Innholdsfortegnelse for May 2022 i Choir & Organ

THE VAUGHAN WILLIAMS MEMORIAL LIBRARY (VWML), England’s national folk and dance archive, has announced a call for papers for its 2022 conference. Entitled ‘Once more to the mouths of the people: Vaughan Williams and folk song’, the conference will be held in Cecil Sharp House in London NW1, home to the English Folk Dance and Song Society, the custodian of VWML, and online on 12-13 November. The 2022 conference celebrates Ralph Vaughan Williams in his 150th year, examining his relationship with folk song. Prospective contributors are invited to propose papers on any aspect of the subject, including (but not limited to) Vaughan Williams as a folk song collector; his philosophies and motivation; his relationship with fellow collectors, composers and folklorists; his use of folk material in his compositions and arrangements…

ROXANNA PANUFNIK ANDREWRABBOTT ROXANNA PANUFNIK’S COMMISSION for Paul Provost and the Choir of Southwell Minster headlines a bountiful month for new choral and organ music. Southwell Minster Choir Association commissioned Panufnik to mark the recent completion of the National Lotteryfunded ‘Leaves of Southwell’ project, an initiative to protect the Minster’s 13th-century naturalistic carvings and make them more accessible to the public. The new work, Heaven, sets a poem by the 17th-century metaphysical poet George Herbert. Panufnik said: ‘Herbert takes inspiration from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, where Hera condemns Echo, from that day on, to only be able to repeat the last words addressed to her, and nothing else. My setting has kept faithful to Herbert’s old English, makes much of the Minster’s reverberant acoustics, with plentiful echoes, and ends with an imploring…

Mozart Collectors’ Edition of Gramophone, 99 years in the making 100 pages of expert and authoritative articles to explore Recommended recordings of all of Mozart’s most significant works Interviews with today’s leading interpreters Coming soon: two special editions celebrating Mahler and film music. Pre-order your copies with Mozart and save £8.98. Order your copy for just £12.99 today Go to www.magsubscriptions.com/mozart Call: 0800 137201 (UK) or +44 (0)1722 716997 (Overseas) P&P is free for UK address. An additional charge will be added for shipping overseas. Gramophone Presents Mozart (£12.99) is available now; Gramophone Presents Mahler will be published in July 2022 (£12.99); Gramophone Presents Film Music will be published in November 2022 (£12.99). Pre-orders will be shipped from these dates. Bundle package of all three available for £29.99.…

KURT LUEDERS For more than a century, a small but significant number of British organ builders have sought pastures new in the USA. John T. Austin was one of the first, in 1899 founding the firm which still bears the Austin name. Following him in 1903 was Robert Hope-Jones. Despite the sneer which his name often raises on organists’ lips, his legacy – the cinema/theatre organ, the chest magnet, the detached electric console, the diaphone, ‘orchestral’ reeds, flutes and strings of extreme scale – is hardly insignificant. A generation later, in 1927, the Willis-trained G. Donald Harrison (1889-1956) arrived at the Skinner Organ Company (from 1932: ‘Aeolian-Skinner’), to enhance Ernest Skinner’s tonal schemes with Willis pattern mixtures and reeds. Once Skinner had been ousted from his own firm, Harrison developed…

VOCES8 University of St Andrews Music Centre St Paul’s Cathedral Oundle for Organists Clare College, Cambridge Southbank Centre National Youth Choirs of Great Britain Royal College of Organists European Choral Association-Europa Cantat Canadian International Organ Competition Merton College, Oxford Orgelfestival Holland Saint Thomas, Fifth Avenue Royal Holloway University of London Three Choirs Festival BBC Singers Association of British Choral Directors Royal Canadian College of Organists European Cities of Historic Organs St John’s College, Cambridge St Albans International Organ Festival Salisbury Cathedral International Federation for Choral Music Longwood Gardens International Organ Competition 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…

WELLS CATHEDRAL is seeking to raise £2 million to restore its Grand Organ. The Cathedral has housed an organ since the early 14th century. The present four-manual, 67-stop instrument, which includes pipework by Samuel Green from 1786, was built by Henry Willis in 1857. In 1910 the Durham firm of Harrison & Harrison enlarged the instrument and later rebuilt it in 1973-74. The restoration will entail all 5,000 existing pipes being removed for repair, cleaning or replacement, and an overhaul of the console, the pedals and the stops. In addition, to celebrate HM The Queen’s Platinum Jubilee in 2022, a range of Jubilee Trumpets is to be commissioned. The instrument will also gain its first 32ft stop. The Cathedral’s director of music, Jeremy Cole, told C&O: ‘From the local community…

ELIZAVETA SUSLOVA part 3 Joachim Wagner’s finest preserved work At the beginning I had many enviers, slanderers and detractors on account of this project, but may this creation praise the master and put all of them to shame. So wrote Joachim Wagner (1690-1749) upon completion of his Opus 1 masterpiece in Berlin’s St Marienkirche – a landmark organ that marked the birth of a distinctive Berlin/Brandenburg school of organ building. Having explored the Marienkirche organ in its modern-day guise in part 2 of this series, I now travel 40 miles west of the German capital to Brandenburg an der Havel. Brandenburg is surrounded by water and nature reserves and at its historic heart lies the beautiful Dominsel (cathedral island) and brick Gothic cathedral. The magnificent organ (1722-25) housed within its…

part 4 Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-76) Samuel Sebastian Wesley is widely regarded as the foremost English church musician of the Victorian era. Nicholas Temperley considered that Wesley ‘towers above the lesser men of his time, and now begins to look pre-eminent in the cathedral music of the last 250 years’.1 Not everyone would pass quite so sweeping a judgement, but Wesley’s originality, boldness of expression and technical ingenuity were unquestionable. His claims to pre-eminence as a player were equally strong. Reviewing the opening recital on a new organ in St Thomas’s, Bury in 1868 the writer commented that: AUTHOR’S COLLECTION Dr Wesley seems to be the connecting link between what are conventionally known as the old and new schools of the organ, possessing as he does the peculiarly ‘close’ touch…

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PANTCHEFF ORGAN WORKS The title track of Passacaglia on a Theme of Benjamin Britten [Prima Facie PFCD 174-175] refers to a fragment of handwritten manuscript – a theme written for Jean Langlais on which to improvise – which had lain unseen for 50 years. Richard Pantcheff composed the work in honour of Britten and in response to a request from Jane Parker-Smith – to whose memory this two-disc set is dedicated – for a new organ work for the Britten 100 Festival in 2013. The disc’s programme, played by Simon Passmore at St Ann’s, Manchester, includes A Sequence for St George, written for the inauguration of the new Rieger organ (2012) at St George’s Anglican Church, Parktown, Johannesburg, where Pantcheff was director of music (2012-19) and remains composer-in-residence. Elisabeth Lutyens:…

CHOIRS, COMPOSERS, AND CONDUCTORS are among the many musicians who have united in response to the tragedy unfolding in Ukraine. On Ash Wednesday, John Rutter heard the Choir of Clare College, Cambridge sing Valentin Silvestrov’s Prayer for Ukraine, one of many choral works Silvestrov wrote in response to Ukrainian citizens’ ‘Euromaidan’ protests and the Revolution of Dignity in 2013-14. The day after the chapel service, Rutter wrote his own setting of the Ukrainian text which translates as: Lord, protect Ukraine. Give us power, faith and hope… Our Father. Of A Ukrainian Prayer Rutter said: ‘I had the opportunity to put it together at very short notice with a wonderful group of 300 people (at a workshop I was leading in Wandsworth, London). It still speaks with my own voice, but…

THE THREE CHOIRS FESTIVAL has launched its programme for 2022. Eighty events are programmed for 23-30 July in and around Hereford. Geraint Bowen, 2022’s artistic director and director of music at Hereford Cathedral, has chosen re-imaginings and new beginnings as the theme. Inspired by the 1946 Hereford festival, the first after a seven-year hiatus, and based upon the 1939 festival which was cancelled only days before it was due to take place, Hereford 2022 will revive George Dyson’s Quo Vadis and Gerald Finzi’s Dies Natalis. What is now known as the first part of Quo Vadis (movements 1-5) and the Finzi were both written for the 1939 festival but were not performed at Three Choirs until seven years later. This performance of Dyson’s setting of a cycle of poems will…

COURTESY JAM THE JOHN ARMITAGE MEMORIAL TRUST (JAM) has issued a call for sketches of new works for choir. Sketches for a cappella SATB voices of up to 50 bars, setting a non-copyright text, can be submitted anonymously free of charge. Deadline: 20 May. Alongside the call on 22 April, JAM has released a series of short video guides on composing for choirs with the international vocal ensemble VOCES8, focusing on aspects such as breathing, tessitura, voice-leading and phrasing. JAM’s panel of choral experts will choose six submissions for a public workshop in St Leonard’s Church, Hythe, on 9 July during the JAM on the Marsh festival. The workshop will be led by VOCES8 and JAM president Paul Mealor. In the private masterclass that follows, Mealor will give tips to…

DANIEL OI Listening to Alan and Rebecca Tavener talking about how they set up their professional chamber choir Cappella Nova in 1982 offers a glimpse of a halcyon world of thriving city centres and what now looks like a generous supply of public money to support all manner of community activity. Just married, the couple had taken a leap into the unknown and moved from Oxford to Glasgow when Alan was appointed director of music at the University of Strathclyde; Rebecca was employed running concerts for the University of Glasgow. A ground-breaking ‘Glasgow’s Miles Better’ promotional campaign was in full swing, and would lead to the 1988 Glasgow Garden Festival, followed by a year as European City of Culture in 1990. These well-funded activities raised the city’s national and international…

DH: Welcome, Sarah! What’s your favourite cuisine? SM: I’m a lactose-intolerant vegetarian and Marcus, my partner, is coeliac, so we eat a lot of vegetarian and vegan food and no gluten. Vegetarian Italian with gluten-free pasta and lactose-free cheese is ideal for us. DH: Arguably we should all be going in that direction. So, if you went into a room of very nice rosé, white and red wine, which would you go for first? SM: It depends on the time of year. White and rosé in spring and summer and more red wine in the winter – and gin and tonic any time of the year! DH: I wouldn’t disagree with a lot of that. Mozart or Haydn? SM: Do I have to choose one of them? Maybe Mozart when…

ALLIE BRIDGER When Matthew Shorten appears on my screen, he has just got over some exhausting globe-trotting to obey Covid regulations in south-east Asia. One of 18 annual scholars supported by the Henry Luce Foundation since 1974, he is singing, conducting, composing and teaching his way around Thailand, Singapore (his current location) and, regulations permitting, Japan. The scheme provides US graduates with stipends, language training and placement opportunities to immerse themselves in Asian culture that would not otherwise come their way. East and south-east Asia are invigorating, culturally and artistically, and I was immediately drawn to the opportunity for immersion and professional experience,’ Shorten explains. ‘I began with six weeks in Phuket, Thailand.’ He contacted music schools there and was taken on as a visiting artist to give masterclasses and…

It’s difficult to imagine today, but not so long ago few had heard of Antonio Vivaldi. His music lay dormant for centuries until, in 1927, the virtuoso violinist Fritz Kreisler published a pastiche concerto, claiming it to be by Vivaldi. Even though it was soon revealed to be a hoax, it sparked a keen interest in reviving the baroque composer’s vast orchestral, choral and operatic output. By 1939, as the shadow of war lay across Europe, enthusiasm was such that the Italian composer Alfredo Casella organised a Vivaldi Week in Siena. In his programme was a reconstruction of a piece set to become a favourite with choirs the world over – the Gloria in D RV 589, known universally as Vivaldi’s Gloria. But that piece might never have gained such…

Over the past five decades the A. Thompson-Allen Company of New Haven, Connecticut, has built up an unrivalled and fully justified reputation for the immaculate conservation and restoration of early 20th-century organs, particularly those by the Skinner Organ Company and its successor, Aeolian-Skinner. The cornerstone of their work has been the various stages of restoration of the high-romantic Ernest Skinner organ (a 1928 rebuild) in Yale University’s Woolsey Hall. In 2017 the latest phase of that work (restoration of the Pedal division and of the enormous and complex console) was completed, and the firm continues with new projects. As the wheel of fashion has turned, players and audiences once more have come to revel in the high-romantic opulence of the grand Skinner organs of the first decades of the 20th…

CHRIST CHURCH, ALEXANDRIA, VIRGINIA / CZESLAW LADOGORSKI HALLE / OMITS TONALITY / COURTESY TONALITY TONALITY The members of a Los Angeles choir confront issues of discrimination and injustice in their music. HARRISON & HARRISON The Virginia church where President George Washington worshipped has a long-anticipated new instrument from the UK. FLOR PEETERS Though known primarily for his organ music, the Belgian composer has an intriguing choral canon ripe for exploring. LYREBIRD MUSIC An innovative publishing company is releasing scholarly new editions of early keyboard music HANDEL FESTIVAL HALLE Saxony-Anhalt’s oldest music festival marks 100 years of celebrating the music of Halle’s most famous son. Plus… International news and previews, specialist reviews, new releases, recitals, regular columns, and readers’ offers.…