What sticks most in my mind right now?  – that sometimes you can only understand something by experiencing it.

The practice in early English and French churches, of having separate organs all over the building, used for different parts of the service, seemed odd to me.  But today we did a Choral Eucharist service at St Giles with me accompanying the choir for the service music (Merbecke) on the small Chancel organ, and the hymns and voluntaries being taken by other students on the Grand organ at the other end of the church.   And it seemed a very natural arrangement.

A panorama of St Giles – Chancel organ on the left, Grand organ on the right

Likewise I had never really understood the practice of alternatum – at its stylistic height in the French Catholic Church of the late seventeenth century.  Why would you want to replace a verse of the Mass or Vespers with the organ playing a verset, in alternation with sung verses by the choir?  In Tim Wakerell’s St Paul’s recital on Thursday he set the de Grigny Ave maris stella into context, alternating the four movements with a cantor singing verses from the Marian Vesper hymn of the same name.   And although I can’t quite explain why, again, it did make a great deal of emotional sense.

*1800

Elgar scholar and RCO Trustee Dr Christopher Kent presents our final certificates

You might also like:

RCO Summer Course 2013 – on improvisation

RCO Summer Course 2013 – St Etheldreda’s Chapel

RCO Summer Course 2013 – the Lord Mayor’s Palace

Playing Elgar – with Dr Christopher Kent

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The casework on the Mander 1990 organ at St Andrews, Holborn, London. Just had to include this because it’s so beautiful

The RCO sees improvisation as an Essential Skill for organists, so we’ve had these daunting/inspirational workshops on improvisation all through the course from some of the best in the business.   Some students have decided to try and keep the momentum going, and are planning to hold monthly get-togethers (probably on Saturday afternoons) in churches in East London to work at improvisation together.  If you are interested in joining, email    organist(at)allsaintsgoodmayes.org.uk    (use the @ symbol there, obviously – I’m just evading the spammers).

You might also like:

RCO Summer Course 2013 – playovers and extensions

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Q.  How many altos does it take to change a lightbulb?

A.  One, and nine others to say ‘But it’s too high for me’

Q.  How many sopranos does it take to change a light bulb?

A.  One, and nine others to say ‘But why didn’t he choose ME?’

Q.  How many tenors does it take to change a lightbulb?

A.  None, you just say thank you for coming.

Q.  How many organists does it take to change a lightbulb?

A.  One, and nine others to say ‘Change?  CHANGE??!’

Thank you Simon and Church2 group this morning for those.

And another from Frederick:

Q.   How many organists does it take to change a lightbulb?

A.   One, and nine others to say ‘You realise all the wiring on this has got to be replaced first?’

And someone’s just sent me this one:

Q.   How many choir directors does it take to change a lightbulb?

A.   No-one knows; no one has ever looked.

(thank you David Lee, www.servicemusic.org.uk)

You might also like:

RCO Summer Course 2013 – St Etheldreda’s Chapel

RCO Summer Course 2013 – playovers and extensions

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The North Case and console at St Etheldreda’s Chapel – the gallery is only the width of those two railings

Our practice sessions on the organ at St Etheldreda’s Chapel come with multiple Heath & Safety warnings.  NOT SUITABLE FOR TALL OR LARGE PLAYERS says our information pack firmly, and by the time you’ve negotiated a tiny and perilous spiral staircase, and squeezed yourself behind the compact console on the narrow gallery which runs along the top of the choir screen, you understand why.  Your back is to the North Case, containing the Great and (slightly disconcertingly) the Swell – facing you on the south wall is the case containing the Pedal division.  Swiss makers Spath Orgelbau designed and installed this organ in 2009, replacing pipes and mechanism which had become less than reliable and impossible to maintain.   However the casework has been kept, designed by J F Bentley (architect of Westminster Cathedral) during the restoration of the church in the late 19th century.

The 19th century restoration was a result of the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829, making it no longer illegal for Catholics to have churches and say Mass in England.  The story of St Etheldreda’s Chapel is long and complicated, but it began its life as the town chapel of the Bishops of Ely from about 1250.  It’s the oldest Catholic church in England, and one of the only two remaining buildings in London from the reign of Edward 1.   Bringing along some of the earliest organ repertoire, I played Weelkes and Tomkins there this afternoon – and realised the chapel had been standing for a full 300 years before these men and their music came along.

The diminutive organ cases suggest a modest chapel instrument, but the organ has been voiced with a big warm sound and fills the building.  I’m not the first person to find some of the 4′ and higher stops a bit screamy at the top – or perhaps it’s just they respond particularly well to the chapel acoustic.  But I spent a happy hour there today, watched over by the eight lifesize statues of English Reformation martyrs around the walls.

It’s dark and still in the Chapel, and it’s difficult to capture this in a photograph. But you can see the two organ cases either side of the choir screen, and the Martyrs looking mournfully down.

St Etheldreda’s Chapel is in Ely Place, London EC1. Its website is here.

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We practise our hymn extensions on the Walker 1963 organ at St John the Evangelist, Islington, North London

Nothing gets church organists going much more than a discussion of hymn playing – a cue for despairing anecdotes about unmusical congregations, and even more unmusical clergy.  Simon Williams kept us (reasonably) on track this morning on a Church Music workshop, taking us through hymn registration, length and style of playovers, and general leading of the congregation.   He shared with us the Daniel Moult Patent Hymn Extension Method – perfect for organists nervous of improvisation, but needing to supply a minute or two of extra something at the end of the hymn.  It goes like this:

If the hymn has finished (but the service business hasn’t quite)  find an interesting inner part of a line of the hymn (tenor or alto) and play it alone, or in octaves

Play it again, adding the third above

Play the whole line in four part harmony

Find another interesting inner part

Repeat

Finish the hymn in four part harmony, playing the final cadence at a ceremonial half speed

As you get your confidence, you can vary the technique, perhaps adding a few passing notes, or modulating a bit.

We’re all grateful to Dan for this wizzo idea.  (Dan is also teaching on the course, and I’m off to hear him talk about Sweelinck and Scheidermann next.  More about Simon and Dan below.)

We were playing on the 1963 Walker organ at St John the Evangelist, Duncan Terrace, in North London.  From its looks and its bright, beefy sound, you might think it was a mechanical action organ of the 60s neo-baroque school, but in fact it’s one of the last electro-pneumatic organs made.

Peter Stevens of Westminster Cathedral will be giving a recital on this organ on 28th September 2013, at 7.30pm, as part of the Anniversary Series celebrating 50 years since its opening.

The Walker 1963 organ at St John the Evangelist, Islington, North London

Five questions for…Simon Williams

The art of concentration with Daniel Moult

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The Mander 2013 organ, a gift for The Queen. The design is based loosely on case designs of 18th century English chamber organs, but that is where any similarity to such instruments ceases, as it has been designed to fit its final home in Westminster Abbey. The front pipes are gilded with French red gold leaf

The Corporation of the City of London commissioned an inspired gift for HM The Queen for her Diamond Jubilee this year – an organ, which is temporarily installed in The Mansion House, the home of the Lord Mayor of London*.   The present Lord Mayor, Roger Gifford, welcomed us to ‘one of the few working palaces in England’  as he put it, for a short recital on the organ.  Henry Fairs, Head of Organ Studies at Birmingham Conservatoire, put this little organ through its paces, and very fine it sounded.  It was made in the Mander Organs workshops in Bethnal Green, in the East End of London, and will eventually live in Westminster Abbey.  Henry’s recital included JS Bach, Scheidemann and William Russell.   He accompanied a Fancy by Thomas Tomkins with the Nightingale stop, complete with revolving tweety-birds which pop out of the top of the case – though a few minutes of this was quite enough.

Henry Fairs is one of our tutors on the course, and also a very busy recitalist.  You can see his forthcoming recital diary on his website here.

*The Lord Mayor of London is an ancient office of the City of London (once genuinely held by Dick Whittington), and not to be confused with the Mayor of London (currently Boris Johnson) who has power over Greater London.

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What’s the collective noun for organists? A mixture perhaps….

Seventy-seven organists go quiet as they digest their timetables for the week.  The course caters for organists at all levels, with classes for everyone from total beginners to diploma. Tomorrow it all starts in earnest, when we will scatter to the winds around the City of London, to the 24 pipe organs and 22 churches set aside for our lessons and practice sessions.  And there are 6 digital organs and 9 dummy pedalboards too, in and around Course HQ, St Giles Cripplegate in the Barbican.

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Anne Marsden Thomas

Anne Marsden Thomas is the Head of the RCO Academy Organ School, co-ordinating the activities of a team of teachers and the studies of around 300 organ students.   In 1990 she was responsible for the National Learn the Organ Year, which attracted over 2,000 applicants – a huge number of organists looking for good teaching.  Anne established the St Giles International Organ School, based at St Giles Cripplegate Church in the City of London, to respond to this need, and this has just been taken under the stewardship of the Royal College of Organists to form the RCO Academy Organ School.   Anne directs the splendid Summer Course at St Giles, which attracts over 70 students each year from around the world.   More on the Summer Course here.    Anne is Director of Music at St Giles Cripplegate, and her concert and teaching work has taken her to Japan and the US, as well as all over Europe and the UK.  She has made several recordings, including the organ music of Henry Smart on the St Giles organ.

Here are Anne’s answers to my five questions:

Which piece of music are you studying at the moment and why?
Since I stopped giving recitals I mainly learn pieces that my students need or that will suit my church services.  For example,  I decided that my summer church organ voluntaries would be the lively movements from the Bach concerto transcriptions so that’s one book in my music case at the moment.

What has been your best experience as an organist?
Playing the last movement of Whitlock’s Sonata at St. Giles at 4 a.m. during our fundraising 6-day marathon several years ago.  I love the piece and it felt magical to play such passionate music in the middle of the night.

What has been your worst experience as an organist?
Turning up to play a recital at a venue which will remain nameless, only to find that the organ was in a terrible state: missing notes, inconsistent speech, several cyphers.   Ugh!  (There was nearly a happy ending to this experience.  I turned the organ off to go out for a breath of air and sanity, and when I returned the organ refused to turn on again.  The relief!  Unfortunately the resident organist showed up and got the organ started, so I had to limp through the recital anyway.)

What’s the best piece of advice you were given by an organ teacher?  (and who was it?)
‘Listen!’  Dame Gillian Weir.  Actually, she didn’t exactly say that, but that was always the effect of her teaching: to make one listen to what the music was really saying.
 
What would be your own best piece of advice for student organists?
Play your best and don’t worry about others judging you.

Anne has drawn on her long experience of teaching and playing to compile and edit the repertoire for the Oxford Service Music for Organ graded anthologies; one set (3 volumes) for manuals only, the second set (3 volumes) for manuals and pedals. Within each book the pieces are grouped according to service needs into Preludes, Interludes, Processionals, and Postludes. The repertoire spans the 16th to the 21st century, with some new pieces written especially for the collection, and a number of pieces from the books are now on the ABRSM organ syllabus.  Oxford Service Music for Organ: Manuals and Pedals, Book 1 was winner of the Music Industries Association’s Best Classical Publication 2011.  They are published by OUP.

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There’s also an interview with our new RCO President, Catherine Ennis – she’s not teaching us, sadly, but I still thought you might like to read it:

Five questions for…Catherine Ennis

Five questions for…Neil Cockburn

Five questions for…Roger Carter

Five questions for…Simon Williams

Five questions for…Gerdi Troskie

Archangels from Frederick Stocken

The art of concentration with Daniel Moult

Meeting with giants – Gerard Brooks and the organ of Westminster Hall

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Find all my posts under RCO Summer Course 2013 on the right hand side of this page.
Picture of St Paul’s from Jedyooo/Wiki Commons

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