendo have a fascinating catalogue.  Highly recommended!

Needless to say, my music library is still in chaos!

[Tony Newnham]

I know the feeling Paul.  I couldn't find some music I wanted yesterday - very annoying.  I shall be sorting my music out (again) before long - but thankfully, I don't have as much as you!

Every Blessing

Tony

[Stanley Monkhouse]

Off topic warning! Over the last 20 years we've downsized a few times and moved back and forth across the Irish Sea. Now in a 3 up 2 down house there's no way I could keep what I once had. The policy I adopted was  "have I played this in the last 20 years?" If the answer was no, the next question was "am I likely to in the next say 10?" (I'm 70). If no, out it went. Messiaen, Durufle, Liszr,, Reubke, and many more, all gone to good homes. I kept all Bach and Buxtehude however. Reger would have gone, but I've never knowingly played or possessed any. Vierne went: it's very bulky and all on IMSLP. I have not regretted any losses. 

[Colin Pykett]

This week we did some decluttering as it's now getting easier to get to the council tip (though you still have to book your visit two days in advance).  So among other stuff I just picked up from my shelves, without going through it in detail, some substantial piles of sheet music I hadn't played, not only for some years, but for decades.  Most of it was light music including a multi-volume set of G&S piano scores (I can't abide it anyway but used to play it to satisfy certain audiences in the distant past).  The other numbers were mainly what I used to play occasionally on theatre pipe/digital organs, including odd stuff which pressed some people's buttons such as songs going back to the pre-1920s, plus South Pacific, The Sound of Music, Frank Sinatra's and Nat KIng Cole's output, etc, etc.  There was also a multi-volume set of books called The New Musical Educator, dating from the 1940s and edited by Harvey Grace, as I've since bought a much better quality version of the original from the early 1900s edited by John Greig.  Having looked around on the web none of this seemed to have enough monetary value to justify the pain and grief involved in ebaying it so I just chucked the lot of it away.  The resulting empty shelf space was very satisfying to contemplate and has not been completely filled yet, thereby providing opportunities to acquire future items which will be more useful.  A potential downside is that most of this stuff was not out of copyright so in that sense I've burned my boats since it's also out of print, but it's a risk worth having taken.  Paraphrasing what Stanley said, if you don't use it, then lose it.

[pwhodges]

There comes a point as you age when you realise that you no longer even have time to learn or listen again to all the music and recordings that you've accumulated over a lifetime.  But there's still the feeling that you might still want to access any part of your collection, even if only a small proportion gets picked in the end.  It's tricky...

Paul