Innholdsfortegnelse for January/February 2023 i Choir & Organ

New year is tradionally a time for looking back over the previous 12 months and looking ahead to the coming year. During 2022 Choir & Organ has celebrated the building of new organs such as the Flentrop at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, the Nicholson at Radley College, and the Harrison & Harrison in Virginia; applauded the work of pioneering choirs and composers, such as Tonality, the Washington Chorus, and Hailstork’s A Knee on the Neck; learned more about choral conducting from David Hill’s conversations; promoted the work of young composers through our New Music series; explored the choral canon of composers past and present; said farewell to some major contributors to the world of music, such as Francis Jackson, Simon Preston and Richard Seal; celebrated the music of Vaughan Williams in…

NED ROREM (1923-2022) The composer and writer Ned Rorem has died aged 99. Born in Richmond, Indiana, Rorem studied with organist-composer Leo Sowerby at the American Conservatory in Chicago before moving on to Northwestern University, the Curtis Institute and the Juilliard School in New York. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship (1951), a Guggenheim Fellowship (1958) and the Pulitzer Prize for Music (1976). A CD of his orchestral works won a Grammy in 1989. In addition to eight operas, five symphonies, a dozen or so concertos, and over 500 art songs, Rorem leaves large corpora of choral and solo organ works. His choral catalogue includes numerous substantial works with orchestra including: The Poet’s Requiem (1955), setting Kafka, Rilke and Cocteau among others, Letters from Paris (1966), setting Janet…

James Lloyd Thomas holds the East Midlands RCO Training Day II on 7 Jan at St Peter and St Paul, Kettering on the Kenneth J. Canter organ. The morning session is aimed at pianists making the transition to organ. A session on building organ repertoire follows. The final session is a workshop for players preparing for RCO qualifications. East Midlands RCO Training Day III, which follows the same schedule, will be led by Thomas on 18 Feb at All Hallows, Wellingborough on the Nicholson-Canter organ. Fees for both days are: Participants (full day): RCO member £35 or student member £20; non-member £45 or student £27; (1 or 2 sessions): RCO member £28 or student member £15; non-member £37 or student £20. Non-participant / observer rates also available. rco.org.uk/events.php On 19…

CELEBRATING THE NEW After two years of interrupted work patterns, the completion of new organs comes as a sign of hope that the Covid pandemic may be largely behind us. On 21 January, a new Eule organ at Magdalen College, Oxford, will be celebrated at Festal Evensong (see News, p.6); and the same day, James Lancelot will give a Gala concert on the Quire organ in Worcester Cathedral, which underwent a major clean following the after-effects of Storm Arwen in November 2021. Meanwhile, Thomas Trotter is to inaugurate two new instruments. The first is of a rebuilt organ at the London church of St Gabriel’s, Pimlico, with work carried out by Nicholson & Co. Ltd. Managing director Andrew Caskie told C&O: ‘The aim of the project has been to realise…

David Wells was born into the Liverpool organ-building tradition, serving his apprenticeship with the Liverpool branch of Henry Willis & Sons Ltd. Working with the late Henry Willis IV, Wells specialised as a pipe-maker, voicer and tuner, ultimately becoming works manager. In 1977, after 18 years with Willis, Wells joined the Durham firm of Harrison & Harrison as their northwest area tuner. Then, in 1981, he set up his own enterprise – a brave step for any young organ builder – establishing David Wells Organ Builders Ltd. Work came in swiftly, and with it the need for additional staff, so a more spacious workshop was required and the firm moved to Brunswick Dock, staying there until 1998 when larger workshop and office premises were created in The Cathedral Works, at…

JOANNA MARSH AND LIZ DILNOT JOHNSON have won awards for their choral works at the 20th edition of The Ivors Composer Awards. Marsh’s piece for unaccompanied choir, All Shall Be Well, setting texts from Julian of Norwich’s Revelation of Divine Love, took the Choral Award. It was commissioned by the Rt Hon. Patricia Hewitt for Suzi Digby and the ORA Singers, who gave the premiere at VOCES8 Foundation’s Live from London Summer Festival in 2021. The jury commended it as ‘a superbly crafted, elegantly original and beautifully wrought work for voices.’ Marsh told C&O: ‘The Ivors Composer Awards event draws together the music industry in a celebration of new work, and it is a huge honour to have a composition nominated. Winning the category and hearing why the judges responded…

‘TROCADERO AND TOWN HALLS’ is the theme of the 11th Bloomsbury Organ Day, to be held on 28 January at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church in Shaftesbury Avenue, London. The focus of the day will be on music written for the theatre and town halls, and how this has made its way onto the organ. Major presentations will be given by Philip Norman and Richard Brasier. Norman will look at the history of playing orchestral and other music on the organ, how this has influenced the design of organs, and reviewing some of the techniques used by the most successful (and unsuccessful) transcribers. Brasier will discuss in depth his new edition of the César Franck intégrale, giving demonstrations on the organ. Recitals will be given by students of the RCO (Royal…

I have just had the privilege of presenting the 70th anniversary Gala concert of Aldeburgh Music Club at Snape Maltings. AMC began in 1952 as a small group of like-minded amateur musicians who loved to meet and rehearse together with the participation of co-founders Benjamin Britten and Peter Pears, later joined by Imogen Holst; over the years it blossomed into a full-blown choral enterprise employing professional conductors, soloists and, for the last few years, its offshoot, the Prometheus Orchestra. But AMC’s core principle remains to provide an enjoyable way for singers in the community to participate in great music. The programme, under current music director Tom Appleton, offered a perfect reflection of Britten’s musical personality, with an added dash of pure entertainment. Britten’s arrangement of the National Anthem was followed…

New Music is a series of pieces for choir or organ by talented young composers featured in Choir & Organ. Visit our website to ▶ PRINT unlimited copies of the work free of charge. ▶ WATCH a video of the piece being performed by the Choir of King’s College London. New Music scores are available under licence to be printed free of charge for a period of six months, after which copies must be destroyed as copyright reverts to the composer. See our website for details. World Premiere Joseph Fort conducts the Choir of King’s College London in the world premiere of Kristina Arakelyan’s Te lucis ante terminum at Evensong on Tuesday 17 January at 5.30pm in the chapel of King’s College, Strand, London WC2R 2LS. New Music Video Watch…

CD CAROLS AFTER A PLAGUE The Crossing / Donald Nally (dir) New Focus Recordings FCR357 After two years of the Covid pandemic, this album is a poignant and powerful statement of the importance of community. Taking ‘carol’ in its broadest sense, 12 composers have contributed their own personal musical responses not only to the pandemic, but also to other ills and injustices that ‘plague’ our society today. Under the direction of Donald Nally, polished professional ensemble The Crossing produce ‘beautifully blended, liquid sounds’ (see review, p.71). Courtesy of The Crossing, we have 3 copies to give away; quote code ‘CAROLS’. CD PETR EBEN: VELVET REVOLUTION Janette Fishell, Fisk organ Opus 135 (2010), Auer Hall, Jacob’s School of Music, Indiana University, Bloomington Brilliant Classics 96312 (3CDs) ‘Superlative performances’ (see review, p.65)…

As an itinerant keyboardist, I have often played continuo in the Baroque masterpieces of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi et al. On many occasions I have been presented with sub-par instruments which were too quiet, too out-of-tune or too unreliable. Chamber organs and harpsichords are often expensive to hire, difficult to transport and require someone to tune them. I wondered if there was a digital solution to these problems that maintained as much musical integrity as possible. In 2014 I was invited to play organ continuo in a Messiah production that was on a very tight budget. I assembled a proof of concept that consisted of a Roland midi keyboard hooked up to an old Windows laptop operating the Hauptwerk organ sampling software. I used the 5.1 surround sound speaker system from…

Bach: English Suites BWV 806-811 Lorenzo Ghielmi, harpsichord by Detmar Hungelbert (2014) after Michael Mietke (c.1710) Passacaille PAS 1114 (2CDs) [72:30; 76:02] As Lorenzo Ghielmi states in the liner notes, there is nothing English in these suites, but a wealth of French, German and Italian genres and styles, all of which Bach assimilated into his unique compositional language. Ghielmi is a master harpsichordist who plays with rhythmic security and fine control over expressive nuances on this excellent instrument. Tempi are well judged, although there is scope for more flexibility and rhetorical drama in some movements, especially the sarabandes graves of suites 2 and 3. First movements and gigues are consistently lively, and repeats are stylishly decorated. The recording quality is a model of clarity with effective ambience. DAVID PONSFORD Antonio…

The contemplation of eternity, death, and judgement informs this selection, beginning with The Sword & the Lily – 15th-century polyphony for Judgement Day [Inventa INV1008], which takes inspiration from the exquisite Beaune altarpiece The Last Judgement at the end of Time by Rogier van der Weyden. This debut disc from Fount & Origin – a low-voice group of eight young singers who received the 2019-22 Stile Antico Ensemble Development Bursary – reflects on various aspects of this celebrated ‘doom’ painting with nine appropriate works from Ockeghem, Regis, Martini, Brumel and anon, sung with enviable blend, grace and purity. A silky smooth ensemble yet a tad careful – I look forward to the day they throw caution to the wind (if the world doesn’t end first). Their French ‘u’ and other…

Carson Cooman: The Forest for the Trees Zimbel Press, US$15.95 Bálint Karosi: Four Preludes & Fugues on BACH The Leupold Foundation, US$37.00 Gottfried Rüdinger: Sechs Triostudien für Orgel (Divertimento) Edition Walhall, €13.80 Jehan Alain (arr. Harald Feller): Lamento & Deux Danses Edition Walhall, €13.80 It’s not often the Ars Subtilior (that intriguing and geographically specific late flowering of the Ars Nova) gets a look in when it comes to the organ repertoire, but it has provided a rich vein of inspiration for Carson Cooman in The Forest for the Trees, an intriguing (and sometimes very difficult) work. Several personal influences are enumerated in the composer’s preface, and while they contribute to the work’s pervading sense of struggle and confrontation, it’s probably true to say that the hugely complex polyrhythms of…

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The Los Angeles Master Chorale led by Grant Gershon has received a US$2,550,000 multi-year operating support grant from the Perenchio Foundation, the largest gift in the organisation’s 58-year history. The Perenchio Foundation is a private foundation which issues support grants to help arts organisations across Los Angeles County build their capacity and resilience. lamasterchorale.org; perenchiofoundation.org The Crossing, led by Donald Nally, has been nominated for its eighth Grammy Award in seven consecutive years in the Best Choral Performance category for the album Born: The Music of Edie Hill and Michael Gilbertson. Released on Navona Records, the album features Hill’s avian-inspired Spectral Spirits and Gilbertson’s Born and Returning. The 65th Grammy Awards will be held in Los Angeles on 5 Feb. bit.ly/3ETebBA; grammy.com Robert Ampt has retired as Sydney City Organist…

A NEW ARRANGEMENT OF HOLST’S ‘THE PLANETS’ Suite will receive its first airing on 4 February on Salisbury Cathedral’s Father Willis organ, performed by assistant director of music John Challenger. The concert is the culmination of an outreach project with La Folia involving local schools, including Exeter House special school, Salisbury Cathedral’s education team and the poet Martin Figura (whose daughter started school at Exeter House.) A series of music and poetry workshops have been taking place built around Gustav Holst’s The Planets. Figura’s modus operandi is to conduct workshops and use the participants’ words to weave into a poem. During Challenger’s performance of his transcription of The Planets, Figura will read the poems created during the workshops, while images of the planets and night drone footage of the Cathedral…

[RP = REGIONAL PREMIERE] Esa-Pekka Salonen: Concerto for Organ Iveta Apkalna (org), NOSPR/Salonen 13 Jan, NOSPR Concert Hall, Katowice, Poland Oliver Latry, Berliner Philharmoniker/Salonen 19 Jan, Berliner Philharmonie, Berlin, Germany Oliver Latry, Orchestre de Paris/Salonen 25 Jan, Philharmonie de Paris, Paris, France James MacMillan: Precious in the Sight of the Lord Choir of Farm Street Church/Graham 21 Jan, Farm Street Church, London, UK Tan Dun: Buddha Passion London Chinese Philharmonic Choir, London Philharmonic Choir and Orchestra/Dun 22 Jan, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK James MacMillan: Ye Sacred Muses The King’s Singers/Fretwork 24 Jan, Wigmore Hall, London, UK Brett Dean: In This Brief Moment [RP] CBSO Chorus, Hallé Choir, NDR Elbphilharmonie Orchester/Gilbert 2 Feb, Elbphilharmonie, Hamburg, Germany Kerensa Briggs: Height in Depth Saint Louis Chamber Chorus/Barnes 19 Feb, Third Baptist Church,…

I have often written in these pages about the inevitably subjective tensions that arise when organ builders attempt a new organ in a historic vernacular, or restore a historic organ, in theory turning the clock backwards to emulate a previous incarnation. I’m reminded of Hendrik Ahrend’s comments from an interview published a decade ago [C&O Sep/Oct 2012 p.34ff]: ‘Our customers want new pipes which sound old. Violin makers have the same problem.’ How much more problematic, therefore, does the issue become when the project is concerned at least as much with reconstruction as restoration, and when the organ hasn’t been heard in living memory? Les Riceys, in the French Aube, nestles in the midst of prime champagne-producing country. Surrounded by vineyards, the three villages which comprise ‘Les Riceys’ (Ricey-Haut, Ricey-Haut-Rive…

Cantara El Alma: Sebastián de Vivanco y la música sagrada en el Siglo de Oro Ensemble Plus Ultra, Schola Antiqua, La Danserye/Martin Cathedral of Salamanca CTSLM 001 André Caplet: Le Miroir de Jésus Chor des Bayerischen Rundfunks, Münchner Rundfunkorchester/Arman BR Klassik 900342 Bob Chilcott: Canticles of Light NFM Choir/Franków-Zelazny Signum SIGCD 729 Christopher Fox: Trostlieder Exaudi/Weeks Kairos KAI 0022005 Rachmaninov: All-Night Vigil The Clarion Choir/Fox Pentatone PTC5187019 Guillaume de Machaut: Songs from Remede de Fortune Guillaume de Machaut: Songs from Remede de Fortune Tom and Will – Weelkes and Byrd 400 Years The King’s Singers, Fretwork Signum SIGCD 731 Martin: Messe pour double choeur; Duruflé: Requiem La Maîtrise de Toulouse/Opstad Regent REGCD 557 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Coronation Mass; Vesperae solennes de Dominica; Sonate, KV 329; Alma Dei creatoris Chor des…

Van Gogh in Me: A Musical Journey Through the Times of Van Gogh and Klimt Netherlands Chamber Choir / Peter Dijkstra (dir) Alpha-Classics Alpha 638 [61:08] Originally presented as an audio-visual journey in seven stages described by its creative designers as ‘an attempt to capture the beauty and anguish of the European fin-de-siècle […] not following the path of reason, but that of feeling’, this CD is that journey’s soundtrack. We catch glimpses of the whole through some colour photographs in the liner booklet, but they hardly give much of an impression of what it must have been like. The sequence of music runs from Saint-Saëns, Debussy and Satie through to Strauss, Mahler (both Gustav and Alma) and Schoenberg, and is impressive enough, with the Netherlands Chamber Choir in fine…

Which composer can claim an audience of around four billion for the premiere of an a cappella choral piece? Step forward James MacMillan, whose anthem Who Shall Separate Us? (SSAATTBB unacc; Boosey & Hawkes 9790060140310, £2.75 print, £2.20 digital download) was written for the funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. It impressed me on that first hearing, and further study has consolidated that opinion. Aspiring composers of choral music, please note two things: the basic idea behind this anthem is beautifully simple; and – there is a basic idea. MacMillan has absorbed the natural rhythm of the text, and allowed the implication of that rhythm – an anacrusis of quavers leading to a longer note for the next natural stress – to permeate his piece. Melody and harmony strongly…