Innholdsfortegnelse for March 2022 i Choir & Organ

EDITOR’S LETTER Telling it as it is The danger of there being so many political outrages in recent months is that one’s attention is constantly diverted, allowing certain important issues to fade into the background, even though they remain unresolved. One such issue is racism. In the UK, the last 12 months have seen football crowds booing black players, and others getting aerated about statues of slave traders being pulled down and people taking the knee. Sociology professor Gary Younge pointed out in December that although the UK government commissioned three major reviews of racism between 2017 and 2019, ‘to date, none of the key recommendations have been implemented.’ A massive education programme is long overdue – and writing as a relatively privileged white person, I do not exclude myself…

RODOLFUS CHORAL COURSES THE RODOLFUS FOUNDATION CHORAL COURSES 2022 are now open for booking (see also Supplement, p.48). Applications are invited from young singers to attend the residential courses, which are held during the Easter and summer holidays. There are no auditions, and bursaries are also available. Participants on the Junior Courses (ages 8-15) sing a mixture of classical repertoire such as Bach’s Magnificat and Britten’s Missa Brevis alongside lighter fare. Those on the Senior Courses (age 16 and above) learn to sing sacred choral services and consort repertoire to a very high standard, singing Evensong at major venues like Trinity College Cambridge and Coventry Cathedral. They also take part in solo masterclasses with visiting professionals and have two private singing lessons during the week. In addition to the founder…

RECITAL ROUND-UP Alton, St Lawrence at 8pm Martin Baker (1 Mar) 01420 543628, altonorgansociety.co.uk Birmingham Town Hall at 1pm Thomas Trotter (14 Mar) 0121 780 3333 Brighton, The Meeting House, Univ. of Sussex at 12 noon D’Arcy Trinkwon (30 Mar) 01273 678217, sussex.ac.uk/chaplaincy Chelmsford Cathedral at 12 noon Richard Dunster-Sigtermans (4 Mar), 01245 294484, chelmsfordcathedral.org.uk Cheltenham College Chapel at 1.15pm James Lancelot (1 Mar) 07779 270 369 Chichester Cathedral at 1.10pm Jon Pilgrim (1 Mar) chichestercathedral.org.uk Leeds Cathedral at 1.15pm Thomas Trotter (7 Mar), Peter King (21 Mar), Alexander Ffinch (28 Mar) 0113 378 6600, leedsconcertseason.co.uk London EC4, St Paul’s Cathedral at 4.30pm Charles Maxtone-Smith (6 Mar), Benjamin Nicholas (20 Mar) 020 7651 0898 London EC4, Temple Church at 1.15pm Kelly Yeung (2 Mar), Samuel Ali (9 Mar), Rosie Vinter…

SUMMER SCHOOLS & SHORT COURSES All information correct at time of going to press. Courses may be cancelled or reinstated depending on the Covid-19 pandemic. Please check websites for the latest details. visit our online listings at www.choirandorgan.com ORGAN INTERNATIONAL ORGAN ACADEMY ALKMAAR 27 Jun-5 Jul, Grote Kerk and other churches around Alkmaar, Christoforuskerk Schagen, Grote Kerk Schermerhorn, Grote Kerk Oosthuizen, Netherlands Tutors: Benoît Mernier, Michel Bouvard, Martin Schmeding, Johannes Strobl, Menno van Delft, Pieter van Dijk and Frank van Wijk. Music by Bach, Bull, Erbach, Franck, Hassler, Schumann and Sweelinck. Contact info@orgelfestivalholland.nl orgelfestivalholland.nl INTERNATIONAL ORGAN FESTIVAL HAARLEM Summer Academy For Organists 18-29 Jul, De Grote of St Bavokerk and other churches and concert venues in Haarlem, Netherlands 27 courses with specialisms including Sweelinck, J.S. Bach, Mendelssohn and Schumann, Franck,…

READERS’ OFFERS Your chance to WIN CDs and sheet music CD VAUGHAN WILLIAMS: TRANSCRIPTIONS FROM TRURO David Briggs, Father Willis organ (1887), Truro Cathedral, Rupert Marshall-Luck (vn) Albion Records ALBCD 049 ‘Glowing with conviction’ (see review, p.73) In this 150th anniversary year of Ralph Vaughan Williams – see p.2 for details of Choir & Organ’s celebratory publication – Albion Records presents some of the composer’s best-loved orchestral works in transcriptions by that master of the art, David Briggs. One-time organist at Truro Cathedral, Briggs returns there to put its Father Willis organ through the paces of the Fifth Symphony, Five Variants on Dives and Lazarus , and an ‘exquisitely realised’ The Lark Ascending, with Rupert Marshall-Luck on violin. Courtesy of Albion Records, we have 4 copies to give away; quote code ‘RVW’.…

Orgues Létourneau – how it all began ERIC HARRISON COURTESY ORGUES LÉTOURNEAU The distinctive French-Canadian identity of Orgues Létourneau was forged in January 1979 by its founder, Fernand Létourneau, as he set about building the company’s first instrument, a six-stop practice organ, constructed in the basement of his family home in Sainte-Rosalie, Quebec province. Contracts soon followed for new pipe organs in Australia, Canada, and Austria with a new instrument – Opus 10 – for Christ Church, Vienna. The company’s first commission in the USA (Opus 27) dating from 1990 now resides in one of the two teaching studios at the University of Michigan. Interest in this 13-stop instrument attracted contracts for new pipe organs in Michigan, Virginia and Texas, and the Létourneau company grew quickly over the following decade,…

REVIEWS CONCERTS • KEYBOARD CDS • CHORAL CDS • DVDS • ORGAN MUSIC • CHORAL MUSIC • BOOKS CHORAL CDS Olivier Messiaen: Cinq rechants Vokalsolisten Kammerchor Stuttgart / Frieder Bernius (dir) Carus CAR 83523 [42:00] The final part of the ‘Tristan trilogy’ saw Messiaen drawing on his own poetic skills and also on an eclectic array of music, from Peruvian folk to troubadour songs. Such precise and delicate calibration of voices to text calls for perfect concentration by the mixed choir and an absolute clarity of tone. The excellent Stuttgart group also includes arrangements (by Clytus Gottwald) of Debussy, Ravel and Mahler, which for once serve as useful context and not just CD filler. A perfectly balanced and thoughtful programme. BRIAN MORTON Johan Duijck: L’homme désarmé Josep-Ramon Olivé (bar), Flemish…

CHOIR & ORGAN PARTNERSHIPS ASSOCIATES American Guild of Organists American Institute of Organbuilders Association of Canadian Choral Conductors Chorus America Cornell University International Society of Organbuilders Leicester Chorale Mount Royal University Oberlin College Conservatory Thornton School of Music USC To find out more about becoming a Partner or Associate, email choirandorgan@rhinegold.co.uk…

IN BRIEF In the lead up to the 200th anniversary of Bruckner’s birth in 2024, the German conductor and organist Hansjörg Albrecht is recording Bruckner’s entire oeuvre of symphonies in transcriptions for organ on Oehms Classics. The latest volume, the third in the series and featuring Symphony no.2, was recorded on the organ of Westminster Cathedral. The London Organ Day, previously scheduled for 5 March, has been postponed until Saturday 18 June. It will be held at St Peter’s Church, Vauxhall. The Incorporated Society of Musicians has been named ‘Individual Member Association of the Year’ at the UK Association Awards 2021. The Awards, now in their 18th edition, recognise and promote excellence within membership organisations and are presented by the Association of Association Executives. Making Music has announced the pairings…

EVENTS abcd webinars on a wide range of topics continue on Zoom on Saturdays 11am-12.30pm (unless otherwise advertised). Fee: £5 each. bit.ly/3IrWgRw Tickets are now available for The 1st International Online Organ Festival (IOOF), which takes place from 18 Apr-1 May. Events include 30 concert films available on demand, panel discussions, webinars and online masterclasses. io-of.org The Society of Women Organists SWOcial on 13 Mar at Newport Cathedral includes a talk by director of music Emma Gibbins, and a performance by the girl choristers. societyofwomenorganists.co.uk Women Composer Sunday on 6 Mar invites church musicians to perform voluntaries, anthems, hymns, psalms and service settings by women composers, and then upload any recordings on social media with the hashtag #WomanComposerSunday and tag @SWomenOrganists. Forthcoming RCO courses include: Renaissance Chord Progressions – structured…

NYCGB ANNOUNCE 2022 FELLOWSHIPS THE NATIONAL YOUTH CHOIRS OF GREAT BRITAIN (NYCGB) has announced that the four emerging professional musicians selected for its 2022 Fellowship programme are Jason Ching, Tim Peters, Florence Price, and Olivia Shotton. The Fellowship offers a fully funded year of development opportunities to skilled musicians from a diverse range of backgrounds and musical genres. Ching, a graduate of Royal Holloway, University of London, has enjoyed various roles as a choral scholar, following his time as a chorister at the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace. He combines teaching at a secondary school with piano teaching and work as an accompanist. Peters graduated from the University of Sheffield in 2017. His work as a freelance portfolio musician includes singing as a tenor lay clerk in the Choir of…

PREMIERES [RP = REGIONAL PREMIERE] TRAVIS ANDERSON Jake Runestad’s El Último Hilo – which will be premiered by Kantorei of Denver and Vocalis in Guatemala – sets words by Humberto Ak’abal (1952-2019), a member of the K’iche’ Mayan community in Guatemala. Ak’abal lived through the civil war that plagued Guatemala from 1960 to 1996, during which around 200,000 people died or disappeared – mostly from the indigenous Mayan population. Runestad writes, ‘For El Último Hilo I collected several of Ak’abal’s poems in hopes of sharing his story as an artist, as an important voice for his community, and as a human grappling with the complexities of existence. The music draws upon repertoire from Guatemala’s national instrument, the marimba (with inspiration from the melody “Tristezas Quetzaltecas”), and seeks to amplify Ak’abal’s…

Freestyle Evgeny mix-up; and the latest developments at St Michael’s Tenbury BY GRAEME KAY ROB SHIRET First, a mea culpa. My thanks to John Marks who wrote to point out that in my last column, about Norman Bailey, I had credited Evgeny Mravinsky as conductor of the momentous recording of Gerontius in which Norman participated: ‘But it was Evgeny Svetlanov who was principal conductor of the USSR State Symphony Orchestra and Principal Guest Conductor of the LSO at the time. I took part in the performance in the Royal Festival Hall as well as the two in Moscow. It was an extraordinary event as Clive Marks (no relation) relates…’ A couple of months ago I fulfilled a long-held ambition to visit St Michael’s, Tenbury Wells, site of the church and…

Celebrating 10 Special Years Join NIIOC’s 10 starry winners for Gala Recitals this spring Southwark Cathedral, London SE1 9DA Monday 28 March 2022, 7.30pm Belfast Cathedral, BT1 2HB Wednesday 6 April 2022, 7.30pm It set out to offer organists something unique – and few could have expected it to deliver such results. The Northern Ireland International Organ Competition (NIIOC) burst on to the scene in 2011, aiming to provide organists aged 21 and under with a supportive platform on which they could shine. It also offered shortlisted competitors professional recordings for sharing on digital outlets, as well as substantial monetary awards and international recital opportunities. As a proper trailblazer, NIIOC has changed the organ landscape locally and internationally. It also led the way for organ competitions during the pandemic, offering…

MENDELSSOHN AND THE MATTHÄUS-PASSION Reclaiming the past Malcolm Bruno explains how a birthday present to a teenage boy led to a revival of Bach’s St Matthew Passion and outlines the pragmatic revisions that facilitated its performance in a new musical era BERLIN STATE LIBRARY It was nearly 74 years from the death of J.S. Bach in July 1750 to Felix Mendelssohn’s 15th birthday. On 3 February 1824 the precocious young composer opened a most prized gift – a bespoke copy of the Matthäus-Passion. And as he was to tell his brother Paul years later in Leipzig, ‘not a single note of it was known.’ It is today inconceivable to imagine our musical heritage devoid of Bach’s music; yet in the early 19th century Bach’s works had survived largely as the…

REVIEWS CONCERTS • KEYBOARD CDS • CHORAL CDS • DVDS • ORGAN MUSIC • CHORAL MUSIC • BOOKS EARLY MUSIC Rebecca Tavener rounds up the latest releases Here’s a selection of fascinating stuff performed by ensembles from the USA, France, Belgium, Spain, Germany, plus a Euro super-group. From the States comes the rich, warm female choral sound of Seraphic Fire with St Hildegard von Bingen – Ordo Virtutem [SFMCD 16]. St Hildegard’s medicines might not comply with ‘first do no harm’, but it is an important dictum when interpreting her sacred ‘play’: less is more. This reading is tastefully minimal with generally excellent soloists, especially Luthien Brackett as the ‘heroine’, Anima, and scenes are shaped with dramatic intensity. Using a basically equal-note approach, their historically informed, imaginative, vividly fluid singing…

NEWS & PREVIEWS 2022 RCO MEDAL WINNERS ANNOUNCED RAELIZBETH SEVEN DISTINGUISED MUSICIANS, COMPOSERS AND SCHOLARS are to receive the Royal College of Organists’ highest honour, the RCO Medal, at the 2022 conferment ceremony in March. The event will combine the presentations for 2021 – which were postponed – and 2022. The Medal of the Royal College of Organists recognises distinguished achievement in one or more of the following areas relating to organ and choral music: performance, teaching, scholarship, composition, organ building, conducting, administration, and philanthropy; it is also available to recognise specific service to the College. In 2021, the honorands for distinguished achievement were organist, pedagogue, and composer Prof. Jon Laukvik; choral conductor and animateur Mr Gareth Malone OBE; and organ and choral composer Prof. Francis Pott. In 2022, the…

NEWS & PREVIEWS PAST LIVES LE COURRIER DE SAINT-HYACINTHE GASTON AREL (1928-2021) The Canadian organist Gaston Arel has died at the age of 93. At 17, Arel was appointed organist at the Cathedral of St Hyacinthe the Confessor in Saint-Hyacinthe, Quebec. In 1949, he won third prize from the Casavant (Organ) Society and then, in 1953, received a government grant to study in Paris with one of the great initiators of the 20th-century organ revival in France, André Marchal. On his return to Canada, he became organist at Church of the Immaculate Conception in Montreal, a position he held until 1974. An ardent defender of the return to the mechanical traction organ, he contributed throughout his career to the renaissance of the classical organ in Quebec, advising on the installation…

APPOINTMENTS & AWARDS Jamie Rogers has been appointed as assistant director of music at Canterbury Cathedral. Nicholas Bergin has been named as editor of The American Organist. Prior to the announcement, Bergin was a member of the magazine’s editorial and production staff. Mark Strachan, founder of the global online Choir of the Earth, has been awarded a British Empire Medal (BEM) in HM The Queen’s New Year Honours List 2022 for charitable services to musicians during Covid-19. Alexander Finlayson-Brown has been appointed organ scholar at Exeter Cathedral for the 2022-23 academic year.…

Dr Francis Jackson CBE 1917 – 2022 Dr Francis Jackson died on 10 January this year at the age of 104, surrounded by his children Alice, William and Edward. The musical world mourns the loss of such an astonishingly talented musician and eminently lovable gentleman. His life was one of service: service to the music and liturgy of York Minster; service to the world of music, with his wonderful abilities as an organist as well as a composer; and service to this country, for he was one of over three million members of the British Army who endured extreme danger and dreadful discomfort in order that we might live as free men and women. Francis came from a musical family and his talents were encouraged by his mother, a second…

BERLIN: 2 Voices of Berlin Henry Fairs continues his series on organs in the German capital with a baroque organ in the Marienkirche that has undergone multiple changes DBRNJHRJ - STOCK.ADOBE.COM part 2 Joachim Wagner’s Opus 1 reworked Berlin has long been a vibrant centre for culture and the arts. Its musical life – in particular that of the Philharmonie, Konzerthaus and opera houses – draws artists and music lovers from far and wide. Berlin’s Institut für Kirchenmusik, founded by Carl Friedrich Zelter in 1822 and today part of the music faculty of the Universität der Künste, is one the oldest German institutions for the education and training of Protestant and Roman Catholic church musicians and organists. And yet, owing in no small part to its very particular history –…

David Hill In conversation with … Ellie Slorach Orchestral and choral conductor, and artistic director of Kantos DH: Byrd or Palestrina? ES: Byrd for no particular reason other than his Mass for Four Voices. It’s a piece I have always loved and admired. DH: Brahms or Bruckner? ES: Brahms all the way, and mostly for the German Requiem. DH: Have you performed some of his other choral music? ES: Yes, we did some at university under Justin Doyle, who is a good Brahms proponent, though I think he loves Bruckner as well. I’ve also worked on parts of the Brahms symphonies with orchestras, which has helped me come round to the Requiem. I do love Bruckner and have done all his motets, but find Brahms comes more naturally to me.…

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REVIEWS CONCERTS • KEYBOARD CDS • CHORAL CDS • DVDS • ORGAN MUSIC • CHORAL MUSIC • BOOKS KEYBOARD CDS Grand Tour Korneel Bernolet, harpsichord by J.D. Dulcken (1747) in the Vleeshuis Museum, Antwerp Ramée RAM 2009 [80:27] This is an imaginative programme of Handel, Forqueray, J.S. Bach, D. Scarlatti, Rameau and Josse Boutmy, consisting of works composed around 1747, and played on the rare singlemanual Dulcken harpsichord built in the same year. Handel’s concerto from Judas Maccabeus comes from a relatively unknown sketch. Also relatively unknown are the two suites by the Belgian Josse Boutmy, whose attractive music betrays both French and Italian influences. Bach’s three-part ricercar (Musical Offering), Scarlatti’s two F minor sonatas, Rameau’s La dauphine and six pieces by Forqueray complete the programme, which is excellently played…

REVIEWS CONCERTS • KEYBOARD CDS • CHORAL CDS • DVDS • ORGAN MUSIC • CHORAL MUSIC • BOOKS MIXTURE A four-movement suite, transcriptions and improvisations, and a prelude by Francis Jackson Matthew H. Corl’s useful Suite for Organ (Morning Star, US$10.00) carries an additional rubric – ‘with minimal pedal’ – and the work lives up to its promise, using only a small handful (if that’s the right word) of pedal interventions, these confined generally to sustained pitches or simple alternation of a pair of notes. It’s in four movements – ‘Intrada’, ‘Reflection’, ‘Cantilena’, ‘Trumpet Tune’ – and makes a workmanlike and pleasing job of managing its self-imposed limitations, with clean textures and some carefully moulded melodic shapes. The whole thing can be played on a modest two-manual instrument possessing a…

REVIEWS CONCERTS • KEYBOARD CDS • CHORAL CDS • DVDS • ORGAN MUSIC • CHORAL MUSIC • BOOKS BOOKS Bach vocal: ein Handbuch Christoph Wolff (ed.) Carus CV 24.073, ISBN 9783899484236, p/b, 272pp, €29.90 This is a reference work, in German, which catalogues all of J.S. Bach’s vocal music. My German is elementary – and that is not false modesty – yet I find this book extremely useful. The 272-page handbook (paperback A5) is laid out in six sections, the first and largest of which contains the cycle of cantatas for Sundays and feast days of the church year. The second section lists the civic cantatas, wedding, funeral and burial cantatas, the cantatas written for the bicentenary of the Augsburg Confession in 1730, and other occasional cantatas for use in…