Innholdsfortegnelse for Winter 2025 i Choir & Organ

I’ve often wondered what it is that makes Christmas music sound festive or ‘Christmassy’. Is it a particular chord progression, suspension or tempo? Or is it more about how sacred words are painted by a composer to illicit an emotion? What’s certain for many of us, is that the sound of Sir John Rutter’s carols is synonymous with the season. I grew up singing Rutter in my school Christmas concerts and chamber choir. Frosty car rides throughout December would often have my family’s favourite Rutter Carols album from The Cambridge Singers and many of us can name one that is particularly special to us. For me, ‘Jesus Child’ always brought a particular sparkly excitement. Celebrating Rutter as he turns 80 feels like an important moment. It’s clear that his career…

The British Institute of Organ Studies (BIOS) has announced that it will be hosting a threeday conference in April 2026 in celebration of its 50th anniversary. Titled ‘The Global British Organ’, the conference will be held at Wadham College, Oxford 9-11 April 2026 and will focus on the global impact of the British organ over the centuries, the influence of foreign organs imported into the UK on the British organ, and the influence of British organ music around the world. BIOS is inviting proposals for papers and themed round-table discussions now, which should be sent to Dr Katherine Pardee at 50@bios.org.uk. The deadline for proposals will be 10 January 2026. In addition to organ recitals and conference papers, there will be a gala reception and dinner in the Hall of…

The pipe organ is often called the king of instruments – majestic, versatile, and unmatched in scale. But for a beginner it can also be one of the most daunting. Three staves of music instead of two, multiple manuals, and a pedalboard requiring independent footwork make it an altogether different proposition from the piano. For children especially, the size of the instrument can be a barrier: the music desk is further away and the pedalboard often lies out of reach. Yet there are lots of practical and creative solutions, and starting early brings clear benefits. Young learners grow into the instrument naturally, without having to undo habits formed elsewhere, and early exposure to pedalling offers an immediate and exciting new dimension to their playing. A new approach These principles are…

A Swedish friend of Haydn who attended the premiere of The Creation reported that ‘At that moment when light broke out for the first time, rays darted from the composer’s eyes, and the orchestra could not proceed for some minutes.’ Clearly, the audience burst into spontaneous applause at the point where the pp dynamics of ‘and there was’ give way to an electrifying tutti fortissimo on the word ‘light’. Most of us will have our own memories of this extraordinary musical moment: as an unwitting teenager in Lincoln Cathedral, I certainly remember the goosebumps and tingling spine as orchestra and choir suddenly exploded into life. For 18th-century concert goers, the effect must have been even more momentous – life-changing even. In the space of just two bars, Haydn not only…

Brahms, Schumann, Liszt, Saint-Saëns, Franck, Elgar… Much literature on performing this wonderful body of organ music focuses (understandably) on the instruments involved. But this is not the whole story of course, and there is a danger of overlooking larger holistic issues. Let’s consider the two most critical areas. Legato It is widely accepted that the basis of articulation became smoother as the 19th century progressed, from the primacy of piano legato as advocated by Muzio Clementi (1801) through to Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens’s total organ legato (1850 and 1862). On this continuum, there are different approaches concerning legato touch, rather than the blanket legatissimo still applied indiscriminately to much Romantic performance. In Germany, there were degrees of legato, ranging from the loose and barely connected, to the super glue (and in the…

Rebecca Tavener rounds up the latest releases Here’s a voyage through the baroque, from concertante to galante, setting sail with the adventurous Italian label Tactus and an intriguing discovery from Bologna in the early 1600s: Girolamo Giaccobbe – L’Aurora ingannata [TC560702]. Probably composed for an aristocratic wedding, Aurora Deceived is a classical love story featuring Venus, Adonis, Cupid, choruses of hunters and graces and, eventually, reconciled lovers. The singing actors of Dramatodía supply both characters and character, with richly expressive voices joined by lutes, harp, bowed strings, and director Alberto Allegrezza performing both as haute-contre and instrumentalist. The scenes are interspersed with elegant instrumental canzonas by Aurelio Bonelli, recorded in an indulgent acoustic. Progressive Italian composers for whom the concertante style was the new normal included Tarquinio Merula – Concerti…

LAY CLERK AND FOUNDER OF QUIRES AND PLACES, TIM POPPLE Where did your choral journey begin? The church choir, in Askham, Cumbria, aged seven. My parents had heard me singing in the bath, realised I had a nice voice, and within months I was singing See Amid the Winter’s Snow and making people cry. A few months after that I found myself at a voice trial in the Master of the Chorister’s house in Durham, and my Cathedral Chorister journey began. What were the highlights and lowlights of your experience? Two low moments stand out, for different reasons. One involved my first concert in which I ended up in the concert with no music folder and no clue what to do. (It had an unexpected consequence which you can read…

MARTIN NEARY (1940-2025) Martin Neary was one of the most influential and entrepreneurial musical figures of his generation of cathedral organists. He was deeply invested in the Anglican Choral Tradition, having been a chorister at the Chapel Royal, organ scholar at Gonville and Caius College, Cambridge, assistant organist and subsequently organist at St Margaret’s Westminster, organist of Winchester Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. He had a life-long interest in contemporary music and maintained particularly close relationships with John Tavener and Jonathan Harvey. Martin Gerard James Neary was born on 28 March 1940; at the age of eight, and with perfect pitch, he gained a place as a chorister in the choir of the Chapel Royal. This was a formative experience for him, particularly singing in the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II…

Imogen Holst was an eminently practical woman. Of her more than two hundred compositions, many of them were written for amateur ensembles, students, or with particular performers in mind. She liked to write, as she called it, ‘useful’ music. Such was her usefulness that most choirs will at some point have performed her work, whether knowingly or not, in her capacity as an editor and arranger of music by composers from Schütz to Britten. But she also wrote extensively for choir herself, both as an arranger of folk songs, and as a composer of original works. Her choral music spans the entire breadth of her career, and together these pieces represent the essence of Holst as a composer. The first pieces Holst wrote for choir were Christmas carols, penned in…

What were your earliest musical encounters? I started learning the piano at the age of six – I had a problematic leg, so not being allowed to play football, this seemed an appropriate alternative! My grandfather was a gifted amateur musician, my parents not musical at all. Primary school offered several opportunities, and the local Eastbourne Music Festival was always a challenge for us young musicians, where I had some success as a pianist and singer, less so as a violinist! The Director of Music at Eastbourne College was John Walker. He had been senior choral scholar at King’s College, Cambridge, in the 1950s, when Boris Ord was organist and conductor. So his influence in the direction of my future was immense. Music at the school was varied, and for…

Writer, critic and librettist Jessica Duchen first met composer Roxanna Panufnik some 30 years ago. Since then, they have produced two operas, as well various choral works and songs together. ‘There was some sort of emotional synergy from the start’, Panufnik recalls. ‘When I read poems or look at words I have an immediate reaction, hearing some kind of musical atmosphere in my head – and that happened with Jess.’ The usual pattern in their collaboration is for Panufnik to receive a commission, or to have an idea for a piece, and to ask Duchen to write the text. But in the case of their latest work, Aurora: Faith in Harmony, to be premiered at Symphony Hall in Birmingham on Sunday 7 December, the idea for the piece was Duchen’s…

ORGAN CDS The Eule Organ – Magdalen College, Oxford Alexander Pott, Eule organ (2023), Magdalen College, Oxford Convivium Records CR109 (two CDs) Alexander Pott was, until earlier this year, assistant organist at Magdalen College, Oxford and witnessed the birth of the new Eule organ first-hand. Its debut recording reveals an instrument with a dark and colourful personality, in which outstanding tonal finishing all but overcomes a somewhat over-wrought concept (a mixture of actions, slightly odd borrowings and a case which overhangs the gallery on the antechapel side in a none-too-elegant manner). Potts’s programme is really clever, juxtaposing mid-tolate Romantic German and English music. The inclusion of Eric Fenby’s transcription of Delius ‘On the Hearing the First Cuckoo’ between excerpts from Karg-Elert’s ‘Lake of Constance’ and Whitlock’s Four Extemporis-ations is particularly…

If ever there is a time for new music, it is surely Christmas where, every year, there are so many exciting new carol arrangements and original pieces to consider. For me, carol services should always be about discovering something new rather than regurgitating the old – like the search for inventive and entertaining Christmas presents for friends. The modern commercial world would have us forget the Advent season of anticipation altogether but at least we can enjoy this in music. When looking for straightforward arrangements of traditional carols over the last few years, I have found the volume of music by Louis Halsey titled Nova! Nova! very valuable. I am pleased then to see a follow-up volume featuring a further 60 Christmas carols, hymns, descants and anthems. Nova! Nova! 2…

Geraint Bowen has announced his retirement in 2026, concluding almost a quarter of a century as organist and Director of Music at Hereford Cathedral and as Artistic Director of the Hereford Three Choirs Festival. Since his appointment in 2001, Bowen has led eight Hereford festivals, praised for their mix of core repertoire, rediscovered rarities and new commissions. Highlights have included Dyson’s Quo Vadis and The Canterbury Pilgrims, Schumann’s Das Paradies und die Peri, Smyth’s Mass in D, and this year’s performance of Coleridge-Taylor’s The Atonement. He was also responsible for the 2015 tercentenary festival, which placed Purcell’s Te Deum, Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius and Messiaen’s Turangalîla- Symphonie within 36 hours. Bowen has commissioned works by composers including Sir Richard Rodney Bennett, Bob Chilcott, Sir James MacMillan and Dobrinka Tabakova, while…

Bloomsbury Organ Day will be returning on 31 January at Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church. Free recitals and talks will be heard between 1pm and 5pm including those from RCO Academy, Philip Norman on church music in Wales and Hamish Wagstaff. A celebrity recital from Loreto Aramendi, organist of Basilique of Santa María del Coro, will conclude the day at 6pm. RSCM president and organist Hugh Morris is set to take on an impressive endurance challenge when he plays for 25 hours straight, beginning at 5pm on 21 November to raise money as part of the Royal College of Organists’ ‘Play the Organ Year’. The event will be livestreamed on YouTube. The Reverend Richard Coles’s cosy crime novel Murder Before Evensong has been made into a TV series, due to be…

The Royal College of Organists (RCO) has announced Andrew Nethsingha as President-elect of the charity. He will succeed current President Sarah MacDonald in July 2026 and serve a two-year term. Nethsingha is currently organist and master of the choristers at Westminster Abbey, having previously spent 15 years as Director of Music at St John’s College, Cambridge. RCO Chief Executive Sir Andrew Parmley said of Nethsingha’s appointment: ‘Andrew Nethsingha’s career has been one of outstanding artistry, leadership and service to the organ and choral music. His work at some of our nation’s most important choral foundations, his performances with leading orchestras, and his international reputation make him a fitting and inspiring choice as our next president.’…

‘Orlando!’ We’re standing on the riverbank, and John Rutter is not invoking ‘Orlando! the ghost of his musical forebear, but calling one of the swans who have made their home at the bottom of his garden. Today, Orlando is playing it cool in the absence of his favourite smoked mackerel (Waitrose only). His predecessor Rufus would regularly wander into the composer’s kitchen, Rutter tells me, and ‘look hopefully at the fridge’. The BBC’s Through The Keyhole invited viewers to guess ‘Who lives in a house like this?’ – it wouldn’t be hard in this case. Standing on a sunny afternoon in a Cambridgeshire village, among climbing roses and thatched roofs, a honey-coloured church just over the garden wall, and a cluster of ducks, geese and swans sheltering under a willow…