Suggestions For Music To Learn

[passion_chorale]

Hi.

 

As a student currently 'on release' for a little while over the summer, i'm looking for some new suggestions for music to learn. The criteria are:

 

1) Suitable for somebody between Grade 7/8

2) Not a music student

3) Something that will give the hands plenty of work (out of scales practice...!)

4) Not ambitiously long

5) Challenging enough to not be considered 'sightreading fodder' (as in, will hold my interest.....

 

I have a few ideas, but some creative suggestions from people on here would be most welcome!

 

DWL

[Guest paul@trinitymusic.karoo.co.uk]

Hi.

 

As a student currently 'on release' for a little while over the summer, i'm looking for some new suggestions for music to learn. The criteria are:

 

1) Suitable for somebody between Grade 7/8

2) Not a music student

3) Something that will give the hands plenty of work (out of scales practice...!)

4) Not ambitiously long

5) Challenging enough to not be considered 'sightreading fodder' (as in, will hold my interest.....

 

I have a few ideas, but some creative suggestions from people on here would be most welcome!

 

DWL

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

Where to start!!? Frankly there's so much.

You haven't told us what sort of music you like - if you don't like it, you probably won't keep hard at work so this might be a pertinent piece of information to give us.

 

Here's one right out of left field:

Small Preludes and Intermezzi - Hermann Schroeder (published by Schott).

They're very varied, quite fun and nobody knows them - so nobody is likely to spot your mistakes. Oh, and congregations will like them too. Book should cost you around £6. Hours of fun.

Vaguely along similar lines, Suite: Changing Moods - Christopher Steel (Ramsey).

 

Less modern: Vierne 24 Pieces in Free Style (UMP) - several learnable by a Grade 7/8 student

 

More Baroque: several Concerto arrangements by Johann Gottfried Walther, most pieces by Buxtehude

D'Aquin Noels (admittedly it'd be rather a strange time of year to learn them)

 

More English: John Stanley, William Walond and Samuel Wesley - anything, it's all worth learning.

 

More Romantic: Stanford - Preludes and Postludes (Stainer and Bell)

Norman Cocker - Four Pieces (ditto)

 

 

should have given you at least one viable pointer here.....

[Guest paul@trinitymusic.karoo.co.uk]

P.S. I can recommend second-hand music sales - am I allowed to name here the gentleman* who sells through the various journals in a little box ad?

 

*Roger Molyneux

[passion_chorale]

Many thanks for the contribution, much interesting stuff. I do agree that the general request is very open-ended. I had no particular period or style in mind, its more a 'blue sky' exercise to see what people can come up with. Thanks again, DWL.

[MusingMuso]

Hi.

 

As a student currently 'on release' for a little while over the summer, i'm looking for some new suggestions for music to learn. The criteria are:

 

1) Suitable for somebody between Grade 7/8

2) Not a music student

3) Something that will give the hands plenty of work (out of scales practice...!)

4) Not ambitiously long

5) Challenging enough to not be considered 'sightreading fodder' (as in, will hold my interest.....

 

I have a few ideas, but some creative suggestions from people on here would be most welcome!

 

DWL

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

===================

 

I always regard the 2nd BACH Fugue by Robert Schumann as a "landmark" work in technique, because it teaches so much about the need for fast and really accurate finger-substitution. It is one thing to learn the notes (and not an easy thing), but to then articulate with both hands and feet, is no mean task.

 

The great thing is, it is not such a difficult work to read, but making music of it requires both stamina and imagination.

 

A great student's piece!

 

MM

[Vox Humana]

The "Tre Tonstykker" by Niels Gade. Excellent pieces and a good alternative to Mendelssohn (a bit more idiomatic for the organ too), but still pretty much unknown. At least I've never heard of any British organist playing them. The three pieces are roughly grades 7, 5/6 and 8 respectively - the last being a quite tricky, but by no means unmanageable, con fuoco (but don't take it too con fuoco as it really only works at an an Allegro energico).

 

They are in the slim volume of his complete organ works (published by Hanssen, I think - available through Chester's anyway). Well worth getting. His other pieces are three easy chorale preludes (including a lovely one on the same tune as Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern which many will know from Sanger's tutor), a rousing if ever so slightly cheesy postlude on Lobe den Herren with obbligato trumpets (the piece works perfectly well without them) and a rather wretched funeral march.

[Guest Lee Blick]

passion_chorale,

 

Take a look at the Kevin Mayhew website. There is plenty of organ music there. Some interesting stuff including lots of albums by their 'in-house' composers. I have loads of their stuff. Some of their albums are as low £2.50 which I think is incredible value.

[mgp]

In addition yoou could try the 12 Choral Preludes on Gregorian Themes by J. Demessieux - not too long but very worth while one per season as a sort of 'mini Orgelbuchlein'. In my view they're much more interesting than Dupre's Tombeau de Titelouze and they're cheap!

[Tony Price]

Hi.

 

As a student currently 'on release' for a little while over the summer, i'm looking for some new suggestions for music to learn. The criteria are:

 

1) Suitable for somebody between Grade 7/8

2) Not a music student

3) Something that will give the hands plenty of work (out of scales practice...!)

4) Not ambitiously long

5) Challenging enough to not be considered 'sightreading fodder' (as in, will hold my interest.....

 

I have a few ideas, but some creative suggestions from people on here would be most welcome!

 

DWL

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Join (if you haven't already) the nearest library with a decent music section, and just explore. Look at what you feel you'd manage, and borrow it, and play it (or not as the case may be!). I can't be the only one here whose introduction to the organ and its music was steeped in the music (Rheinberger comes to mind - it was everywhere in the late 60s/early 70s, and is deservedly making a return) available to everyone to borrow freely from the local public lending library.

 

Good luck, and keep at it!

 

Tony

[John Sayer]

Hi.

 

As a student currently 'on release' for a little while over the summer, i'm looking for some new suggestions for music to learn. The criteria are:

 

1) Suitable for somebody between Grade 7/8

2) Not a music student

3) Something that will give the hands plenty of work (out of scales practice...!)

4) Not ambitiously long

5) Challenging enough to not be considered 'sightreading fodder' (as in, will hold my interest.....

 

I have a few ideas, but some creative suggestions from people on here would be most welcome!

 

DWL

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I've found much pleasure recently in discovering Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713-1780), a pupil of JSB. Some of the Preludes/Toccatas & Fugues are a bit wild and wayward, but many of the chorale preludes are very beautiful. He also wrote his own Clavierübung, a collection of CPs comprising 2 decorated versions of each tune (manuals only) plus a four-part harmonisation - all very good for the fingers and articulation etc.

 

The 'Fantasia a guisto italiano' is a unique and absolutely gorgeous piece - a complete one-off which sounds like a gamba solo with gentle chordal accompaniment: I know of nothing else quite like it in organ music (it may be a transcription, of course)

 

Only snag is the Breitkopf complete edition is a bit pricey.

 

John Kitchen has recorded the whole oeuvre on various modern Scottish & English organs in a 5-disc boxed set for Priory, and very good value for less than £30 from the discount shops.

 

Good luck

 

JS

[Vox Humana]

Agree totally with John about Krebs. Many of the trios are well worth playing too and,in my opinion, a couple of them are as good as anything in Bach's trio sonatas.

 

And how about Messiaen's posthumously published Prélude? It's not too well known yet, judging from the number of times I don't see it in recital programmes, but if you like the Messiaen of La Nativité, you'll love it.

[David Coram]

The "Tre Tonstykker" by Niels Gade. Excellent pieces and a good alternative to Mendelssohn (a bit more idiomatic for the organ too), but still pretty much unknown. At least I've never heard of any British organist playing them. The three pieces are roughly grades 7, 5/6 and 8 respectively - the last being a quite tricky, but by no means unmanageable, con fuoco (but don't take it too con fuoco as it really only works at an an Allegro energico).

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

These three are wonderful. The first is by far my favourite. I do them a fair bit and will probably include them in most of this year's progs, and have also heard Dame G of W, and Claire Hobbs ex Clifton Cathedral (whatever happened to her?) do them. Kevin Bowyer has recorded them a couple of times at least.

[Vox Humana]

Thanks, David, I must look out for them. Just out of interest, at what metronome mark do you take no.3 (and no.2 for that matter)? As I hinted above, I have some difficulty with it - not technically, but musically.