Theophania Cecil (1782-1879) – opening page of Voluntary 1

Great importance is attached to the fact that both Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams played regularly on the Thaxted Lincoln organ, and this was one of the selling points for its recent restoration.   All very worthy of course, but the organ’s significance for me is that it was originally the instrument of Theophania Cecil, in the early 19th century, when it was installed at St John’s Chapel, Bedford Row, in London.

It was Christopher Kent who first drew my attention to Theophania Cecil – he thought I would be interested in another Lady Organist, and he mentioned a set of voluntaries by her that he once found in a pile of music heading for the bin.   Enquiries revealed these existed in the Royal College of Organists library – not only that, but the RCO were planning to digitise her Twelve Voluntaries for Organ, from 1810, and make them available on their website, as part of a new project to make the library’s contents more available.

The voluntaries are classical in style, and Cecil makes full use of pedals and the available stops.  Very appropriately, Anne Page played Cecil’s Voluntary 12 as part of the dedication recital on the restored Thaxted organ a few days ago.  Some of the chromatic complexities of this piece certainly tested the Sixth Comma Meantone tuning* – interesting, as this was suggested by restorers Goetze & Gwynn as the original temperament of the organ in Cecil’s day.

RCO members can download the full set of Cecil Voluntaries here, free of charge.  (Non-RCO members can download Voluntary 1.)  Both non-members and members can also download an excellent preface to Theophania Cecil and the Voluntaries, summarising her life, in as much as we know it.   Cecil is revealed as being not pleased with the Lincoln organ, or its maker – but this seems to be because she didn’t get a backhander out of the purchase money.  For shame, Theophania! – but perhaps this little custom was fairly standard practice at the time.

*also known as Silberman

Anne Page plays the Thaxted Lincoln organ for the dedication recital on 25 September 2014, after its restoration

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“The Chipp variations are all quite hard,” says Anne, “and have a quite astonishing pedal part, for the time they were written.  They never let up – not a rest in three whole pages, and you have to be awfully mobile, going into chromatic double octaves at one point.  Chipp was obviously a fluent manual and pedal player, with quite a big stretch in both hands.  He uses the full range of the modern pedalboard, and the piece was obviously written for an instrument in something close to equal temperament.”

Anne has recorded 2 or 3 of Chipp’s Sketches for the Historic Organ Sound Archive, and first came across him via friend and colleague José Hopkins, currently organist at Haslingfield in Cambridgeshire.  José was involved in the rebuilding of the historic organ at Haslingfield, where Anne made recordings.  This organ is very closely associated with Chipp, who himself brought it to St Mary’s Ely, when he was appointed to Ely Cathedral.  There’s lots more on the organ’s history under its entry in the NPOR.

Though Chipp was obviously a disciple of Mendelssohn* both Anne and José are of the opinion that he wrote good music in his own right –  interesting enough for José to have written a short book about him, which will be on sale at Anne’s recital.  (I’ll definitely get the book, but I’ll leave the Variations to Anne for now.)  Full details of both below.

Anne Page’s website is here, and find recordings on her YouTube channel.

*and in return Mendelssohn appears to have been a fan of Dr Chipp – Mendelssohn gave him a glowing reference, probably after Chipp gave one of the first performances of his (Mendelssohn’s) Organ Sonatas.

Recital details:

BLOOMSBURY CENTRAL BAPTIST CHURCH,  235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2 8EP
Saturday, 26th July 2014 at 4:00pm
ANNE PAGE  (Cambridge)

Programme:

Jeanne Demessieux (1921-1968)   Repons pour le Temps de Paques

Jehan Alain (1911-1940)   Introduction et Variations – Scherzo – Choral

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992)    Joie et clarté des Corps glorieux

JS Bach (1685-1750)    Prelude and Fugue in G major BWV541

ET Chipp (1823-1886)     Introduction and Variations on ‘God Preserve the Emperor’

Admission free – retiring collection – buffet afterwards

More on E T Chipp:

Musicologist David Byers writes about the life and times of E T Chipp here - scroll down the article to find the relevant section, where you will also find a facsimile of the reference given to Chipp by Mendelssohn.

Details of José’s book:

Edmund Thomas Chipp – a life that led melodious days
José Hopkins
ISBN 9780957635807
£10

Welcome to my readers in China! 欢迎来到我的中国读者。我很想听到你的声音！点击这里查看更多

You might like to read an earlier interview with Anne Page here:

Five questions for…Anne Page

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Improvisation St Albans IOF

Interpretation St Albans IOF

More information from the competition website.

NB I’ve noticed the Improvisation pdf doesn’t always read properly unless it’s been opened in Adobe Acrobat Reader.

International Organ Festival wants new members

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Avison was one of the many Georgian English composers about whom we know little, and whose music is only just getting recognition for its elegance and easy appeal.  Born in Newcastle, he travelled to London as a young man (some say Italy) to study with Geminiani, but returned to Newcastle to accept the post of church organist first at St John’s Church, and then St Nicholas’.  There appears to have been a flourishing music scene in eighteenth century Newcastle (as there is now, of course!) which kept him there, as he never left never left his home town again, despite offers of more prestigious posts elsewhere in the north of England.

The Six Concertos for Organ solo are Avison’s own arrangement of versions for string ensemble.  They are published in 2 volumes by Barenreiter – Book 2 appears to be out of print, sadly – I need to find out if they will print to order.

Charles Avison 1709-1770

Sechs Konzerte fur Orgel manualiter (Cembalo) solo
Charles Avison
Konzerte 1-3   Heft 1
Barenreiter BA 6503 (in print)

 Sechs Konzerte fur Orgel manualiter (Cembalo) solo
Charles Avison
Konzerte 4-6  Heft 2
Barenreiter BA6548  (out of print)

Create an organist (or just have a good day out) – The Great North Organ Day

Five questions for…Hilary Norris

Repertoire Revivals – Brian Brockless TOCCATINA

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We had an enjoyable exchange of emails on what the piece should be. Something short and meditative to play during Communion I said, about CertRCO level in difficulty? – Perhaps along the lines of the Elgar Vesper Voluntaries? suggested Thomas.  In the end the final piece most resembles the Intermezzo from the Vesper Voluntaries: Thomas has used 1 Corinthians Behold I shew you a mystery… as the starting point, and and the piece ends on an appropriate anticipatory note.

A  world premiere then, this Sunday, at my church. It will be interesting to see what my congregation makes of Thomas’s sound world.

Thomas Morgan is a composer, conductor and organist based in South Wales.  He studied music at the University of Salford with David King and Peter Graham, and went on to study composition at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama with Robert Spearing, followed by postgraduate study in choral conducting with Simon Halsey and Adrian Partington.   You can contact Thomas via his Facebook page, and hear some of his compositions on SoundCloud.  Score Exchange has a catalogue of scores.  And, of course, you can follow him on Twitter! @tmorgancomposer

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William Lloyd Webber

My good friend organist Terence Atkins gave a recital yesterday which included no fewer than four pieces by William Lloyd Webber.  Terence has long expressed his enthusiasm for Lloyd Webber’s music – as he says ‘William Lloyd Webber was a household name amongst organists in the late 40s and 50s, and there’s a vast amount of his music waiting to be discovered.’

Much of his organ music is not particularly long – Webber is at his best in miniatures.  This makes for good service voluntaries – I have my eye on an Epilogue which Terence included yesterday – quite a rumbustious piece with fanfares and some rather luscious harmonies at the end.  Webber’s music is unashamedly tonal and romantic, out of step with the fashionable serialism of his time.   This, combined with his reluctance to promote himself and his music, means that the name Lloyd Webber only brings to mind the work of his sons nowadays – cellist Julian and composer Andrew.

However it’s Webber’s centenary in a couple of weeks’ time, and his music is starting to get the airing it deserves.   Julian Lloyd Webber is leading a concert of his father’s works at St Martin in the Fields, London, on 11th March 2014, and organists are joining in the revival – concerts remembering William Lloyd Webber are coming up very soon (starting March 10) at Westminster Central Hall (where Lloyd Webber was Director of Music) with recitals by Jane Watts and Gerard Brooks, and a performance of Lloyd Webber’s Cantata The Saviour.  More details here.

If you’d like further reading, Len Mullenger’s Musicweb-international site has an good biography, list of works and discography here – where you can also find an excellent article by John France.   If you’d like to read more about William’s relationship with his sons and their music there’s an interesting article by Jessica Duchen in the Independent here.

Finally, Jane Watts provides an insight into the organ music of Lloyd Webber in an article in the current issue (March 2014) of Organists’ Review, with the bonus of listening excerpts on the Organists’ Review website – click here and use the password webber.

You might also like

Repertoire Revivals – Brian Brockless TOCCATINA

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Twelve variations follow /Fitzjohn Music Publications

My friend Jenny has been championing John Ebenezer West (1863-1929) and the virtues of his Passacaglia in B minor for about a year, and she’s delighted that it has now been published by Fitzjohn Music Publications, under the editorship of David Patrick.  It was written in memory of Josef Rheinberger, and described in a recent review as ‘a sort of village organist’s moment of wishful thinking’  – nothing like as hard as Rheinberger or Bach, but a splendid little piece all the same.

I caught up with David Patrick at the recent Bloomsbury Organ Day, and bought a copy.   He specialises in editing and publishing sheet music for organ, sacred vocal music,and piano duets and trios.  An organist, accompanist and conductor, he had done a lot of hand copying for publishers like Novello, in the days before computer software was able to handle music with any competence.  However “on retiring as a teacher, I was one of the first people to get hold of Sibelius” he said, and Fitzjohn Music Publications was the result, founded in 1998.

A recent project for David has been editing a four volume anthology of 18th century English Organ music, this time for publishers OUP.  From easy to moderately difficult it includes music by Handel, and some less familiar – Heron, Hook, Hawdon, Broderip and Blewitt to name but a few.  Each volume includes an introduction to the instruments of the period and registration, and editorial realisations of appropriate cadenzas.

18th Century English Organ Music
A graded anthology
edited by David Patrick
OUP 2013  4 volumes, £9.95 each

Hear Henk van der Maten play the John E West Passacaglia here:

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Frederick Stocken

Frederick Stocken will give the world premiere of his new piece Faith, Love, Hope during a recital at St Lawrence Jewry, next to Guildhall in the City of London, on Tuesday 11 February at 1pm.

He says the inspiration to write a piece about Faith came as a response to the Catholic Church’s ‘Year of Faith’ from 2012 to 2013.

“The music that became Faith is an exultant toccata-like piece with a motto theme in the pedals based on how the words ‘I believe’ might be sung. It became apparent that I had some more music brewing for the other so-called ‘theological virtues’, Hope and Love, although, to make a more satisfying succession of three pieces, with Love as the still centre of the group and Hope as a climax, I changed the traditional order of listing the virtues – Faith, Hope and Love – to that of the title.”

The whole piece lasts about ten minutes, with each movement in the region of three minutes, and he intends that each of the pieces might be suitable for the liturgy on its own, or that all three might make a satisfactory recital group.

Although Frederick is a Catholic, his Jewish Grandmother died in the Holocaust.

He adds ” In October 2013, I was privileged to travel with my mother to Bechhofen, the town in Bavaria where my mother’s family came from, for the unveiling of a memorial to the thirty-two Jews that were deported by the Nazis.  In memory of my grandmother, Rosa Bechhofer, and the other Jews of the town,  I will be giving a second performance of Faith, Love, Hope later in 2014 in a recital in Bechhofen.  It is especially serendipitous, therefore, that the first performance of the work will be at St Lawrence Jewry.”

The full recital programme:

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750): Prelude and Fugue in G major, BWV541

Simon Sechter (1788–1867): two chorale preludes from 18 Choralvorspiele, Op90
Hier legt mein Geist sich vor dir nieder
Lobe den Herren

César Franck (1822–1890): Pièce Héroïque, No. 3 from Trois Pièces pour Grand Orgue

César Franck:  Prélude, Fugue et Variation, Op. 18, from Six Pièces pour Grand Orgue

Frederick Stocken: Faith, Love, Hope (World Premiere)

Five questions for…..Frederick Stocken

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If you’ve only experienced Stanford’s settings of the Canticles with organ accompaniment, can I heartily recommend this CD?

New editions of the orchestral scores to Stanford’s four settings of the Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis have been created by Robert King, for performance by the King’s Consort, and they provide a whole new dimension to this music, so familiar to anyone brought up in the Anglican tradition:  showcasing Stanford’s deftness with orchestration,  and his love of the music of Brahms and Wagner.  My absolute favourite is the Nunc Dimittis in A – opening with touching solo celli, and building to a “bridge to Valhalla” moment on the brass at To be a light to lighten the Gentiles….

The CD also includes Parry’s Coronation Te Deum, Blest Pair of Sirens, and a thoughtful performance of I was Glad – again with the orchestral material created from careful new editions from the composer’s own manuscripts.

Jeremy Dibble brought this CD to our attention at the recent London Organ Forum and he contributes an excellent essay on Stanford and Parry to the accompanying notes. This is the first release on VIVAT, the King’s Consort own record label, and I’m not surprised went straight to number one in the UK Specialist Classical Charts, and was a finalist in the 2013 Gramophone awards.

I WAS GLAD
SACRED MUSIC OF STANFORD AND PARRY
The King’s Consort/Choir of the King’s Consort/Robert King/Carolyn Sampson/David Wilson-Johnson
VIVAT101 

available from the usual outlets of course, and also from the King’s Consort website.

You might also like:

Playing Elgar – with Dr Christopher Kent

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You can find it here.

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