What is this piece, please?

[Martin Cooke]

Hello - please could someone identify the rather lovely adagio at the end of this service? Many thanks, indeed.

 

[Colin Pykett]

Adagio from Guilmant's 3rd sonata in C minor op 56.  It is played here about twice the metronome marking in my edition which is marked sostenuto at crotchet = 60.  However that might be an editorial slip - I have no independent knowledge.  (My edition is an old Schott album - no date other than the piece was copyrighted by them in 1915 - but I suspect it was printed somewhat later than that because the cover price was 5/- which seems a bit pricey for the pre-1920s).

[Martin Cooke]

1 hour ago, Colin Pykett said:

Adagio from Guilmant's 3rd sonata in C minor op 56.  It is played here about twice the metronome marking in my edition which is marked sostenuto at crotchet = 60.  However that might be an editorial slip - I have no independent knowledge.  (My edition is an old Schott album - no date other than the piece was copyrighted by them in 1915 - but I suspect it was printed somewhat later than that because the cover price was 5/- which seems a bit pricey for the pre-1920s).

Thank you so much, Colin.

[sbarber49]

The copies on IMSLP suggest crotchet = something like 56 (I use Pierre Gougain's edition). The version in Marsden Thomas's Graded Anthology (Book 5) suggests crotchet = 60 but the notes are double length (RH starts in crotchets rather than quavers) - this is, to me, ridiculously slow so I think she has carried the metronome marking over from a copy with different note lengths. 

[Colin Pykett]

17 hours ago, sbarber49 said:

The copies on IMSLP suggest crotchet = something like 56 (I use Pierre Gougain's edition). The version in Marsden Thomas's Graded Anthology (Book 5) suggests crotchet = 60 but the notes are double length (RH starts in crotchets rather than quavers) - this is, to me, ridiculously slow so I think she has carried the metronome marking over from a copy with different note lengths. 

My version was edited by William C Carl, and is the same as the Marsden Thomas version mentioned above in that it suggests crotchet = 60 with the melody carried by crotchets, not quavers.  So, yes, I've always considered it ridiculously slow and have always played it at speeds similar to Martin Cooke's video - i.e. getting on for twice as fast as written or thereabouts.  It seems to sing and flow at that speed.

[Dafydd y Garreg Wen]

24 minutes ago, Colin Pykett said:

My version was edited by William C Carl, and is the same as the Marsden Thomas version mentioned above in that it suggests crotchet = 60 with the melody carried by crotchets, not quavers.

How very confusing.

[Keitha]

I thought that this was a particularly nice rendition (and appropriate for the occasion) - so I decided to play the piece this morning!  I use the 2001 Barenreiter Urtext edition, which has crotchets = 60.  Tried it at that tempo last night - I felt that I was grinding to a halt and getting very bored! I think that it needs a bit of 'movement'.

[Colin Pykett]

Having answered Martin's original question, I wondered if I now might pose another.  I have a piece on an old tape played by a friend who has now passed on, and the simplest way I could think of to enable members to hear it was to put it on my website at:

www.colinpykett.org.uk/unknown.mp3

It's bugged me for ages as to what it is.  Although of no relevance to the question, my friend made the recording some 40 years ago on an electronic organ.

Many thanks in anticipation of your help.

 

 

 

[Martin Cooke]

18 hours ago, Colin Pykett said:

Having answered Martin's original question, I wondered if I now might pose another.  I have a piece on an old tape played by a friend who has now passed on, and the simplest way I could think of to enable members to hear it was to put it on my website at:

www.colinpykett.org.uk/unknown.mp3

It's bugged me for ages as to what it is.  Although of no relevance to the question, my friend made the recording some 40 years ago on an electronic organ.

Many thanks in anticipation of your help.

One good deed, etc, Colin... That is a Study by Gustav Merkel - Op 182 No 29. The tune you hear is in the pedals. I came across it in one of those OUP volumes edited by CH Trevor - Organ Book No 1.  [Just discovered it in this volume of pedal studies]

[Colin Pykett]

That's brilliant Martin.  Thank you very much.  Quite a little gem for a quiet minute or two in a service, but I've never been able to track it down until now.