BOB

CHILCOTT
The British
composer
enthuses about
writing for young
singers and
community choirs
Two worlds of music, one magazine
October 2021 UK £6.50 www.choirandorgan.com see page 41

YORK MINSTER
How artistry and craftsmanship have reawakened the organ

CHOIR & ORGAN OFFERS

Lillie Harris’s Margaret score for choir
see page 23

FREE MUSIC DOWNLOAD

in our New Music section
visit choirandorgan.com

DAVID HILL MEETS …

Westminster Abbey’s James O’Donnell

JEANNE DEMESSIEUX
Reassessing the French organist’s compositions

BAVARIAN RADIO CHOIR

The internationally acclaimed choir celebrates 75 years
THE NEW ALBUM

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 EDITOR’S LETTER

‘
Going places Choir & Organ shines
a global spotlight on

M
two distinctive fields of
y last few columns have it may be delayed.’ Savage also said creativity, celebrating
tracked the tentative that it is ‘crucial’ for tour organisers inventiveness and
transition back to some to make sure their travel insurance excellence in all their forms.
sense of ‘normality’ as UK Covid covers unforeseen complications, We aim to inspire our
restrictions have gradually eased. such as a choir member testing readers through giving a
Festivals are back up and running positive while on tour, and the status platform to conductors,
organists, composers, and
with live audiences; live courses are of countries of origin and destination
choirs of every kind; and by
resuming; and choral and orchestral changing in the ‘traffic light’
showcasing the imaginative
concert series are already under way. system: ‘Fortunately, suitable and craft of pipe organ building
Perhaps most significantly, people comprehensive new products are now across the centuries,
are finding the courage to organise appearing on the market.’ critiquing new organs and
overseas tours again. Touring enriches Organising a tour may be more of tackling ethics in restoring
the experience of choral singing: alongside the an obstacle course now than it was pre-pandemic historic instruments.
obvious benefits of exploring other countries and and pre-Brexit, but the problems are not Specialist writers
cultures, and bringing perhaps new repertoire to insurmountable and our list of tour companies appraise new editions and
local audiences, singing ‘away’ nurtures additional (see supplement, p.37) aims to get you started. recordings of standard
repertoire and works
qualities of professionalism – adapting quickly to Professional British musicians, meanwhile, are
fresh from the composer’s
new venues and acoustics, and rising above the painfully aware of the effects of Brexit on their pen, while our news
tiredness induced by travelling to produce of one’s ability to work in the EU. The UK government’s and previews chart the
best in concert, are touring requirements common announcement in August, responding to pressure latest developments in
for professionals and amateurs alike. from the industry, has been challenged by the a changing world and
Some may be nervous of planning concert tours Incorporated Society of Musicians as being present opportunities to
at present, because of both the pandemic and ‘misleading’ (visit bit.ly/3jJvTwL for full details). become involved.
potential complications due to Brexit. Here, recent
correspondence with ACFEA managing director
Richard Savage may be helpful. Savage told me that
performers touring in Europe don’t need visas or
We must keep challenging the government and
its claims of ‘taking back control of our borders’,
and insist on a Visa Waiver Agreement to allow
professional musicians to pursue their career
Choir & Organ is an
invitation to engage
with two unique areas
of music – to explore the
‘
new, and look afresh at
work permits providing they’re not being paid, and without costly and time-consuming hindrances. the familiar.
are paying all their own costs. Concert admission
may be charged, but ‘it would probably be better Plan ahead for your Christmas concerts and carol
to give the proceeds to a charity rather than to the services with our free digital edition of Choral
SUBSCRIBE TO
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www.choirandorgan.com OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 3

 FR
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 OCTOBER 2021 VOLUME 29 NUMBER 6 CONTENTS

DUNCAN LOMAX, RAVAGE PRODUCTIONS

COURTESY RICHARD BLACKFORD

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13 FROM THE ARCHIVE 33 VISION OF A GARDEN
In 2019 Stephen Wilkinson, who died in August, A new choral work by Richard Blackford recreates
Part of spoke to C&O after his 100th birthday. the unusual déjà-vu experiences of a Covid patient.

14 BOSTON 41 BOB CHILCOTT

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During a Covid lockdown, Jonathan Ambrosino In the run-up to two premieres, the composer
took a virtual tour of local churches to assess how shares his passion for writing for young people
they were presenting their services. and amateur choirs.
20 DAVID HILL IN CONVERSATION … 44 JEANNE DEMESSIEUX
In the first of a new series, James O’Donnell shares The legendary French organist whose compositions
early memories of conducting choirs, and the deserve to be more widely known and performed.
impact of Covid on the Choir of Westminster Abbey.
50 BAVARIAN RADIO CHORUS
25 COVER STORY YORK MINSTER Founded in the aftermath of the second world war,
BOB
CHILCOTT
The British
composer
enthuses about
Harrison & Harrison’s renovation the Munich-based choir now celebrates its 75th
of the Minster’s late romantic
writing for young

season as it anticipates the arrival of Simon Rattle.

singers and
community choirs
Two worlds of music, one magazine

© MA Music, Leisure and Travel Ltd, 2021. All

October 2021 UK £6.50 www.choirandorgan.com see page 41

YORK MINSTER
rights reserved. No part of Choir & Organ may instrument is ‘a triumph’; could
How artistry and craftsmanship have reawakened the organ

be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted in any form or by any means electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise CHOIR & ORGAN OFFERS
it provide a model for future 54 WORK IN PROGRESS
Paul Hale surveys the work of two smaller British
Lillie Harris’s Margaret score for choir

cathedral organ restorations?

see page 23

without prior written permission of the publishing

FREE MUSIC DOWNLOAD
in our New Music section
visit choirandorgan.com

director. The views expressed do not necessarily

DAVID HILL MEETS …
Westminster Abbey’s James O’Donnell

JEANNE DEMESSIEUX

organ builders, in Huddersfield and Nottingham.

Reassessing the French organist’s compositions

represent those of the editor. The presence of BAVARIAN RADIO CHOIR

The internationally acclaimed choir celebrates 75 years
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www.choirandorgan.com OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 5

 NEWS & PREVIEWS
CIOC SEMI-FINALISTS ANNOUNCED
THE CANADIAN INTERNATIONAL ORGAN COMPETITION (Concours
international d’orgue du Canada – CIOC) has announced the names
of the semi-finalists for the 2021 competition, which will take place in
Montreal from 11-25 October.
A video round in the summer reduced the number of semi-finalists,
all aged 24-35, from 16 to 10: Bryan Anderson (US), Ben Bloor (UK),
Tyler Boehmer (CA), Hina Ikawa (JP), Alex Little (UK), Andrew
Morris (US), Seona Mun (KR), Tom Rioult (FR), Anastasia Stahl (RU),
and Aaron Tan (PH).
The three women and seven men will compete in the fifth edition of
the triennial event, postponed from 2020 due to the Covid pandemic.
Venues for the competition include (for the semi-finals) the Church
of the Immaculate Conception (Beckerath, 1961) and the Church of
Saint-Jean-Baptiste (Casavant, 1915/1996); the final round will be held
at La Maison Symphonique (Casavant, 2014) on 22 October. On 24
October the gala prizewinner concert will take place at Saint Agnes.
Competitors are encouraged to include one or more works by
Canadian composers in their programme; finalists also perform a set
work by Marcel Dupré.
The competition offers a number of different prizes totalling
CAD125,000; first prize is CAD25,000 plus a recording contract, a
CIOC finalists will perform on the 2014 Casavant organ in La Maison Symphonique, Montreal
COURTESY CASAVANT FRÈRES
6 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
three-year North America management deal with Karen McFarlane
Artists, and a three-year development programme with CIOC.
The 2021 CIOC jury comprises: Jean-Willy Kunz (CA, president),
Martin Baker (UK), Bernard Foccroulle (BE), Rachel Laurin (CA),
William Porter (US), Louis Robilliard (FR), Helga Schauerte-
Maubouet (DE/FR), Dong-Ill Shin (KR), and Patricia Wright (CA).
Since the postponement of the competition from 2020 to 2021,
CIOC has enjoyed emergency support from public funding
partners and private donors. Salary grants from the federal Canada
Summer Jobs gave scope to increase the size of the team, and CIOC
participated in three programmes launched to help businesses during
the pandemic: the Business for the Arts mentorship programme,
Leadership Emergency Arts Network, and a coaching programme for
tourism-related small businesses in Montreal.
Since autumn 2020, with funding from the Conseil des arts de
Montréal, CIOC has developed the Bach-Mobile series, acquiring a
digital organ and trailer to present outdoor concerts. When red-zone
restrictions were introduced, plans were revised to focus on filmed
content around the Montreal region with local organists performing in
outdoor settings.
ciocm.org
www.choirandorgan.com
SWEDISH CONDUCTING IN BRIEF
COMPETITION IS REBORN Correction: on p.45 of the September
issue, the photo of Nicholas Freestone
THE ERIC ERICSON AWARD 2021 was incorrectly captioned. He was organ

JAKKO KILPIÅINEN
takes place on 21-24 October in scholar at St Paul’s Cathedral from 2017-
Stockholm. It will be the first time 2018, and is now assistant director of music
the competition has been held at Worcester Cathedral. We apologise for
since 2009. the error.
The competition seeks to
identify and support young and In appointments, Mark Ball is the new
gifted choral conductors. It is open artistic director of the Southbank Centre
to young choir conductors of all from Jan 2022; James Gough is Southwark
nationalities who are 35 years of Cathedral’s new assistant organist and
age or younger at the start of the music administrator; Aaron Shilson is the
competition. new assistant director of music at Llandaff
Ninety candidates applied Cathedral; David Ponsford is appointed
for the competition, of whom to the Royal Academy of Music’s organ
eight were selected from the Swedish choral giant Eric Ericson department; and Nicky Spence has been
pre-recorded round for the semi- appointed ambassador for Help Musicians
final: Krista Audere (LV); Julia Selina Blank (DE); Harry Bradford (UK); Jurgis Cabulis (LV); as the organisation marks its centenary and
Guillemette Daboval (FR); Pierre-Louis de Laporte (FR); Daniil Lashin (RU); and Johanna works to support musicians back into live
Soller (DE). They will conduct in Swedish Radio Studio 2 and Stockholm Cathedral, with the performance following the pandemic.
final taking place in the Berwaldhallen concert hall.
Competitors will conduct two renowned Swedish choirs: St Jacob’s Chamber Choir and the The Bach Choir’s Sir David Willcocks
Eric Ericson Chamber Choir. Carol Competition is open for entry.
Repertoire for the final round, set by the executive board, is chosen from the classical, Composers are invited to submit carols for
romantic and contemporary western canon; Swedish and Nordic music in general have a one of two categories: 18 years and under,
special place in the competition. The finals repertoire is Ingvar Lidholm’s Canto LXXXI, and 19 years and above. The winners will
Einojuhani Rautavaara’s Die erste Elegie, and Sven-David Sandström’s Drei Gedichte von Egon be chosen by David Hill, John Rutter and
Schiele nos. 2 and 3. Jonathan Willcocks. Deadline: 15 Oct.
First prize is SEK100,000 and concert engagements with choirs which are part of the
European Broadcasting Union; second and third prizes of SEK25,000 each will also be Hannah Doyle, 18, has won the 2020-21
awarded. ORA Singers Composer Competition for
The jury comprises Cecilia Rydinger, conductor of the all-male choir Orphei Drängar; her reflection Regina caeli.
Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist; multi-award-winning choral conductor Erik Westberg;
Estonian Chamber Choir artistic director Kaspars Putniņš; RIAS Kammerkor director Justin British composer Grace-Evangeline
Doyle; and BBC Singers chief conductor Sofi Jeannin. Mason has signed with Boosey & Hawkes.
When the Eric Ericson Award was first held in 2003, it was arranged by Rikskonserter, the Mason, a doctoral student at the Royal
Eric Ericson International Choral Center, Swedish Radio and Uppsala University Choral Academy of Music, won the Royal
Centre. Today, it is under the new promotion bodies of Swedish Radio, the Royal Swedish Philharmonic Society Award in 2018.
Academy of Music, the Rosenborg-Gehrmans Foundation, and the European Broadcasting
Union. It is now set to be held every three years. St Andrew’s United Church, Chatham,
Previous winners of the Award are Peter Dijkstra (2003), Martina Batič (2006) and Kjetil Ontario has launched the Bel Canto Choir
Almenning (2009). School for young people to learn to sing and
The competition is named after the legendary and pioneering choral guru. Eric Ericson read music. standrewschatham.org/bccs
(1918-2013) was the Swedish Radio Choir’s (SRC) chief conductor for over 30 years and had
a profound influence on the choral scene at home and internationally. Through his leadership Scotland on Tour is a new £750,000
and teaching as professor of choral conducting at the Royal College of Music in Stockholm, touring fund for live music launched by the
he shaped a new choral sound as well as setting a fresh approach and standard for how choirs Scottish government to support the staging
should be directed. In addition, he championed contemporary composers, commissioning of concerts between Jan 2022 and Jan 2023.
many works for the SRC. Musicians and also venues can apply.
The competition will be livestreamed at ericericsonaward.se.

www.choirandorgan.com OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 7

 NEWS & PREVIEWS
FORTHCOMING EVENTS
COURTESY SUZI DIGBY
Online score study day with ORA
Saturday 2 Oct, 1-6.30pm
Join ORA Singers, a Tallis scholar and invited
guest composers for this online day, which
will focus on Thomas Tallis and ORA Singers’
specially commissioned works as reflections
on Tallis. Videos and recordings by ORA
Singers, from their most recent album, will
be shared on the day, with contributions
from music director Suzi Digby (above),
a Tallis scholar, and specially invited guest
composers Ken Burton and Kerry Andrew.
Autumn webinars
Saturdays 11am-12.30pm, monthly from
mid-Oct
abcd’s webinar series continues with
discussions and lectures led by a team of
tutors and special guests on a wide range
of choral topics. All webinars are hosted on
Zoom. There is a fee of £5 for each webinar.
All webinars are recorded and a copy sent
to everyone who books.
Live Conductor refresher days
30 and 31 Oct, St Gabriel’s church and hall,
London SW1
As choirs move back to live singing
and rehearsing, this is an opportunity to
revive and refresh conducting technique.
Led by Amy Bebbington and Sarah
Tenant-Flowers. Limited places available.
For more details as they are announced,
contact Elisabeth Brierley: +44 7805
454563 or elisabeth.brierley@abcd.org.uk
All abcd current events can be found at
bit.ly/3mOBsw6, including online booking.
8 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
ARMONICO CONSORT 20TH
BIRTHDAY TOUR
ARMONICO CONSORT CELEBRATES ITS 20TH BIRTHDAY with a concert tour featuring some of
the largest-scale renaissance and baroque choral music in existence. The four-concert tour starts
in the Collegiate Church of St Mary, Warwick on 25 September, before moving on to Malvern
Theatres (1 October) and Lighthouse, Poole (9 October), concluding with ‘Supersize Polyphony’ in
Canterbury Cathedral on 16 October.
Alongside Tallis’s renaissance behemoth, Spem in alium, Armonico Consort will give rare
performances of Heinrich Biber’s Missa Salisburgensis for 53 voices and Alessandro Striggio’s
60-part Missa sopra Ecco sì beato giorno, interspersed with the plainsong chants of Hildegard von
Bingen.
The performers will create an immersive renaissance ‘surround sound’ experience by encircling
the audience and director Christopher Monks. They are joined by the English Cornett and Sackbut
Ensemble playing the trumpet and drum fanfares in Biber’s Mass.
The Masses by Striggio and Biber are comparatively recent discoveries, both only rising to
prominence within the last 50 years: Biber’s Mass was discovered in a greengrocer’s in Salzburg
in the 1870s and was attributed to the Franco-Italian composer Orazio Benevoli until the 1970s.
Striggio’s Mass was first performed in modern times at the 2007 Proms by the BBC Singers and
Tallis Scholars.
Armonico Consort was set up by Christopher Monks in 2001 and has secured a reputation for
bringing masterpieces of the renaissance and baroque eras to life, presenting concerts in new and
imaginative ways. ‘Supersize Polyphony’ – 40- and 60-part works by Tallis and Striggio performed
in ‘surround sound’ – was one early example, which earned the group the first of several five-star
reviews in the national press.
As Armonico Consort moves into its third decade, the celebrations continue throughout the
2021/22 season with concerts, recordings and commissions; expansion of the choir creation
programme and a new choir leadership programme in Mexico; creation of a dementia choir,
the Warwick Memory Singers; and a legacy project to nurture 20 musicians and music leaders.
armonico.org.uk
Armonico Consort celebrates its 20th anniversary with a four-concert tour
COURTESY ARMONICO CONSORT
www.choirandorgan.com
 SALISBURY CATHEDRAL GIRLS’
CHOIR CELEBRATES 30 YEARS
ASH MILLS
S alisbury Cathedral Girls’ Choir will perform the premiere of Roxanna Panufnik’s The Pearl alongside
former choristers
SALISBURY CATHEDRAL GIRLS’ CHOIR will
celebrate its 30th anniversary on 9 October
with a gala concert attended by HRH the
Duke of Gloucester. The concert will feature a
wide-ranging programme of music by Purcell,
Mozart, Britten and Stanford, and will be
curated by The Countess of Chichester.
A highlight of the evening is the premiere
of a specially commissioned work by
Roxanna Panufnik sung by former and
current choristers en masse. Panufnik has
set George Herbert’s poem The Pearl from
his posthumously published collection The
Temple. One of a series of poems exploring his
struggle with his faith, The Pearl reflects on
Herbert’s decision to leave Parliament and his
academic life in Cambridge to become rector
of Fugglestone with Bemerton just outside
Salisbury.
The gala concert takes place 30 years –
almost to the day – after the Girls’ Choir
sang its first Evensong on 7 October 1991, an
extraordinary moment not only in the history
of the Cathedral but also in cathedral music.
At the time, there were girls singing in other
cathedrals. However, Salisbury was not just the
first English cathedral to admit girls on equal
terms to boys, but also the first to establish
an independent foundation to support girl
choristers.
The youngest of the first intake of girl
choristers, Amy Carson, returns to perform
www.choirandorgan.com
Pamina’s aria ‘Ach, ich fühl’s’ from Mozart’s The
Magic Flute. Carson, who graduated as a music
scholar from Cambridge and then studied
at the Royal College of Music, sang Pamina
in Kenneth Branagh’s film The Magic Flute.
Camilla Harris, a former chorister and recent
graduate of Royal Academy Opera, sings ‘Let
the Bright Seraphim’ from Handel’s Samson.
Director of music David Halls said: ‘The
success of our girl chorister tradition has
been replicated in cathedrals throughout the
country and is something of which we are
rightly proud. The Girls’ Choir has been an
integral part of our worship, and a wonderful
training ground for young musicians. This
concert celebrates that legacy and reflects the
long tradition of music in Salisbury Cathedral,
a tradition that stretches back nearly 1,000
years.’
The Countess of Chichester, who is chair
of the Salisbury Cathedral Girl Chorister’s
Foundation, said: ‘I am delighted the
gala concert is able to go ahead, given the
challenges all musicians have faced over the
past year. More than 150 girls have benefited
from the outstanding choral training at this
Cathedral, and the pioneering decision to
establish the Girl Chorister’s Foundation has
been generously supported by our donors over
the years, offering girls and young women life-
changing musical opportunities.’
bit.ly/38sLv1i
EVENTS
The Eric Thompson Trust for Organists
and Organ Music is holding a special event
at 6.30pm on Thursday 21 Oct in the Dutch
Church, London to celebrate the work of
the Trust and the lives of former Trustees,
the late Dinah Molloy-Thompson and
Richard Fisher. Register attendance at
ticketsource.co.uk/organ.
VOCES8 are on tour in the US from 12-31
Oct, performing in Pennsylvania (12 Oct),
New York City (16 Oct), Ohio (19 & 21 Oct),
South Carolina (25 Oct) and Florida (29-31
Oct); full details of the schedule can be
found at voces8.com/concerts
Forthcoming RCO courses include An
Introduction to the German Romantic
Organ event on 9 Oct at St George’s
German Lutheran Church, Alie Street,
London. Richard Brasier gives advice on
registering and registration aids, using the
1886 Walcker instrument. For intermediate
level organists and above. bit.ly/3eZ61dR
James Lloyd Thomas leads three Bring-
Play-Learn sessions for beginner and
intermediate level organists, and pianists
wishing to try out the organ: (1) 9 Oct
at Holy Trinity Church, Weymouth
(bit.ly/3DoZljw); (2) 16 Oct at St Swithun’s
Church, Allington, with tips on hymn
playing and choosing voluntaries
(bit.ly/3DGUdaO); (3) 23 Oct at St Mary’s
Church, Dorchester (bit.ly/2YclO3l).
Thomas Allery leads two linked
harpsichord continuo playing classes at
St Mary-le-Bow Church, London (16 Oct);
observers also welcome. bit.ly/3DukAR9
In Easing Back into Service Playing,
Julian Haggett leads a session on refreshing
and building service playing skills in hymns,
voluntaries and simple improvisation
technique (30 Oct, St Cuthbert’s Church,
Thetford). bit.ly/3eZ61dR
Contact for all RCO courses: 020 3865
6998, bookings@rco.org.uk.
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 9
 NEWS & PREVIEWS
PAST LIVES
EDITH HO (1932-2021)
Edith June Ho, for 30 years organist and
choirmaster at Boston’s Church of the Advent,
COURTESY JONATHAN AMBROSINO
died on 30 July 30 at the age of 88, writes
Jonathan Ambrosino. Born in China and raised
in Hong Kong and Singapore, she eventually
made her way to Baltimore, where through
the 1960s she earned Bachelor’s, Master’s,
and an unfinished doctorate from Peabody
Conservatory with her mentor, Arthur Howes. As an alto in Howes’s
choir at Mount Calvary Church, Ho was introduced to Anglo-Catholic
liturgy, renaissance polyphony, and an important new tracker organ
from Charles Fisk, which arrived in 1961 – all of which formed her most
decided tastes. Howes’s tutelage, together with study with Helmut
Walcha and Heinz Wunderlich, had Ho soon giving concerts through the
US and Europe.
In time, these early accomplishments would be a footnote to Ho’s
Boston tenure. Already known for fine music, the Church of the Advent
presented a rare platform: all-professional choir, weekly Solemn Mass
with two motets, and the occasional orchestral Mass. Lesser mortals
might have faltered when, six months into her tenure, the rector who had
STEFAN SCHWEIGER
hired her suddenly died. But Edith’s singlemindedness and work ethic
were unstoppable. Hers would be an ensemble of impeccable standard
and national importance, honed through two weekly rehearsals in
addition to Sunday mornings.
Particularly in a time before today’s widespread reverence for early
music and the many choral groups that serve it, Advent’s choir was
one of few that, singing in resolutely straight tone, offered up almost
exclusively polyphonic music of the medieval and renaissance periods.
The programme was leavened, occasionally, by music of the baroque and
classical and, even more occasionally, 19th- and 20th-century Anglican
repertoire. Her tenure saw 13 choral recordings. Ho retired at 75 on
account of a heart condition, certainly not from any flagging of spirit or
determination – qualities those who sang and played for her will well
remember. Her Requiem Mass was held on 11 September at the Church
of the Advent.
HUGH WOOD (1932-2021)
The composer, teacher and writer Hugh Wood
has died aged 89. Born in Lancashire in 1932,
Wood read modern history at New College,
Oxford, before pursuing academic musical
studies in his early 20s. Among his teachers
CHRIS WOOD
were William Lloyd Webber, Anthony Milner,
Iain Hamilton and Mátyás Šeiber.
Wood wrote seven works for unaccompanied
mixed-voice chorus, and three works for choir and ensemble including
one his final compositions, An Epithalamion, Or Mariage Song, which
was premiered by the BBC Symphony Chorus and Orchestra at the 2015
Proms. The other two accompanied works are Cantata (1989), written in
memory of his daughter, and Tenebrae (2002), a setting of eight poems by
Geoffrey Hill – an exact contemporary of Wood.
10 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
The unaccompanied works are all shorter: Three Choruses (1966)
setting Hughes, Joyce and Muir; two Yeats settings (1973); A Christmas
Poem (1984) which first appeared in The Chester Book of Carols;
The Kingdom of God, commissioned by the City of London Festival
for the opening concert of the 1994 season and written for the vast
choral space of St Paul’s Cathedral; This is the record of John (2001) for
St John’s Wood Church; and the setting of Ezra Pound From the Pisan
Cantos (2011), a BBC Radio 3 commission for the BBC Singers at the
Cheltenham Festival.
Wood’s one foray into composition for the organ is the Capriccio
(1967), written at the request of James Dalton, organist of Queen’s
College, Oxford, with the newly installed Frobenius in mind. The first
performance was given by Gillian Weir at Westminster Cathedral in May
1967.
Hugh Wood’s music is published by Chester Music.
STEPHEN WILKINSON (1919-2021)
The British choral conductor and composer
Stephen Wilkinson has died aged 102.
The son of a clergyman, Wilkinson was a
choirboy at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford
under William Harris, and then organ scholar at
Queens’ College, Cambridge, where he studied
music with Edward Dent, Boris Ord and Patrick
Hadley. Like many of his contemporaries,
his progress was tempered by the second world war. He joined the
Royal Navy, serving initially on the Atlantic convoys and then later as a
mine disposal officer in the Faroe Islands, for which he retained a great
fondness.
Wilkinson’s name was synonymous with two major British chamber
choirs in the second part of the 20th century: the BBC Northern Singers,
which he conducted from 1959 to 1993 (becoming the Britten Singers
in 1991); and the William Byrd Singers, which he conducted from 1970
through to 2009, the year he turned 90. Commissions under Wilkinson
included Elizabeth Maconchy’s The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo,
Michael Ball’s Sainte Marye Virgine, John McCabe’s Siberia, Richard
Rodney Bennett’s Calico Pie and, for the 21st anniversary of the BBC
Northern Singers, Peter Dickinson’s Late Afternoon in November for 16
solo voices. The choir also gave the first concert performance of Holst’s
Nunc Dimittis. Wilkinson’s innovative programming was also apparent on
a run of commercial recordings made in the 1960s and 70s, most notably
the Voices of Today LP (Abbey LPB 798) with four contemporaneous
works by Berkeley, Britten, Musgrave and Walton, and a Vaughan
Williams retrospective (Abbey LPB 799), which featured a young Gillian
Weir accompanying A Vision of Aeroplanes.
After his retirement from conducting, he focused on composing and
arranging, and a selection of his choral music, Dover Beach, was released
on the Deux-Elles label.
Wilkinson was appointed MBE for his services to choral music in the
1992 New Year’s Honours List.
Stephen Wilkinson featured in C&O’s Encounters series in September
2019; see p.13.
www.choirandorgan.com

CITY OF DERRY INTERNATIONAL CHOIR FESTIVAL
LORCAN DOHERTY
D
 ónal Doherty conducts Codetta in a new commission by Eoghan Desmond
THE CITY OF DERRY INTERNATIONAL
CHOIR FESTIVAL, running from 20-24
October, returns for its ninth year with a mix
of in-person and virtual events throughout the
city as part of an immersive programme of live
and digital concerts, workshops and podcasts.
The opening Gala Concert features
members of the Ulster Orchestra with local
choirs and singers performing Bob Chilcott’s
The Voyage, directed by the composer, and the
world premiere of A Topography of Love, Part 3
by Brian Irvine and John McIlduff from Belfast
creative production company Dumbworld.
On 21 October, De Angelo Domini, a newly
PREMIERES [RP = REGIONAL PREMIERE]
Melissa Dunphy: The Music-Makers
Saint Louis Chamber Chorus/Barnes
3 Oct, Washington University, St Louis, MO, US
Bob Chilcott: The Song of Harvest
Combined RSCM Choirs/Cook
9 Oct, Durham Cathedral, UK
Sarah Quartel: Peace
Jocelyn Hagen: Give Joan a Sword
Kantorei/Rinsema
9-10 Oct, Denver, Colorado, US
Daniel Knaggs: Ave Maria no.17 – Mater Divinae
Providentiae
Musica Sacra Choir/Łukaszewski
10 Oct, Warszawa-Praga Cathedral, Warsaw, PL
Bob Chilcott: Creation Song
Choir of Norwich Cathedral, Combined Norfolk
Please email items for News and Letters to the Editor for publication in future issues to maggie.hamilton@markallengroup.com,
or post to The Editor, Choir & Organ, Mark Allen Group, St Jude’s Church, Dulwich Road, London SE24 0PB, UK.
www.choirandorgan.com
NEWS & PREVIEWS
commissioned work for choir and cello by
Eoghan Desmond, features in Derry chamber
choir Codetta’s concert ‘The Road Home’,
directed by Dónal Doherty. Desmond’s work,
the Colmcille 1500 commission, celebrates
the life and legacy of Colmcille (also known
as Columba), an Irish abbot and missionary
evangelist who founded the monastic
community on Iona. Colmcille is one of three
patron saints of Ireland as well as the patron
saint of the city of Derry, where he founded
a monastic settlement in the sixth century.
Tenebrae return to the festival for a live
performance in St Columb’s Cathedral, while
School Choirs/Grote
12-15 Oct, Norwich Cathedral, UK
David Loxley-Blount: Nightingale
Henriette Jensen (sax), Tina Christiansen (org)
16 Oct, Sankt Lukas Kirke, Aarhus, DK
José M. Sánchez-Verdú: Info (Part 1 from
Commedia)
Schola Heidelberg, ensemble aesthesis/Nußbaum
18 Oct, Schwetzinger SWR Festspiele,
Schwetzingen, DE
Eoghan Desmond: De Angelo Domini
Codetta, Kim Vaughan (vc)/Doherty
21 Oct, St Columba’s, Long Tower, Derry, UK
Cheryl Frances-Hoad: Preces and Responses
Choir of Merton College, Oxford/Nicholas
21 Oct, Merton College Chapel, Oxford, UK
Chanticleer appear as the headline virtual act
with a Zoom workshop and bespoke recorded
concert.
School performances return with a
non-competitive format for primary years.
The event on 21 October will include a
workshop led by music education expert
Lucinda Geoghegan ​featuring songs, games
and rhymes, ​and a specially composed piece
for young voices by leading Catalan composer
and conductor Josep Vila i Casañas. Post-
primary schools will return for a day of
competitions and a senior Big Sing on Friday
22 October. A day of singing for national
choirs featuring competitions in equal voice,
mixed voice, youth choir, vocal ensemble,
sacred, pop, jazz and gospel categories,
culminating in the brand-new Choir of the
Festival competition, follows on Saturday 23
October.
Welcoming this year’s programme of events,
the festival’s artistic director, Dónal Doherty,
said: ‘There is a real sense of hope among
singers everywhere that we will soon be able to
return to regular rehearsals and performances.
Singing together is our lifeblood and this
shared experience has been sorely missed over
the past 18 months. We cannot wait to perform
together again, or to enjoy the performance of
other groups.’ derrychoirfest.com
Diana Burrell: Bless the Lord, O my soul
St Machar Cathedral Choir/Williams
22 Oct, Sound Festival, Aberdeen, UK
Matthew Peterson: Three Motets
Sofia Vokalensemble/Ollén
22 Oct, Lund Choral Festival, SE
Richard Blackford: Vision of a Garden
Gabriel Jackson: The Promise
The Bach Choir/Hill
24 Oct, Royal Festival Hall, London, UK
Tarik O’Regan: The Stillness Chained
Pacific Chorale/Istad
30 Oct, Renée and Henry Segerstrom Concert
Hall, Costa Mesa, California, US
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 11
NEWS & PREVIEWS
RECITAL ROUND-UP JENNIFER BATE MEMORIAL CONCERT
Alton, St Lawrence at 8pm
Peter King (5 Oct) 01420 543628

ANDREW ROBERTS
Chelmsford Cathedral at 12 noon
Matthew Kelley (1 Oct) 01245 294484
Corbridge, St Andrew’s at 5pm
Paul Hale (9 Oct) 07974 931057
Gloucester Cathedral at 7.30pm
James Lancelot (13 Oct) 01452 528 095
Liverpool Cathedral at 2.25pm*
John Zhang (3 Oct), Lee Ward (10 Oct), Ian Tracey
(3pm, 16 Oct), Daniel Bishop (17 Oct) 0151 709 6271
London E1, Christ Church Spitalfields at 7.30pm
David Goode (25 Oct) 020 7377 2440
London EC2, St Margaret Lothbury at 1.10pm
Samuel Eriksson (7 Oct), Richard Townend (14 Oct;
& Hans Georg Reinertz (fl), 21 Oct) 0788 193 1763
London EC4, St Paul’s Cathedral at 4.30pm
Theo Jellema (3 Oct), William Fox (24 Oct)
020 7651 0898
London EC4, Temple Church at 1.15pm
Charles Andrews (6 Oct), Tba (13 Oct), Jeremiah
Stephenson (20 Oct), Roger Sayer (27 Oct)
020 7427 5650, templechurch.com
London N1, St John the Evangelist, Duncan Terrace
at 7.30pm
Mitchell Miller (30 Oct) 020 7226 1218
London N10, St James’s, Muswell Hill at 3.30pm
Memorial concert for Jennifer Bate (16 Oct) – see
right; societyofwomenorganists@gmail.com
London SW1, Methodist Central Hall at 3pm
Gerard Brooks (17 Oct) 020 7654 2000
London W1, St George’s, Hanover Square at 1.10pm Jennifer Bate at St James Church, Muswell Hill
Andrew Prior (12 Oct), Richard Hobson (26 Oct)
020 7629 0874
London W1, Grosvenor Chapel at 1.10pm A MEMORIAL CONCERT FOR JENNIFER BATE will take place at St James, Muswell Hill, London
Zsombor Tóth-Vajna (5 Oct), David King (19 Oct) on Saturday 16 October at 3.30pm. Bate learnt to play on the three-manual Harrison &
020 7499 1684 Harrison organ in the church where her father, H.A. Bate, was organist for 54 years (1924-78).
Norwich Cathedral at 7.30pm She acted as consultant for the 2010 restoration of the organ that her father helped design after
Ashley Grote (21 Oct) 01603 218306
the previous instrument – a 1913 Harrison & Harrison – had been destroyed in the bombing
Olton, St Margaret’s at 7.30pm
Paul Hale (2 Oct) 07974 931057 of the church during the second world war. She then gave the opening recital in October
Oxford, Merton College Chapel at 1.15pm 2011. Olivier Messiaen first heard Bate play his music at St James in 1975, the beginning of a
James Thomas (14 Oct), Benjamin Sheen (21 Oct) productive friendship as she became one of the foremost proponents of his work.
merton.ox.ac.uk/organ-recitals The programme has been arranged by the Society of Women Organists, and includes
Portsmouth Cathedral at 1.10pm players who have been tutors or participants at the annual Jennifer Bate Organ Academy.
Claudia Grinnell (7 Oct) 023 9282 3300
Peformers include Anne Page, Anna Lapwood, Katherine Dienes-Williams, Evelyn Tinker,
Reading Minster at 12.30pm
Christine Wells (15 Oct) 0118 9571057 Emily Nott and Imogen Morgan, with Dienes-Williams and Sarah MacDonald directing the
St Albans, St Peter’s at 5.30pm eight voices of the Choir of St Giles Cripplegate. The programme will feature Bate’s own Festal
Anne Page & Crispian Steele-Perkins (tpt) Fanfare and her arrangement of Telemann’s Aria for trumpet – played by Crispian Steele-
organfestival.com Perkins – and organ. Page will play Offrande et Alleluia final, the 18th and final movement
Southwell Minster at 7.30pm of Messiaen’s Livre du Saint Sacrement, a work for which Bate gave the British premiere
Jonathan Allsopp (13 Oct), James Lancelot (27 Oct)
www.southwellminster.org.uk to a packed Westminster Cathedral in 1986; six months later, at Messiaen’s own church in
Warwick, St Mary’s at 1.15pm Paris, l’Église de la Sainte-Trinité, she committed the work to disc, her reading carrying the
Mark Swinton (1 Oct), John Keys (15 Oct) composer’s endorsement.
01926 403940, www.stmaryswarwick.org.uk Andrew Roberts, Bate’s partner, will give a tribute and RCO president Gerard Brooks will
Wells Cathedral at 1.05pm lead the posthumous presentation of the RCO Medal.
Julian Bewing (21 Oct) 01749 674483,
wellscathedral.org.uk There will be a post-concert reception at which over 40 of Bate’s concert dresses will be
Worcester Cathedral at 7pm available for those who wish to take one. Seats for the memorial concert can be booked
Simon Johnson (2 Oct) worcestercathedral.co.uk through the church’s website at bit.ly/3gRk06r.

12 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021 www.choirandorgan.com


STEPHEN WILKINSON, CHORAL CONDUCTOR AND COMPOSER
An exclusive interview from the September 2019 issue of Choir & Organ; the complete archive is
now available for subscribers to our ‘digital’ and ‘print & digital’ packages to explore (see p.24).
‘ I
’m the son of a country parson. Aged
seven, I was sent to Christ Church
Cathedral, Oxford, to be a choirboy.
Noel Ponsonby was organist and died shortly
after I arrived, and from 1927 W.H. Harris
took over. He was a good composer, but
not a choir trainer. The choir was nothing. I
remember all boys and the six singing men
being called back to rehearse music they’d sung
badly. The school was terrible, too. Ultimately
parents got together and the headmaster was
hoofed out. There was every kind of meanness
and cruelty, but nothing sexual. When I went
back for my last term, I was given an address to
which I could run away.
I followed my brother, John, to St Edward’s,
Oxford – not a great school for music then,
but quite different now. Somehow, I got
an organ scholarship to Queens’ College,
Cambridge, in 1937. I was nominally in
charge of a choir – the Dean’s unauditioned
Scout Group. I was not a budding organ
virtuoso but was capable of amusing the
choirboys, so they took me on, with no
www.choirandorgan.com
ENCOUNTERS
ANDREW WILKINSON PHOTOGRAPHY
regular singing men. Nowadays, Queens’ has
a fantastic choir, one of the very best.
In 1937 music was not a solid leg of a Tripos.
You could read music as an extra, which I did.
I was supposed to read Classics, but persuaded
them to let me read English. I scraped through
but was musically active, especially in the
University Music Club. My first concert was
accompanying an oboist. I don’t even know if
we’d looked at the music before we went on the
platform. In the same concert, a real musician
called David Willcocks played, splendidly, a
Beethoven sonata, all from memory.
I was called up to war service in the
navy and worked on mine disposal. One
day, curiosity caused me to err and I blew
myself up, severing my right radial nerve –
not good for a keyboard player. Postwar, I
completed my music degree in Cambridge
– by then a legitimate subject – but needed
employment. Hertfordshire Rural Music
School was something to do with education
but I’d never educated anyone. A chap called
Harold Watkins Shaw, of Messiah edition
FROM THE ARCHIVE
fame, recommended me. I lived in Hitchin,
pretending to direct this school, touring the
county teaching children how to play the
recorder, carefully keeping one lesson ahead,
never having played the instrument.
Seven years on, the BBC advertised a job
in Manchester. I didn’t get it, but they asked
me to keep in touch. I got on to the music
staff of the BBC in Leeds, looking after the
choral achievements of the vast North Region.
I transferred to Manchester in 1960 when
my boss, Gordon Thorne, went to London.
He had been a keen choral conductor and
adjudicated at amateur music festivals. He’d
put together a band of singers who had been
festival winners, among them a girl called
Elizabeth Harwood. I first conducted this
group of oddities in 1954. I wanted to make
something of them and, rather naughtily,
advertised it in the Radio Times as the BBC
Northern Singers. I have a series of comments
from reviews we’ve had over the years and
I am very proud of these. And there are my
compositions, which I think will be swept
under the carpet for St Peter to consider.
Once, I was asked to meet Imogen Holst.
Would I walk around the garden at Little
Benslow Hills? I was so wet behind the ears – I
thought it was a nice conversation with a lovely
lady, only later realising I was being assessed
to become her successor to run the music at
Dartington. Not suitable! But Imo must have
taken a fancy because, when her father died,
it was not the BBC Singers who sang in his
honour but the BBC Northern Singers – not
the best way to befriend southern colleagues.
Today, singing standards are absolutely
fantastic, especially at universities. I wrote to
congratulate Nigel Short and Tenebrae for
their performance of Parry’s Songs of Farewell.
That had eloquence, something I aimed
for above everything. If there’s anything I’d
bequeath to future conductors, it is words:
conducting the William Byrd Singers in 1970
when I was 90, when my wife said ‘[your]
‘
vowels, consonants, phrasing. I only stopped
tempi are getting slower. Ultimately they
will come to a stop’. What a warning!
Stephen Wilkinson, who celebrated
his 100th birthday in April 2019,
was talking to Glyn Môn Hughes.
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 13
COURTESY PARK STREET CHURCH BOSTON
‘A curious moment’
When Covid struck, many who maintain organs found themselves at a loose end.
Jonathan Ambrosino took the opportunity to eavesdrop on churches in his home region
of Greater Boston
I
have always loved taking care of pipe
organs. Tuning is like solving some
giant crossword puzzle for the ears,
while fixing mechanical problems delivers
immediate gratification. And what better
reward than cleaning the keys and under
the pedals? An ongoing relationship with an
organ will reveal strengths and weaknesses,
usually of the instrument, definitely of
its tuner. And there is a life-lesson in the
impermanence of the task. Grounded tuners
understand that their efforts, however
salutary, are short-lived. There will always be
something on the next visit.
Other firms in New England look after 80,
100, or more instruments; Andover Organ
14 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
A pre-Covid service in Park Street Church, Boston, with the revised façade of its modified 1960 Aeolian-Skinner
Company in Lawrence, Mass., is tuner of
record for more than 300. This variety of
maintenance (a large firm with multiple
tuning teams) is not my background,
however. When I first started in the 1980s
with restorer and Lemare scholar Nelson
Barden, he had culled his roster to a select
dozen. He could then dote on those few while
concentrating on the shop work he had come
to prefer. Since returning to Boston in 2000,
I still travel as much as five months a year for
work, so it never seemed wise to take on too
much maintenance. These days, I look after
25 organs and help colleagues with about 15
others. To me, these 25 are special, either for
the instrument or the musician, often both. In
their mix of old and new, tracker and electro-
pneumatic, they reflect my own tastes. There
is still plenty of work here; three alone contain
112, 113 and 185 ranks each. But the limited
number permits – we hope, anyway – the
Barden-style doting in which I was reared.
For the tuner who loves to tune, the
pandemic has been a curious moment. In
the earliest days, most churches opted out of
service calls. The initial science seemed to
indicate that as few as possible should gather
indoors, including us. But for firms with large
tuning rosters, here was a Lenten gut punch:
widespread cancellation, loss of expected
revenue, a scramble to reassign workers and
projects to stay productive. Of my 25, only 12
www.choirandorgan.com

were visited before Easter 2020; that rose to
16 for Easter 2021. Better, but still not normal.
What to do with all that free time?
Eavesdrop on your customers, naturally, and
keep tabs on the stable of instruments. How
churches went online inevitably reflected both
their worship style (however modified for
pandemic compliance) and their core values.
I logged on for novelty’s sake but stayed
watching, often for the music, sometimes
to mother-hen an instrument’s tuning, and
eventually, to see how people grew into the
format. With only so much time, the six
or so services I flick through now are from
places where I have some relationship to the
instrument.
Churches already online were easy to spot:
the equipment in place, the learning-curve
mistakes long since made, the results fairly
seamless. It was interesting to note who
remained ‘active’ (worshipping with reduced
numbers and broadcasting live) and who
www.choirandorgan.com
went pre-recorded, and if so, how. In the
first category falls Park Street Church, an
evangelical congregation in the very heart
of the city, worshipping in a structure dating
from 1809. Having media presence is no
novelty here, where radio broadcast has run
continuously since January 1923 – by their
account, the longest-running radio church
service anywhere. Since 2012, Spencer Organ
Company of Waltham, Mass., has been
reconstituting the 1960 Aeolian-Skinner
into something grander and warmer, in
consultation with minister of music Nathan
Skinner (no relation to the early 20th-century
builder, but whose church-musician father
spent several years as an organ technician).
Until the late 1960s, Park Street had
a ‘quartette’ near the console. A choir
formed in the late 1960s, moving to the rear
gallery in the 1970s and now numbering
nearly 50 singers. As a part of the organ’s
renovation, the rear-gallery Antiphonal
All Saints Ashmont has a relocated 1929 Skinner in the chancel and a 1995 Fisk in the gallery
LEN LEVASSEUR
BOSTON
was remodelled as a second Swell, better
suited to accompaniment in this set-up.
When the pandemic hit, the sanctuary was
closed to general worship, but live broadcast
continued, with eight singers spread along
the wide gallery. Numbers increased as the
science evolved. Park Street’s multi-camera
set-up and fluid direction means the camera
follows the action, simply and without fuss.
Two nice aspects for the viewer/tuner: the
rare presence of air-conditioning in a New
England church keeps the organ nicely in
tune through summer months; and, without
a congregation present, it was finally possible
to hear voluntaries without persistent
Protestant chatter.
At the other end of the spectrum lies the
Parish of All Saints, Ashmont, in the city’s
Dorchester section. This church is known for
architecture, liturgy, and music in the Anglo-
Catholic tradition. A 1995 Fisk in the gallery
commands the room; a smaller, relocated
LEN LEVASSEUR
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 15
GÖTE B ORG I N T E RN AT I ON A L ORG A N F E ST I VA L
OCTOB E R 1 3 –24, 2 0 2 1

PH OTO Ol a K j el by e / G S O / w w w . g s o . s e

Encounters
A World of Tactile Passion and New Sounds - for All!
w w w . o rg a n a c a d e my . s e

(l) Old South Church recorded weekly voluntaries for broadcast; (r) the Skinner/Aeolian-Skinner in Trinity Church has been back in use since September 2020
1929 Skinner in the chancel leads the choir
of men and boys – the sole such continuous
survivor in this diocese. Ashmont lies in that
seam of Anglo-Catholic expression where the
grand and the chaste intermingle, much like
the surrounding neighbourhood.
While All Saints never stopped
worshipping, it had to limit numbers to
comply. Their approach to live-streaming
was entry-level: a spare font was placed in
the centre aisle to serve as an iPhone stand.
(After a time, a better microphone arrived.)
Certain physical aspects of the liturgy were
rearranged so the action always fell within the
camera’s view. The choir was reduced to six
paid men, responsibly distanced among the
stalls. Though not singing on Sundays, the
boys continued to rehearse, only now in the
large parish hall with proper distancing.
Rather than seeming simple, however, the
‘security-camera’ feel of these services felt
entirely in character with the parish.
www.choirandorgan.com
LEN LEVASSEUR
Old South Church, a big UCC church
on Copley Square, ceased live worship
altogether, assembling Sunday morning
broadcasts from spoken portions and organ
voluntaries recorded specially for that week.
Old South’s multiple, eclectic services were
consolidated into a single broadcast, which
meant compressing the church’s music
programme to suit: virtually produced choral
A high point was a virtual Duruflé Requiem, with
floating images of the parish’s departed
anthems alternating with performances from
the handbell and jazz ensembles. Speakers
recorded sometimes in the church, other
times in homes or offices. The emphasis
here seemed on intimacy of connection
rather than trying to recreate the colourful
ambience of the large, Victorian nave and
active congregation. In something like the
BOSTON
LEN LEVASSEUR
reverse of Park Street’s air conditioning, with
good New England frugality Old South saw
little point in heating the nave merely for one
or two people making recordings. Minister
of music Mitchell Crawford and his associate
George Sargeant played on, with Sargeant’s
boldly hued sweaters matching the 55º F
winter temperatures, even as the 112-rank
Skinner could be heard complaining.
Across Copley Square, Trinity Church
followed a similar approach, with online
Sunday worship entirely pre-recorded.
Richard Webster and Colin Lynch produced
voluntaries, hymns and choral selections
every week, quilting together contributions
from individual choristers numbering in
the dozens. As at Ashmont, the quality of
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 17
 BOSTON

Church of the Advent’s 1936 Aeolian-Skinner

LEN LEVASSEUR

never fell out of use

recording equipment soon improved, and

Lynch (like many in his position) developed
considerable skill at lending visual interest
and variety, not only in the presentation of
the singers but in panoramic washes of the
famous 1877 interior. A high point was a
virtual Duruflé Requiem for All Souls 2020,
in which floating images of the parish’s
departed accompanied the music, all most
movingly done. Behind the scenes, intensive
zoom rehearsal and coaching kept the
church’s 100 musical volunteers engaged
and singing.
Through all this online viewing, one
non-visual experience stood out. The
Anglo-Catholic Church of the Advent is
known for its 18-voice professional choir,
superb 1936 Aeolian-Skinner, and high
standard. A few years ago, the parish
installed a high-quality sound system for
archival recordings. Now it was put to the
service of audio-only webcasts. The small
chancel precluded the 18 from singing on
Sundays, so organist and choirmaster Mark
Dwyer divided them in half and introduced
a weekly Evensong webcast, well more than
their usual monthly standard. A pastoral
meditation, paired to an archival musical
selection, upped the weekly webcast offering
to three. On Sundays, an entire simulated
Mass was assembled, using archival
recordings, new sermon and lessons;
new prayers and chants were recorded
as necessary. A noise track, complete
with coughing and rustling, assured that
transitions from archival to new material
(recorded in the empty church) flowed
naturally. (Besides, the Advent never turns
off the heat, so the organ was always in
solid tune.)
Call me old-fashioned, but this was my
preferred pandemic online worship. Who
wants to see a video of an empty church?
With the experience now in the realm of fine
radio, the imagination could supply what the
eye could not: full pews, the whiff of incense,
and memory of healthier times.

Jonathan Ambrosino is a Boston-based

tuner-technician, who works nationally as a
consultant and tonal finisher. He has written for
Choir & Organ since 1998.

18 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021 www.choirandorgan.com

 D A L L A S , T E X A S , U N I T E D S TAT E S
S A I N T M I C H A E L A N D A L L A N G E L S E P I S C O PA L C H U R C H

Join us in person or virtually to celebrate our 75 th anniversary with these new commissions
by renowned composers! Services are livestreamed at saintmichael.org/live.

SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 26 SUNDAY, DECEMBER 19 SUNDAY, MAY 15

A new choral mass from An anthem from

P hilip Moore
Patronal Feast Eucharist Cecilia McDowall
Christmas Lessons & Carols Gala Choral Concert
11 AM Central Time Zone 5:30 PM Central Time Zone 4 PM Central Time Zone

Philip Moore, George Baker, Chorister Anthem by Combined Choirs Anthem by

Todd Wilson, Robert Lehman, Samuel Sweet Cecilia McDowall
Angela Kraft Cross, Nathan Stang
David Hill
In conversation
with ...
James O’Donnell
Organist and Master of the Choristers, Westminster Abbey
DH: How did you get into choral
conducting?
JOD: As a child, all I wanted to do was to be
an organist; and when I became competent
enough to play the organ in church, I began
to work with choirs, firstly as an accompanist
and then I dipped my toe into conducting. I
didn’t imagine myself to be the sort of person
who would direct choirs, but over time it was
something that fell into my orbit. At first I
found it very difficult: I had sung in a choir
as a boy, but not in a cathedral setting, so I
didn’t have the daily service tradition in my
mind. I also found it quite difficult working
out what someone conducting a choir could
usefully do. It’s something that you have to
work on and it eventually becomes part of
your personality – basically, how you interact
with other people. If anything, there’s a more
immediately intuitive aspect to working with
singers because it’s so personal, the singers
expressing themselves through their bodies.
I find the personal interaction between the
choir director and the singers fascinating. But
it’s not something you can simply start doing
and suddenly think you have mastered it all.
It’s a lifelong skill that you keep building up
and developing – I’m still learning.
20 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
DH: You went to Jesus College,
Cambridge as organ scholar. What was
that like?
JOD: Yes; when I arrived, I didn’t really
know anything about it! I knew there were
a couple of good organs there – in my time
there was an older organ and a newish
Mander, about eight years old. There had
been some very good organ scholars in
previous years: Peter Hurford and Richard
Lloyd, among others. It seemed to have a
good tradition, and also it had a boys’ choir
made up of children from local schools. So it
A choir member needs subtle skills and the ability
to hone individuality to contribute to the whole
felt like a traditional choral foundation. But I
had no idea what would actually be involved
in running the choir, so when I got there
it was a bit of a baptism of fire. I quickly
discovered that without a choral scholar
system (another aspect which didn’t exist
in my day) or a director of music to advise
and help in running the choir, everything
falls to you! The College now has a director
of music and all the appropriate support
systems. Nevertheless, it was a really great
experience and it was during this time I met
George Guest, then organist at St John’s,
who was so supportive of me while I was
organ scholar at Jesus. He was very kind and
helpful, in many ways a mentor during my
early career.
DH: During the pandemic, how have
you managed to cope at the Abbey?
JOD: It’s been difficult, as it has been
everywhere. The Abbey has been closed to
the public for long periods and is gradually
finding its feet again now. The Abbey staff
has been restructured and there have sadly
been some redundancies. We have made use
of the government’s furlough scheme. Many
people have worked from home, and some
have been on furlough for many months.
So it has been difficult. From the musical
perspective, the main challenge has of course
been the disruption to the life and work of the
choir. The boys have had protracted periods
www.choirandorgan.com

at home, being educated online, as have many
other pupils across the country. It’s difficult
to educate, let alone rehearse, that way and
they have missed many months of live choral
experience. The important thing was to keep
the sense of the choir alive despite all this.
We resumed choral services in the Abbey
as soon as we were allowed, so in August
2020 we ensured we had groups of six singers
standing by, ready to come in to sing the
Eucharist on Sunday morning. I’m very
pleased we managed that at such an early
stage. Overall it has been a rather patchy
time, with some periods of regularity and
others more disrupted, and many services
sung with reduced forces. And, of course, we
have been socially distanced in the quire and
have had to observe strict safety protocols.
We have been able to record and broadcast a
little, if only behind closed doors. Ultimately
my priority was to keep the choir going as
much as possible in the circumstances, and
the singers to their great credit have fully and
enthusiastically engaged in this.
James O’Donnell conducting the Choir of Westminster Abbey: ‘The important thing was to keep the sense of the choir alive’
www.choirandorgan.com
DH: There was a lovely Evensong
broadcast on Radio 3: no one would have
realised you were all under such strain.
JOD: Thank you. Well, despite the challenges
I am glad to say there has been a very
positive feel to the choir. One of the things
all choirs have had to get used to is the Covid
safety regulations about distancing. As a
consequence, we had to learn how to work
differently in a new configuration. Luckily, the
boys can stand together as they are all in the
same bubble, which really helped, though I
realise that is not the case everywhere. Maybe
the different layout has sharpened us up and
made the singers more alert to ensemble. Also,
I sense that having been unable to sing as a
choir for long periods has really brought home
to us just how important this is to us all.
DH: Singing is becoming increasingly
popular in the UK, with thousands of
people singing in choirs every week.
JOD: It’s a corporate activity which allows
people to contribute something on an
JAMES O’DONNELL
individual level but which has a corporate
result. To be an effective member of a
choir, you have to have very subtle skills
and be capable of honing your individual
contribution in a way that contributes to the
whole. You can’t be a soloist in a choir: you
have to find a way to be part of a bigger thing
while still being fully yourself. It works on an
instinctive level. Producing something that
others can enjoy is a fascinating and satisfying
activity to be involved in. It is mentally and
physically beneficial. I think people respond
to it on all these levels, and more.
DH: You’re in the area of educating
young singers – so many life skills are
offered, aren’t they?
JOD: A chorister education – and I’m so
pleased it is thriving up and down the
country – is the basis of a personal, musical
and educational formation: you learn how
to work with other people, and as you say,
so many life skills are learned singing in
a choir from a young age. But it’s not just
BEN EALOVEGA
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 21
SIMON PERRY
JAMES O’DONNELL
Recording a new album for Hyperion of music by Jonathan Dove, Judith Weir and Matthew Martin
about music. Choral singing teaches you to
be a more rounded person and improves
organisational skills. It’s not possible to turn
up for Evensong unprepared with your music
not in order, for instance. You also have to
work as part of a team and get on with others.
Some of our families don’t know quite what
to expect from a chorister education when
they join, but it is wonderful to see parents
realising what an extraordinary experience
their children are having. We are very
fortunate in having an excellent choir school
dedicated solely to our choristers.
DH: What would your top three ‘desert
island’ works be?
JOD: I always find this question difficult. I
would turn it around to what works could
I not survive the thought of not hearing
again: Bach’s B minor Mass; the great Mozart
operas, in particular The Marriage of Figaro;
the late Beethoven string quartets – it’s so
difficult to reduce it to just a few pieces –
Bach would certainly be one of the choices.
22 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
Byrd as well. There are other composers for
whom I have huge respect; Hindemith and
Stravinsky, for instance. I don’t always like
all they have written but I admire their work.
Oh, and I also really like Wozzeck by Alban
Berg – it’s wonderful, I could listen to that
forever: such an influential piece.
DH: Finally, what plans have you for any
CDs / tours / special broadcasts with the
Abbey Choir?
JOD: There are plans for CDs and other
projects in the offing, but at the moment
we’re not really sure when tours will resume.
We’re hoping that we will be able to restore
our activities in the Abbey shortly, but there’s
inevitably a certain amount of speculation
in making plans. At the moment it’s hard
working out not just the logistics but also the
financial aspects of, say, concerts – what will
the box office income be if audiences have to
be distanced and thus reduced? These aspects
obviously take on even more importance in the
current situation. We have some big services
coming up, so there’s always a lot of planning
going on. We’re about to release our newest
CD on Hyperion, of music by Jonathan Dove,
Judith Weir and Matthew Martin [CDA 68350,
to be released in February 2022] – some of
which was recorded in March 2020 just before
the first lockdown, and then completed last
November.
DH: We’re talking at the end of July,
having just ended a difficult term – you
must be ready for a rest.
JOD: Yes, indeed! But we’re working out the
plans for when the choir returns after the
summer break – there are obviously many
questions which still need to be resolved but
hopefully, come September, things will be
clearer.
David Hill is musical director of the Bach Choir
and Leeds Philharmonic Society, principal
conductor of Yale Schola Cantorum, and
associate guest conductor of Bournemouth
Symphony Orchestra.
www.choirandorgan.com
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The giant awakes
The renovation of York Minster’s famous organ has sought to recapture its late-romantic
opulence. Chris Bragg assesses the result

L
ike so many Brits bitten by the organ
bug, I listened frequently as a child
to Francis Jackson’s famous EMI
recording of Norman Cocker’s Tuba Tune,
the York Tuba Mirabilis obliterating all
around it. Visiting the Minster at the tender
age of five and gazing at the organ, shrouded
in plastic following the lightning strike of
the previous year, was a particular formative
thrill. Following Harrison & Harrison’s
recent rebuilding, that same organ has taken
on an altogether more exciting persona,
rooted both in the more remarkable
achievements of imperial English organ
building and in the unique hurdles any
organ in that mighty space has to overcome.
For York is a particularly difficult
building to fill with organ sound, especially
if the source of that sound is a single
instrument located east of the crossing.
The challenges posed by the lantern and
transepts, especially when accompanying
congregational singing in the nave,
prompted Elliot and Hill, at the instigation
of John Camidge following an act of organ-
induced arson in 1829, to build an organ
on a hitherto unknown scale in England.
In doing so, extensive – and inevitably
futile – levels of duplication were employed,
together with some wild experimentation as

The resiting of the Solo has allowed the curtains along the eastern façade to be removed, revealing the case’s waisted-in pedestal
DUNCAN LOMAX, RAVAGE PRODUCTIONS
YORK MINSTER

York Minster
HARRISON & HARRISON (2021)
PEDAL SWELL
1. a Double Open Wood  32 54. b/c Bourdon 16
2. a Double Open Diapason 32 55. b Open Diapason 8
3. h Open Wood I 16 56. c Violin Diapason 8
4. a/c Open Wood II (from 1) 16 57. b/c Rohr Flute 8
5. c Open Diapason 16 58. c Echo Gamba 8
6. e Violone 16 59. c Voix Céleste (low A) 8
7. c Sub Bass 16 60. c Principal 4
8. c Gamba 16 61. c Wald Flute 4
9. h Octave Wood (from 3) 8 62. b Fifteenth 2
10. d Principal 8 63. c Mixture (15.19.22) III
11. g Flute 8 64. b/c Dulciana Mixture (19.22.26) III
12. g Fifteenth 4 65. c Double Trumpet 16
13. f/h Mixture (12.17.19.22) IV 66. c Trumpet 8
14. h Double Ophicleide (from 16) 32 67. c Horn 8
15. c Double Trombone (from 17) 32 68. c Oboe 8
16. e Ophicleide 16 69. b Clarion 4
17. c Trombone 16 XVIII Tremulant
18. g Fagotto 16 XIX Octave XX Unison Off XXI Sub Octave XXII Solo to Swell
19. e Posaune (from 16) 8
20. g Trumpet 8 SOLO
21. h Clarion (from 16) 4 (70-81 enclosed)
I Choir to Pedal II Great to Pedal III Swell to Pedal 70. c Echo Dulciana 8
IV Solo to Pedal V Pedal Divide 71. e Viole d’Orchestre 8
72. g Viole Céleste (low A) 8
CHOIR 73. c/h Harmonic Flute 8
22. b/c Lieblich Bourdon 16 74. c Concert Flute 4
23. b Open Diapason 8 75. h Harmonic Piccolo 2
24. b/c Lieblich Gedackt 8 76. c Bassoon 16
25. c Gamba 8 77. h Clarinet 8
26. b Gemshorn 4 78. c Orchestral Oboe 8
27. b Claribel Flute 4 79. c Vox Humana 8
28. b/f Nazard 22/3 XXIII Tremulant
29. g Flautina  2 80. c Contra Tuba 16
30. b/f Tierce 13/5 81. c Tuba 8
31. g/h Mixture (15.19.22) III 82. d Tuba Mirabilis 8
VI Tremulant XXIV Octave XXV Unison Off XXVI Sub Octave
XXVII Enclosed Solo on Swell
VII Octaves Alone VIII Solo to Choir
IX Swell to Choir X Choir and Great exchange
Combination couplers
XXVIII Great and Pedal Combinations Coupled
GREAT
XXIX Generals on Swell foot pistons
32. b/c Double Open Diapason 16
XXX West shutters On
33. b/c Double Stopped Diapason 16
34. h Open Diapason I 8 Accessories
35. d Open Diapason II 8 Eight foot pistons to each of the Pedal and Swell
36. c Open Diapason III 8 Reversible foot pistons to II, XXVII; 15
37. b Open Diapason IV 8 Eight thumb pistons to each of the Choir, Great, Swell and Solo
38. b Salicional 8 Reversible thumb pistons to I – IV, VIII, IX, XV – XVII, XXII, XXVII; 1
39. c Hohl Flute 8 Eight general pistons and general cancel
40. b Stopped Diapason 8 Stepper, operating general pistons in sequence
41. d Octave 4 16 divisional and 999 general memory levels
42. b Principal 4 Balanced expression pedals to the Swell and Solo
43. c Harmonic Flute 4
44. c Octave Quint 22/3 Origins of pipework
45. d Super Octave 2 a 1834 Elliot & Hill
46. h Harmonics (17.19.21.22) IV b 1859 William Hill & Son
47. d Mixture (15.19.22) III c 1903 J W Walker & Sons
48. h Mixture (15.19.22.26.29) V d 1917 Harrison & Harrison
49. c Contra Posaune  16 e 1931 Harrison & Harrison
50. c Posaune 8 f 1960 J W Walker & Sons
51. h Clarion 4 g 1993 Principal Pipe Organs
52. c/d Tromba 8 h 2020 Harrison & Harrison
53. c/d Octave Tromba4
XI Posaunes on Choir XII Posaunes on Pedal XIII Trombas on Choir The manual compass is 58 notes; the pedal 30 notes.
XIV Trombas on Solo The key actions are electro-pneumatic.
XV Choir to Great XVI Swell to Great XVII Solo to Great Adviser: Ian Bell

26 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021 www.choirandorgan.com


the shortcomings of the insular movement
gave way to the Gauntlett-et-al-inspired
German revolution. In 1859, Hill returned
to rebuild and rationalise. Nevertheless,
just four years later, a second Hill organ
was installed in the nave. With son Thomas
now in partnership, this was undoubtedly
significantly more accomplished (and loud).
It survives, partly altered, in the church
of St Thomas and St John in Radcliffe,
Manchester.
In 1903 a technically new organ, largely
in the existing case and with pneumatic
key action, was built by J.W. Walker in
their distinctive version of the imperial
style. Much Hill material was rescaled and
recycled, although the façade pipes were
silenced, Walker’s flue basses being housed
within the case to the detriment of tonal
egress. From the outset, the organ was
warmly received: smooth, refined, and with
a pedal division which elicited particular
admiration. Its impact in the nave, however,
was evidently meagre. In 1904 the influential
writer on organ design Colonel George
www.choirandorgan.com
Dixon, in a slightly tawdry article in Musical
Opinion, even reported that despite the
console of the screen organ being relocated
to the south (it returned to the east in 1960),
thus enabling the accompaniment of singers
both to the east and west, the nave organ
remained in use.1 Its departure to Manchester
followed, nevertheless, the following year.
Finally, York Minster has an organ whose gesture
parallels the space it inhabits
This incarnation didn’t last long, with
the arrival in 1913 of Edward Bairstow
bringing Arthur Harrison to York. His
first intervention, four years later, sought
to remedy the Walker organ’s perceived
shortcomings. The Great high-pressure
chorus was largely replaced, voiced on
7", with a new ‘harmonics’ mixture and a
heroic, leathered Open Diapason no.1. The
Great trumpets became trombas, initially
on 12", and the famous Tuba Mirabilis, its
horizontal resonators mounted in the base
YORK MINSTER
DUNCAN LOMAX, RAVAGE PRODUCTIONS
The screen console
of the case facing west following Bairstow’s
experiment with a human trumpeter, made
its entrance. In 1930 Harrison returned to
complete the job; the action electrified, the
Great trombas’ pressure further increased
to 15" and the Walker tubas enclosed in the
enlarged Solo box on 20" (previously 12").
The pedal gained a 16ft/8ft/4ft Ophicleide
unit sharing the pressure, and the clout, of
the Tuba Mirabilis. ‘Mr Harrison would
like a more powerful 32ft reed,’ reported
Reginald Whitworth in The Organ.2
He would have to wait.
Given the historical narrative around
the organ’s impact to the west, Walkers’
1960 project, under the auspices of Francis
Jackson, the necessary mechanical renewal
notwithstanding, seems curious indeed.
Sixty years on, it’s difficult for organists
of my generation to fully understand how
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 27

the mid-century reform dynamics were
experienced by English players. Fashion
was surely at play, but fashion tinged with
received dogmatic ideal nevertheless.
Writing in Musical Opinion in 1964,
Jackson refers to a ‘Damascene moment’
on encountering modern Danish organ
building during a recital tour in 1955. ‘I see
no reason,’ he writes, ‘why a sympathetically
voiced baroque organ, totally unenclosed,
could not cope with an English service…
We are so used to the swell pedal and inter-
manual couplers, but we are not yet used
to the subtleties of classical voicing which
make the swell box all but redundant.’3
It seems especially telling that, writing in
The Organ, Jackson frames the changes
entirely in the context of the organ reform’s
preoccupations, quoting Albert Schweitzer’s
writings on the ideal Bach organ. The
comparative lack of liturgical activity in
the nave at the time must be acknowledged
when Jackson reports the Ophicleide,
Open Wood and Open Diapason no.1 as
Old and new: restored front pipes and replica corner tower pipes in the west façade HARRISON & HARRISON
(l to r) The reconstituted trombas on the upper Great soundboard; the Solo, now located in the lower part of the case, with the new Clarinet nearest the passage board
www.choirandorgan.com
having fallen into disuse. But it is surely
also indicative of his being torn between
inherited tradition and the prevailing ‘Neue
Sachlichkeit’: ‘Had we any need to worry
about clarity of counterpoint so long as there
was enough volume available for a good
crescendo?’ he asks rhetorically.4 The Open
Wood dutifully departed, as did the Open
Diapason no.1 (migrating to the pedal on
the Open Wood’s chest). The Great high-
pressure chorus was reduced to just 41/4",
with the trombas, whose 1917 pressure of
12" had proved inadequate, revoiced on the
same pressure. The Ophicleide was reduced
in pressure from 25" to a mere 6". The
Choir’s Dulciana Mixture became a Cymbal,
the Solo Clarinet a Crumhorn. Only the
swell remained comparatively intact.
If the result of this operation was to render
the organ, once again, ineffective in the
nave, it was nonetheless the organ on which
Jackson made the famous recordings which,
I suspect, imprinted the ‘York sound’ in the
collective subconscious of many reading
HARRISON & HARRISON
YORK MINSTER
this article. Indeed, the internationally
popular legacy of those LPs (and the music
conceived by Jackson for the organ) could
easily have become a preoccupation for
those planning the recent reconstruction by
Harrison & Harrison. Instead, associative
value has been firmly pushed to the side in
favour of a unifying concept rooted in the
physical fact of the organ’s core material.
This represents a brave decision, quite at
odds with recent projects elsewhere (Selby
Abbey, for example) but those responsible
have been more than vindicated.
In appearance, the organ presents a much
happier vista than previously. The collapsing
1830s case pipes have been restored visually,
as well as to speech, stabilised at the foot,
cleaned, and retouched in matching oil
paints by Robert Woodland. The pipes in the
corner towers, however, were deemed to be
beyond redemption and have been replaced
with exact copies. More impressively, the
resiting of the Solo box in the base of Robert
Smirke’s case, from its previous position on
HARRISON & HARRISON
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 29
 YORK MINSTER
DUNCAN LOMAX, RAVAGE PRODUCTIONS
The 1830s case pipes have been restored both visually and to speech
the north side of the pulpitum, has allowed
the removal of the curtains which obscured
the impost along the eastern façade. As a
result, the upward contour from the case’s
lower pedestal has been revealed. Light
from the west window now peeks round
into the quire, somewhat freeing a case
characterised by Nicholas Thistlethwaite
as ‘unenterprising and cumbersome’5 from
its previously dumpy appearance. The
combined effect of bringing the Solo into the
case, the return of the 1903 Walker 32/16ft
Trombone to the north quire aisle from the
south transept and the metal pedal Open
Diapason across the south aisle, where it
once again finds itself adjacent to the Double
Open Diapason, has been to make the organ
more compact and more focused, while
the return of the case pipes to speech has
obviated the need for Walker’s internal flue
basses, to the benefit of the organ’s layout
and projection. A glance inside reveals
meticulous planning, as well as the ubiquity
of the man-made wood substitutes now
common currency in Durham in the pursuit
of mechanical reliability.
Following extensive research (including
30 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
much study of private pre-1960 recordings)
by Robert Sharpe, director of music since
2008, the decision was taken to restore to the
organ the sounds by which Arthur Harrison
gave it its impact in the nave: the trombas
on 15", the gargantuan Pedal Open Wood I
(with its 8ft extension) and the Great high-
pressure chorus. Experiments in 2012,
returning the Harrison 4ft, 2ft Super Octave
and the lower three ranks of the Mixture,
a separate stop since 1960, to the higher
pressure of 7" prompted much excitement
and pointed the way forward. In addition,
and especially bravely, the organ has
regained that leathered Open Diapason no.1,
on the same pressure. As much as increasing
the organ’s presence beyond the lantern, it
acts as a telling binding agent. The three-
rank mixture has been retained as a separate
stop, joined by a new harmonics mixture,
with the peculiar and wonderful zing of its
flattened 21st, and a further, grand five-
rank quint mixture. The resulting chorus is
courageous indeed: hardly subtle, but subtle
was hardly called for. The reconstituted
Great trombas, meanwhile, have a pealing,
almost Willis-like quality, perhaps a nod to
Bairstow’s taste, or a particular solution to
the challenges of the space. On the pedal,
‘Mr Harrison’s more powerful 32ft reed’ has
finally been realised, with the Ophicleide
unit, returned to its original pressure,
receiving its cataclysmic 32ft octave. The
1960 Mixture has been partially retained but
with an added twelfth and tierce orphaned
during the recent rebuild at King’s College,
Cambridge. The resulting composition
matches Arthur Harrison’s equivalent stop
at Westminster Abbey. On the Solo, the new
Clarinet and harmonic flute chorus (the 8ft
having become a Chimney Flute in 1960,
the 2ft entirely new) are symptomatic of the
accomplished ear of voicer Andrew Scott,
who was able, uniquely, to work unfettered
during the day as lockdown forced an
otherwise unwelcome silence.
The only real concessions to the
peculiarities of the organ’s previous
incarnation are found on the Choir, where
the mutations frequently required in
Jackson’s music have remained. The Nazard,
of wood, is actually Hill’s Suabe Flute
transposed, the Tierce in metal, formerly the
Dulciana. Having lost the Great mutations,
Cornet and Sesquialtera tacked on during
a somewhat unhappy operation in 1993,
their retention is defensible, but it would
be hard to argue that they contribute to the
organ’s overwhelmingly orchestral opulence.
The 1993 Mixture, which replaced the 1960
Cymbal, has been partially recomposed,
rather than – as in 1930 –duplicating the
Swell’s reconstituted Dulciana Mixture,
a stop which provides a telling, colourful
definition whether used conventionally or
with the strings.
The greatest surprise has been the effect
of additional shutters added to the west
side of the swell box. With the Great and
Swell soundboards running east/west, the
south-facing Swell shutters spread diffused
sound effectively to the east. The additional
shutters have given the Swell perhaps 40 per
cent more presence in the nave. Bairstow’s
love of using the Open Diapason as a solo
stop with the tremulant (made possible once
again by the provision of tremulants on both
pressures) is all the more lovely when heard
from the west, where the extent to which
Swell and Solo can be used interchangeably
(one accompanying the other) is unexpected
and ripe with possibilities.
www.choirandorgan.com

ROB SHIRET
There’s a real sense in which, finally,
York Minster has an organ whose gesture
parallels the space it inhabits, dominating
the nave perhaps to a greater extent than
at any time. The legendary Tuba Mirabilis
no longer dwarfs the remainder of the tutti,
but rather emerges as the entirely logical
denouement of a crescendo coloured by
increasingly noble reeds of similar hue. But
while this new-found firepower was surely
the point (and a post-pandemic Christmas
Eve with 2,500 voices is eagerly anticipated),
what is especially fascinating here is the
extent to which the organ’s embodying of
the manner of cathedral music-making
during the interbellum, by figures such as
Bairstow, has been emulated so extensively.
This is now one of the England’s great ultra-
late romantic organs, free from fashionable
compromise and, as such, proposing a new
path for many a much rebuilt cathedral
organ in the future. York’s singularity of
voice, characterised by the uniquely dark,
throaty core of Walker’s pepper-pot reeds,
its seamless and vast dynamic spectrum
and highly sophisticated breadth of colour,
are testament to the rigour and single-
mindedness of Robert Sharpe, whose legacy
will be an organ his successors will surely
leave well alone. Go and listen for yourself.
It’s a triumph.
References
1. Dixon, George: ‘The York Minster Organ
part 2’, Musical Opinion vol.320 (May, 1904),
p.610.
2. Whitworth, Reginald: ‘The Rebuilt Organ at
York Minster’, The Organ vol.XI, no.42 (October,
1931), p.70.
3. Jackson, Francis: ‘Baroque & Tracker’, Musical
Opinion vol.105, no.1457 (July 1964), p.517.
4. Jackson, Francis: ‘York Minster, 1960, and
Schweitzer’, The Organ vol.XXXX (July 1960),
p.24.
5. Thistlethwaite, Nicholas: The Making of the
Victorian Organ, Cambridge University Press
1990, p.82.
Chris Bragg studied organ at the former
RSAMD, and the Conservatories of
Amsterdam and Utrecht. He is head of
programming at the University of St Andrews
Music Centre, artistic director of St Andrews
Organ Week, and a freelance organist,
teacher, writer and translator.
www.choirandorgan.com
Freestyle
BY GRAEME KAY
The worst – and best – of international reviewing
T he opportunity to review Christopher Herrick’s Northern Lights
CD recorded in Nidaros Cathedral (see next issue) reminded
me of my own trip to Trondheim to cover the organ festival held
there in November 2014. Recalling four decades of feature-writing and reviewing at home
and abroad, some trips are best forgotten… Oh, all right, the absolute nadir was being sent an
invitation to review a performance of La bohème at a new theatre in West Palm Beach, Florida.
This was years before anyone on this side of the Pond had heard of Donald Trump much,
let alone Mar-a-Lago, although I doubt Palm Beach Opera would have been on the former
president’s radar, even in such close proximity to his (now) home. Anyway, I turned up at
Heathrow the day before the gig, only to discover at check-in that the opera company’s press
office had cheese-pared the invitation to the extent of issuing only a stand-by ticket for the
flight, which was routed to Palm Beach via Miami. I couldn’t get on the first flight; the second
flight was cancelled because the aircraft was faulty; I managed to get on a third flight, but as
we passed over the Atlantic, the eastern seaboard of the US was hit by its worst winter storm
in living memory, and all flights were being diverted to … Miami. As I landed, my connecting
flight for the short hop to Palm Beach (the last of the day) was taking off… It got worse. Because
scores of extra flights were arriving, there were no hotel beds in Miami; and no hire cars,
even if one were prepared to risk a road journey knowing that instantly recognisable hire-car
plates were being targeted by homicidal
COURTESY NIDAROS CATHEDRAL
bandits in the hinterlands of the city (this
is not an exaggeration). So I had to spend
the night in the airport, awaiting the first
morning flight out. They had run out of
blankets for the legions of the displaced,
so I lay down with hundreds of others and
my luggage. Sleep was impossible because
every single minute of the night (again, no
exaggeration), the tannoy blared one of
two messages: ‘BING BONG! Do not leave
luggage unattended in this facility.’ As if.
And, ‘BING BONG! Federal regulations The pride of Trondheim – Nidaros Cathedral’s
Steinmeyer organ
prohibit the use of smoking materials in
this facility.’ I got to my hotel in Palm Beach about 11am, had a couple of hours’ kip and as I
left for the theatre, it snowed. Later, I pointed out to a shopkeeper that his postcard of Palm
Beach, showing a beach and a palm, lacked any authentic snow. He took my card away and
grinningly returned a few moments later having added some daubs from a bottle of Sno-Pake.
Recognising that, in my jet-lagged condition, the combination of Puccini’s music, a warm
theatre and dim lighting would make wakefulness an impossibility, I resolved to prop my
eyelids open with matchsticks, make notes on the first two minutes of each act and allow fate
to take its course. And you think these trips are just junkets?
By contrast, apart from the eye-watering cost of living, Trondheim was one of the best trips
ever. Being part of full and enthusiastic houses for organ and choral concerts and services in
Nidaros Cathedral and other churches in the city was uplifting beyond measure. There are few
ancient church buildings in the world where the west end is so completely and successfully
defined, architecturally, by a modern organ; here, the free-standing Steinmeyer instrument
with its arched construction of exposed pipes cradles both the cathedral’s rose window and
any musical activity which takes place within its embrace. Nidaros’s multiple choirs, full of a
great diversity of young people, gladdened the heart, and to hear one such ensemble perform
a demanding programme culminating in Schoenberg’s Friede auf Erden, sung from memory,
was an utterly moving and unforgettable experience. I can’t wait to go back.
Graeme Kay is a digital platforms producer for BBC Radio 3 and 4.
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 31
 Opus 402
St. Marylebone Parish Church
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Garden centre
Hospitalised with Covid, a former maths professor saw visions of a garden that, unknown
to him, existed in real life. The diaries kept by medical staff have now been set to music
by Richard Blackford in a new work to be premiered in October. David Wordsworth
meets the composer

T
he Bach Choir of London and music
director David Hill open their new
season at the Royal Festival Hall on
24 October with a concert fittingly entitled
‘Music for Reflection and Hope’. The choir
has a long tradition of combining tradition
and innovation, which continues after what
has been a period of distressing silence for
so many choirs all over the world. Presented
by Anna Lapwood, the concert opens with
a brief new unaccompanied choral work by
Gabriel Jackson, The Promise, which acts
as a restrained and atmospheric overture,
and concludes with that most consoling
of works, Fauré’s Requiem, performed in
memory of all those who have lost their
lives during the Covid pandemic. Vaughan
Williams’s Fantasia on a theme of Thomas
Tallis will be preceded by the hymn tune that
RVW used as the basis for his masterpiece,
but set here to new words; it will be sung by
the Bach Choir joined by NHS Chorus-19,
the choir of NHS staff that Lapwood set up
in March 2020 to boost their morale.
At the centre of the programme comes
the world premiere of a unique and
topical work by Richard Blackford (who
coincidentally taught Gabriel Jackson at
the Royal College of Music). Vision of a
Garden was commissioned by the Bach
Choir for this concert, and sets texts by – or,
more accurately, the visions and memories
of – a member of the choir, the tenor Peter
Johnstone, who is Emeritus Professor
of Mathematics at St John’s College,
Cambridge.

MARTIN TOMKINS
Composer Richard Blackford, whose Vision of a Garden recreates the experiences of a Covid patient
SLUG

David Hill conducts the Bach Choir: Blackford had their sound in his head as he composed the work PHOTOS COURTESY THE BACH CHOIR
Johnstone was hospitalised at
Addenbrookes in Cambridge with Covid
in March 2020 and was kept alive by a
ventilator for several weeks. The initial
prognosis was bleak, but fortunately he
is now on the way to a full and complete
recovery – even to the extent of getting
his singing voice back. However, that
was not before a traumatic period in
which he underwent a tracheotomy and
suffered hallucinations, brought on by the
concoction of drugs that he was given. The
‘One can try and create drama without the extra
baggage that is involved with an opera’
nurses kept a diary of these ‘visions’ and,
knowing of their patient’s love of music
and in particular choral singing, played
him his favourite music; one of these
pieces, Handel’s Messiah, makes a fleeting
appearance in the new work too. The diaries
kept by the medical staff recall their patient’s
vivid and remarkable hallucinations. One
vision in particular inspires the central
panel of this new work, and accounts for its
poetic title. Johnstone is sitting in a beautiful
garden, that he has never seen before. The
garden has a monolith at the centre of it and
34 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
all – on the face of it at least – is peaceful
and tranquil. Only weeks later, when
Johnstone was in rehab and wheeled into a
garden at the hospital, did he find that this
was the same place and that he had already
seen it while in an unconscious state in his
hospital bed.
The composer explains: ‘The work starts
with the sound of the machines in ICU and
the names of the nurses and medical teams
that were working to keep Peter alive. Little
by little they start to tell him why he is there
(the chorus represent the nurses, and the
baritone soloist is Peter himself), and as the
musical material develops, we find ourselves
in the garden that Peter describes so vividly,
his thoughts noted down by his devoted
carers.’
What were the challenges of setting
a text that is by its very nature rather
fragmentary and completely unpoetic?
Blackford responds: ‘I’ve set a good deal
of prose before, particularly in another
big choral work, Not in our Time, and the
challenge is not to set the whole thing as a
sort of recitative and make the music totally
declamatory. The text itself is unsentimental
and factual, so I was anxious to avoid
writing music that was itself too sentimental.
In fact, just the opposite is the case: some of
the music is quite angry at times, reflecting
Peter’s desperate situation, his fight for
life, and the efforts of the medics to save
him. But it is still, I hope, very expressive. I
decided early on that a solo viola, one of the
most expressive of all instruments, would
represent Peter’s heart and emotion. This
expressive melodic line transforms as the
work progresses and eventually is heard on
a solo violin as Peter recovers and visits the
garden that he has dreamed of.’
Blackford further recalls, ‘Once I had
finished the work, both Peter Johnstone
and David Hill came to my house for a
play through of Vision of a Garden, and it
was very moving to see Peter’s reaction in
particular. I could almost see him reliving
his extraordinary experience through his
words and my music.’ The work is scored
for relatively modest forces, baritone solo,
chorus and strings, the composer being
anxious to ensure that the work was practical
enough to ensure further performances,
and that it could, as with the premiere, be
performed alongside Fauré’s Requiem.
www.choirandorgan.com

Sizeable choral works have appeared at
regular intervals in Blackford’s catalogue.
Mirror of Perfection (1996), setting texts by
St Francis of Assisi, has been performed
over 100 times; Voices of Exile (2001) and
Not in our Time (2010) are the result of a
close relationship with the Bournemouth
Symphony Chorus, as was the more recent
Pieta (2019), which won the choral category
in the 2020 Ivor Novello Awards. ‘I sang
in the choir at Westminster School as a
boy,’ says Blackford. ‘I loved singing all
that glorious music in the Abbey and have
always felt close to choral music. I enjoy
writing works that can be performed by
a lot of people. [The combination of] big
symphonic choral works and being involved
with choirs is so healthy and fulfilling. One
can try and create drama without the extra
baggage that is involved with an opera. I
do think that choirs have an appetite for
the new, and providing one sets realistic
challenges for them, there are few things
that are so rewarding for a composer.’
How important was it for Blackford to
know the choir he was writing for and his
working relationship with conductor David
Hill? ‘I have heard the Bach Choir on many,
many occasions, and it was certainly helpful
to have their particular sound in my head
www.choirandorgan.com
as I was composing. David is such a wizard
with big symphonic choirs: he’s just fearless,
even with a piece as complicated as Howells’s
Missa Sabrinensis, of which he made a
wonderful recording. He has conducted
another big choral piece of mine, Voices of
Exile, and I also recently wrote an organ solo
for him. I trust him completely.’
Along with everyone else, composers have
spent a good deal of time over the past 18
months in lockdown; what effect has this had
on the creative process? ‘To begin with, aside
from composing, this was a time for listening
to music I had been meaning to catch up
with for years and hadn’t had the time to do
so, and to do more reading than I’d been able
to for some time. Despite that, the period
of lockdown was long and hard for me, and
writing music has been a solace and comfort.
As long as my first thoughts in the morning
were looking forward to being at my desk
and working through a new piece, I felt a
sense of balance and enormous privilege.
Even if some days it all seemed meaningless,
the sheer endeavour and discipline of sitting
down each day, in the belief that if I kept
going I would come through these strange
and disturbing times, gave meaning to the
long months of isolation. I had a deadline
for Vision of a Garden that had to be met,
SLUG
as vocal scores needed to be produced and
edited, so I couldn’t be too leisurely about
the compositional process. Deadlines always
focus the mind, even in times of difficulty
and crisis.’
At the time of writing, it isn’t entirely
clear whether Prof. Johnstone will sing in
the premiere of Vision of a Garden. The
composer wonders whether ‘he might
prefer to sit and listen, and ponder further
on the rather extraordinary turn his life
took over the past year and a half.’ Either
way, as the Bach Choir is hoping to host at
their concert some of the medical staff from
Addenbrookes who looked after Johnstone,
it promises to be a very special occasion,
and a poignant and emotional reminder
of a period that none of us, not least Peter
Johnstone, are likely to forget in a hurry.
David Hill conducts the Bach Choir and
Philharmonia Orchestra in the premiere
of Richard Blackford’s Vision of a Garden,
presented by Anna Lapwood, at 3pm on
Sunday 24 October in the Royal Festival Hall,
London. Tickets from bit.ly/37Blahn.
David Wordsworth is a freelance choral
conductor and workshop leader. He is music
director of the Addison Singers.
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 35
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 visit our online listings at www.choirandorgan.com TOUR COMPANIES 2021

SONG ABOUT SUMMER

TOUR COMPANIES 2021

Thinking of returning to the touring scene? These companies are poised
to help, and two of them share how they have handled and come
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Types of tours Performing tours. Scale Around 100 tours organised Types of tours Performing tours Types of tours Performing tours.
Sister companies Specialised Travel annually. to festivals and competitions. Website classicalmovements.com
Website acfea.co.uk Regions covered Europe, Contact +1 703 683 6040
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www.choirandorgan.com OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 37

 TOUR COMPANIES 2021 visit our online listings at www.choirandorgan.com
across Africa, Asia, Australia,
HALSBURY MUSIC
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worldwide, including Europe and
Contact 0115 9404 303, enquiries@halsbury.com
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The Covid pandemic grounded music tours, leaving many ensembles Ellison Travel & Tours
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38 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
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 visit our online listings at www.choirandorgan.com TOUR COMPANIES 2021

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cultural tours.
Website oltontravelrussia.com
Contact Olga Yemelyanova,
+7 (812) 985 8180/8108
Regions covered Russia.
OneStage Specialist Concert
Tours
Types of tours Performing tours.
Website onestage.co.uk
Contact +44 20 8568 5486,
tourenquiries@onestage.co.uk
Clients Amateur ensembles of all
ages (bands, choirs, orchestras).
Regions covered UK, Europe
and worldwide.
Rayburn Tours
Types of tours Performing tours.
Website rayburntours.com
Contact +44 1332 347828, or via
website
Clients Youth and adult choirs,
bands and orchestras of any size.
Regions covered Europe and
the US. Option to be accompanied
by Tour Manager.
Richardson & Gray
Types of tours Specialists in
cathedral residencies as well as
performing tours.
Website richardsonandgray.com
Contact (office) +44 1584
879348, (mob) +44 7811 946708,
randgtours@gmail.com.
Clients Provides tours for groups
coming to Europe, particularly
from North America.
Sound Escapes UK
Types of tours Performing tours.
Website soundescapesuk.com
Contact Jo Porter
+44 115 874 6396,
jo.porter@soundescapesuk.com
Clients Adult choirs and music
ensembles (min. 10 people).
Regions covered England,
Ireland, Scotland and Wales,
including islands eg. Isle of Wight,
Isle of Man, Channel Islands.
Accompanied by a Tour Manager.
Travelbound
Types of tours Performing tours.
Website travelbound.co.uk
Contact +44 1273 244 572,
Rayburn Tours
Contact +44 1332 347828
rayburntours.com
In February 2020, our touring groups and staff were returning from
a multitude of trips across Europe and beyond. Little did we know
then what was about to hit our industry. The pandemic that had
just started to knock tentatively on the world’s doors soon became
a tidal wave. We never could have imagined that those February
trips would be the last for more than 12 months.
It’s hard to put into words the journeys that our business and
staff have been on during the past 18 months. The challenges
were monumental. We issued refunds amounting to £5.2m and
our teams successfully postponed over 250 tours. An astounding
35,000 customers’ tour plans were affected.
Writing this some 18 months later, with a documented roadmap
out of the pandemic in place facilitated by a groundbreaking
vaccine programme, we can finally see the world’s doors beginning
to open and life being breathed back into group travel.
With concert groups being deprived of performance
opportunities for such a long period of time, we are now seeing
early signs of unprecedented demand for concert tours in 2022/23.
Regular touring groups are returning with a desire to recreate their
previous tours, knowing only too well the benefits of touring and
how these experiences are needed more than ever before.
We are also seeing new groups deciding to take the leap into
touring internationally for the first time. It’s great that we’re able
to discuss with them how we kept customers’ best interests at the
heart of everything we did over the last year or so.
There is no doubt the performance community will bounce back
to being stronger and more adventurous than ever before – and we
can’t wait to play our part in that journey.
Take Note Community Choir on their tour of Edinburgh in 2019
RAYBURN TOURS

info@oltontravelrussia.com email via website

Clients Student and adult choirs Clients School or university
and orchestras of any size. choirs and orchestras.

www.choirandorgan.com OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 39

What will
your choir’s
mas look
Chriomas
like this year?

If you’re just not sure yet, then why not choose

repertoire that needs minimal rehearsal time and
your choir will love to sing?
After what has been a tough year for choirs, we invite
you to renew the sparkle of Christmas with brand
new and recently published carols by some of the
world’s finest composers.

Visit oxford.ly/christmasmusic to find your choir’s next carol

Making
something
happen
Renowned worldwide for his choral works, Bob Chilcott is equally skilled at composing
for children’s and community groups as for more experienced choirs. He talks to
Stephen Pritchard about two new pieces to be premiered in October
W
hat better way to inspire 1,500 primary
schoolchildren to sing than to ask them
to serenade a giant dinosaur? And not
just any dinosaur, but Dippy, the Natural History
Museum’s massive Diplodocus cast. In July he lumbered
his 26-metre frame into the Norman nave of Norwich
Cathedral for the final stop on his majestic tour of the
UK, and in October he will crane his mighty neck to hear
a piece written for him by one of Britain’s most admired
choral composers and conductors, Bob Chilcott.
Performing Creation Song, commissioned by the
cathedral and the ever-active Norfolk Music Hub,
promises to be a formative experience for many of the
children. They are descending on Norwich from all
over Norfolk in separate groups of 300, to sit around
the dinosaur and sing across five days of concerts. For
many it will be their first experience of performing in
the cathedral and hearing its magnificent Hill, Norman
& Beard organ. And they will also notice that children
their own age are singing quite intricate music alongside
adults, because Chilcott’s six-movement piece showcases
Norwich Cathedral Choir.
The work celebrates the Earth’s wonders through
settings for the choir of biblical passages, spiritual writings
and poetry. The children will insert a refrain between
each movement to environmentally conscious words
www.choirandorgan.com
JOHN BELLARS
by the 17th-century poet Thomas Traherne: ‘The earth,  ob Chilcott: 18 months
B
of Covid restrictions
the seas, the light, the day, the skies / The sun and stars prompted him to
are mine, if those I prize.’ The children’s memorable tune re-examine ‘why I do
what I do’
remains constant but moves through a cycle of keys and
stylistic treatments as the seamless work progresses.
‘I hope they will get a sense of the occasion and the
building,’ says Chilcott. ‘I think it could be very exciting.
Most of these children won’t have been singing in the past
18 months because of Covid restrictions. It’s been hard
for them. I’ve been teaching two days a week at quite a
privileged school, but even that has had its challenges.
In places where singing is not so regular, it’s been almost
impossible.
‘The Norfolk Music Hub is a brilliant organisation and
Norwich Cathedral is very active in schools in the area.
Ashley Grote, director of music, worked with them to
organise online teaching resources and workshops, and
hundreds of children signed up to take part. When in
March the cathedral had to postpone, they were worried
that they would lose that commitment. But not at all.’
Chilcott says the past 18 months of Covid restrictions
have given him the opportunity to re-examine ‘why I
do what I do’. As a composer, conductor and singer, he
has enjoyed a lifelong association with choral music,
first as a chorister and choral scholar at King’s College,
Cambridge, and for 12 years as a member of the King’s
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 41
 BOB CHILCOTT

Singers. He became a full-time composer in 1997 and

has produced a large catalogue of music for all types of
choirs, published by Oxford University Press.
During his time of reflection, he reached the
conclusion that his motivation comes entirely from
the people he is writing for or conducting, rather than
purely the music itself: ‘It’s so important to be creative
with other people, particularly young people. They
can be taken completely by surprise by the sudden
realisation that they are making something big happen.
‘It is such a privilege to be part of that. It can occur
with adults, too, of course. I’ve always been fascinated
by environments where people sing with the same
purpose – think of football matches – I’m really
inspired by that kind of perspective.
‘I know from conducting the BBC Singers that they
found socially distanced performing very hard. We need
to feel the physical presence of those around us. It’s one
of the essences of choral singing. It’s not necessarily
about the music; it’s about the people, that connection
that everyone is trying to make together. Not being
able to sing with others has been an extension of being
isolated, and that’s been tough for everybody.’
Just a day after Dippy hears his last concert,
BILL SMITH NORWICH CATHEDRAL

Chilcott’s philosophy will find expression in another

new work, The Song of Harvest, to be premiered in
Durham Cathedral at a Royal School of Church Music
service billed as a celebration of what it means to sing
together again.
BILL SMITH NORWICH CATHEDRAL

42 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021 www.choirandorgan.com


In his introduction to the work Chilcott writes:
‘Harvest season is a special time of the year. Living
as I do in quite a rural part of England, each year we
become ever more aware of the passing of the seasons,
of the weather patterns, and also of the changing
colours and textures of the land around us. After the
challenges that we have all faced in 2020 and 2021, I
wanted to write a simple expression to reflect on some
thoughts of how the concept of harvest might relate
to us all as we move forward, through sustainability,
community, giving, hope, care, and, perhaps most
importantly, thankfulness.’
‘It’s so important to be
creative with other people,
particularly young people’
He offered the piece to the RSCM because, he tells
me, ‘when you are associated as I am with the music
life of the church, I think it is my duty to feed it. The
demographic of church choirs has changed a lot over
the past 30 to 40 years and their needs have changed
too. We have got to keep new music coming forward
for those changing needs. I’m really interested in that.
The RSCM and Hugh Morris, its director, have worked
so hard to keep church music on the agenda during
this very difficult time, so it was great to be able to offer
a work that I hope will be useful.’
The Song of Harvest is made up of five hymns and
four anthems and represents a flexible resource for
choirs everywhere. ‘I was not specifically looking to
write a stand-alone work, but rather a piece that could
be equally performed as one or simply delved into and
movements or hymns sung separately.’
Chilcott says he came late to hymn-writing but now
he loves it. ‘It’s not easy. You have to get everything
absolutely right: the tune, the harmony, the voicing –
all have to work with the text.’ The hymns – ‘Come, ye
thankful people, come’, ‘For the beauty of the earth’,
‘Pray that Jerusalem may have peace’, ‘Through all
the changing scenes of life’, and ‘Now thank we all our
God’ – all have strongly familiar existing tunes. Was he
not wary of dressing their words in new clothes?
‘Yes, I was; but eight years ago I wrote a Passion
and that was the first time I took on some hymns. I
thought: I’ve got to do this and I might upset a few
people, but generally the response was good, so now
I’m not so intimidated. I hope it will be refreshing for
choirs to sing familiar words to new tunes. Perhaps it
will help them look at the text in a new light –it’s some
of the best writing in the English language. I’m excited
by that aspect of it. It can be very powerful – if it works
in the right way.’
www.choirandorgan.com
BOB CHILCOTT
He’ll find out if it works when he directs the
congregation and choirs of Durham and Newcastle
Cathedrals, Hexham Abbey Choir and Downe House
school choir in his new hymns at the celebration service.
‘I’m hoping we will get a good congregation who will
be happy to learn the hymns – and enjoy singing them,’
he says. The anthems – set to words from the psalms,
Henry van Dyke, George Herbert and Christina Rossetti
– will be sung by the choirs individually.
Chilcott’s love of working with singers of all abilities
is perhaps best exemplified by his hugely popular
Singing Days – all-comer events where people gather
for a relaxed day of music-making. They started again
recently and Chilcott is noticing how determined people
are to sing again after such a long period of silence: ‘I
usually ask who sings in a church choir, mixed choir,
women’s choir and so on, and if anyone here has never  orwich Cathedral
N
sung before, and you always get a few. They’ve come director of music Ashley
Grote, who has been
with a friend and are intrigued. I love that. coordinating the young
choirs for the premiere of
‘We work through all sorts of music and then sing at Creation Song
the end of the day in front of a small audience. I think
D
 ippy the Dinosaur
it’s a huge benefit to relax and enjoy music together. dominates the nave of
I love doing it. But I have to remember that people Norwich Cathedral
come wanting to have a good time. So that’s a big Chilcott: in The Song of
responsibility!’ Harvest, to be premiered
at an RSCM service in
Durham Cathedral, the
Stephen Pritchard writes on music for the Observer and the composer wanted to
express ‘how the concept
classical music website Bachtrack. He trained at Portsmouth of harvest might relate to
Cathedral and sings with the English Chamber Choir. us all as we move forward’
JOHN BELLARS
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 43
A true individualist
The reputation of Jeanne Demessieux lies almost exclusively in her prodigious skills as an
organist. D’Arcy Trinkwon argues that her compositions for the instrument deserve far
greater exposure than they have received so far. PHOTOS FROM THE D’ARCY TRINKWON COLLECTION

H
ow many composers suffer the unfavourable
fate that their reputation hinges on familiarity
with just one or two of their more easily
accessible pieces, while the rest of what they created and
offer remains unexplored, unnoticed and passed by?
Jeanne Demessieux achieved fame as one of the organ’s
legendary performers. Setting that aside, however,
she was a composer of an extensive œuvre in various
fields, most of which is not even known. She left only a
small number works for the organ, some of which are
not technically within the reach of many. Nor are they
necessarily ‘easy’ audience fodder – a hateful qualification
prevalent in today’s quick-fix market – because of their
intellectual and unique voice. As with the works of a few
other outstanding women organist-composers of her
time (such as the mind-bendingly difficult and even more
abstruse canon of her contemporary Rolande Falcinelli,
as well as such pieces as Henriette Puig-Roget’s Triathlon),
the aim of what they wrote was not to titillate audience
enthusiasm: it was to create serious music that said
something that mattered. Serious music; serious art.
Other composers (consider Alain, Duruflé and
Langlais) certainly wrote works of much more immediate
lure and appeal, more approachable and immediately
enjoyable – perhaps simply because, at least in part, they
are much easier to get to grips with and be played by a
wider majority. Added to this, one has to note the reality
that Demessieux was ‘punished’ by the cruel and grossly
unfair actions of her once-devoted master Dupré turning
on her – that scandal of 1947, known as ‘La rupture’, meant
she was effectively ostracised from the Parisian organ
world. Few would play her works. Once her staunchest
defender – ‘A child who had written 20 nocturnes by
the age of nine… is a born composer, let me assure you,’
Dupré had exclaimed when confronting the battering she
got from some Conservatoire teachers – he now refused
to sponsor her application to the Société des Auteurs,
Compositeurs et Éditeurs de Musique. That was one of
many major blows he inflicted on her. These factors have
certainly hindered the wider acceptance and awareness of
her music as much as making it difficult to ‘place’ her as
a composer.
Jeanne Demessieux: Messiaen remarked on the ‘parfum
harmonique’ of her music

44 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021 www.choirandorgan.com

 JEANNE DEMESSIEUX

Perhaps it was inevitably going to be so.

LES AMIS DE JEANNE DEMESSIEUX

Notwithstanding her precocious demonstrations of
talent (she wrote her first piece aged five) and early
intentions to concentrate on composing, what she wrote
during her days as a student at the Paris Conservatoire
was judged controversial (read ‘individual’). While
her fugue and counterpoint teacher, Noël Gallon,
predicted a remarkable future for her, and even that
she’d win the prestigious Prix de Rome, her composition
professor Henri Büsser loathed and would talk through
performances of whatever she brought to class. Another
burst into a rage, declaring her offerings ‘a scandal’,
while others laughed with acid hostility. Her writing,
which already displayed an uncompromisingly strong
individuality, challenged the Conservatoire jury, and their
prejudiced reception of it thwarted and undermined her
early confidence. But her polytonal musical colour (which
favoured and explored piquant intervals such as 7ths and
9ths) won unreserved enthusiasm from such as Poulenc

LES AMIS DE JEANNE DEMESSIEUX

and Messiaen, who extolled the virtues of what he
splendidly termed the ‘parfum harmonique’ of her music.
Her organ music is inevitably, at least as a basic starting
point, conceived from in the vein of Dupré’s example
– approaches to counterpoint, harmonic advances and

There are no superficial

exclamations, no flashy
toccatas, no flimsy utterings
explorations, instrumental technique based on piano
virtuosity, architectural perspicacity and awareness
of structural form – but with a modern and personal
aesthetic entirely her own, coloured by the influences
and awareness of those she admired (especially, at times,
Messiaen). Her language combined similar opposing
elements as did her playing, reflecting her duality as a
person. On the one hand she was formidable, on the
other she was private, introspective and sensitive; as Noël
Gallon noted, ‘You appear delicate and you write this
music which is so proud, pungent and masculine.’ She
had inherited these traits from her parents – her father
was proud, open and artistic, her more emotive mother
reserved and sensitive. While there is astringency and
decided confrontation to be found in pieces like Octaves,
these contrast strongly with moments of real poetic
reflection such as the preludes on Rorate caeli or Attende
Domine. There are no superficial exclamations, no flashy
toccatas, no flimsy utterings: musicians always reveal who
they really are by their artistic expressions – something
fascinating to observe.
Jeanne was an outstanding pianist before even
beginning the organ, and for her that technical level was a
starting point of all she expected from others approaching
her music (with the exception of the Preludes). Her  emessieux’s Andante
D
was written for a
music also makes a feature of the remarkably glittering collection in homage to
degrees of staccato that was very much part of her playing, her harmony teacher,
Jean Gallon
and has nothing to do with the heavy portamento often
(and inappropriately) laden on her works in some Manuscript of Nativité,
with Demessieux’s own
performances these days. This touch – using the absolute registration markings
freedom of the wrist and inherited from Dupré – enabled
her to use the acoustics of the building in a unique way:
it worked with received sound from the whole building,
not just the resultant from the contained immediacy
of the pipes. Neither her playing nor her approaches
to the music were involved (or even concerned) with
the neo-classical ideals of those younger than her who
were at the vanguard of the revolution from virtuoso to
‘authentic’ player.
Many are familiar with her Twelve Choral Preludes
on Gregorian Chant Themes. Published by the
American publisher McLaughlin & Reilly in 1950, they

www.choirandorgan.com OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 45

JEANNE DEMESSIEUX
were written in response to the growing eager anticipation
of her North American debut – the Americans had heard
Dupré play her Études and were keen to know more. The
collection’s aim was that the preludes would be useful to
players of all levels in either recitals or services; indeed,
many organists play at least a few of these musical jewels.
She herself frequently played one, sometimes two, in
recital programmes between bigger works. Her personal
favourite was Rorate caeli, followed by the beautiful
Attende Domine, the mini-toccata Veni Creator and the
march Tu es Petrus. There are many other items worth
exploring, particularly the micro-variations O Filii and
the poignant Domine Jesu. However, it would not be until
1953 that she actually went to North America – not on
the tidal waves of interest generated by her six Salle Pleyel
debut concerts of 1946, as Dupré had urged, but when
she was assured of the favourable terms that she insisted
upon. She surely used the process of writing these short
pieces as exercises for her own manipulation of diverse
musical forms as much as any thought of merely being
‘popular’. They also show – albeit to a very modest degree
– her famed mastery of improvisation: during the course
of her career she demonstrated remarkable command
of structure and form in symphonies, fugues, preludes,
variations, and even occasionally entire recitals of
improvisation.
The most frequently played of her
significant concert works, her ebullient
46 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
Te Deum (1957-58) appears regularly in programmes
today. Although written for the organ of the Madeleine,
on which she made a number of her recordings around
that time, its initial inspiration came from a recital she
had given in New York’s St John the Divine Cathedral
– its hugely powerful chamade trumpet gave her the
idea for the declamatory bursts of the Te Deum which
appear during the course of the work, cutting through
the surrounding textures like a knife. She did not opt
for a continuous development of the chant, but instead
explored the theme – alongside Tibi omnes – in a series
of variation-like tableaux: a heraldic opening, an ostinato
interlude, a lushly four-part harmonised meditation
through which the chant sings on a 4ft pedal reed,
followed by a glittering, witty zig-zag-patterned section
which leads to the final, tumultuous triplet finale.
The Répons pour le temps de pâques (published
only posthumously in 1970, despite plans that it appear
in 1964) is typical of the kind of paraphrase she herself
would have improvised for liturgical purposes at the
Madeleine, where she had been the organiste-titulaire
since 1962. Strains of three Pascal Gregorian chants (Ite,
missa est; Victimae Paschali; Resurrexi) are presented
and mused on, creating a work of conflict and struggle
by alternating panels of toccata figuration with spatial
harmonisations of Victimae. Musing on the toccata idea,
she develops an increasingly powerful 19-carillon effect
featuring the resultant harmonics (fourths, fifths, sixths)
in an accumulation of rhythmic arches leading to massive
(if rather terrifying) declarations of Resurrexi. The work
dies away to a peaceful C major resolution, but
with the ultimate twist of a magically

placed first inversion of B major, like a mysterious light
on the scene. The piece was originally intended to be
part of a set with four Répons pour les temps liturgiques
(all composed during the early/mid 60s), a collection
which includes two very different pieces on Lauda Sion.
These remaining four were published recently (Éditions
Delatour, 2006) and organists may find these more
comfortably approachable – particularly the impact of
Consolamini (for Advent), in which her great admiration
for Messiaen is very apparent.
Asked to write the test piece for Rolande Falcinelli’s
organ class at the Conservatoire in 1965, the Prélude et
Fugue (in the Lydian mode) she composed may initially
look only moderately difficult, but as a test piece there a
challenges aplenty: the use of a fluid, shapely quintuplet
pattern, floating through which sustained note-lines
emerge in one hand in contrast to melodic strains in
the opposing hand (the pattern changing between the
hands regularly); these play against quaver patterns and
Dogme is a towering architectural piece of oppressive
chords, angular edges and a ferocious conclusion – elements
that typify Demessieux’s virtuoso powers
pizzicato pedals, a daunting task to overcome in order
to realise the facile, glittering effect required. The fugue
demonstrates again her academic skills in weaving and
manipulating form – like the prelude, it is presented
in piquant colours with a fresh lightness of touch and
fluidity, but with the marked polytonality she favoured.
While she had great respect for Falcinelli – another
prodigiously talented woman, and perhaps Demessieux’s
only real equal – this commission must have struck a
nostalgic chord for Demessieux: before ‘La rupture’
ruined everything, Dupré had promised her that she
would succeed him in his professorship of that class; after
it, it was yet another favour he bestowed on Falcinelli in
her place. Demessieux dedicated the piece ‘to the memory
of my dear Maître Jean Gallon’: she also contributed a
small and very simple Andantino [Ex.1], which remains
unpublished, for inclusion in a collection of some 64
pieces created in homage to him by his harmony students
at the Conservatoire during the 29 years he taught there
(1919-48).
Of a very different nature is her forbidding Triptyque.
Exploring her astringent and advanced harmonic
language, this dark, uneasy work was written in the
period after ‘La rupture’; as such, it was her musical
response to that volte-face by Dupré which cast a cloud
over her life ever after. The central Adagio (poignantly
subtitled Chant intérieur) was written in the very first
days after the realisation of what had happened – it seems
www.choirandorgan.com
JEANNE DEMESSIEUX
desperately to be both asking questions and seeking
answers in a barren black soundscape, and as such is a
rather harrowing window on her emotional state. The
concluding Fugue’s subtitle ‘Chant de joie’ is quite odd;
little joy can be found here, the music further reflecting a
mind overburdened with unanswered questions. Even the
subject itself sounds like a question. One senses someone
trying to express joy in a vain hope of finding some, but
being constantly unable to do either. For obvious reasons,
the work was of particular personal significance to
Demessieux, and it appeared with continuous regularity
in her programmes in her earlier years. However, for
today’s performers its bleakness and dilemmas may not
be the easiest piece to use in concerts, or for an audience
to comprehend without knowing its ‘back-story’.
From the age of 13, when she had first arrived in
Paris from Montpellier, until her appointment to the
Madeleine (1962), Demessieux had devotedly served
the church of Saint-Ésprit as its organist. She must have
felt a distinct connection to the Holy Spirit, because her
Sept Méditations sur le Saint-Ésprit (1945-46) are
a homage to the miraculous and elusive nature of the
Trinity’s Third Person and comprise, by any standards,
a major work of serious weight. She dedicated the
set to Jean Berveiller (1904-76) – he of the enigmatic
Mouvement she so brilliantly performed, as well as his
Suite, Epitaph and Cadence. Their friendship was a
remarkable one that lasted throughout Jeanne’s adult life,
a testimony to true loyalty; next to her family, he was one
of just a handful of friends who defended and supported
her when Dupré’s actions plagued and thwarted her.
With the exception of Consolateur (5) and Paix
(6), a commanding virtuosity is just the starting point
for the musical expression, invention and demands
anyone approaching these pieces will face. The technical
demands of the first three – Veni Sancte Spiritus (1),
Eaux (2) and Pentecôte (3) – are quite severe, while the
fearsome Dogme (4) – an apocalyptic tableau on Mark’s
declaration ‘Those who believe will be saved; those
who do not will be damned’ – would easily terrify many
a goodwilled audience seeking a musical jolly. It is a
towering architectural piece of oppressive chords, angular
edges and a ferocious conclusion – again, elements that
typify Demessieux’s virtuoso powers which were so much
at odds with her petite physique and personal refinement;
the latter, what her pupil and friend Marie-Madeleine
Duruflé-Chevalier termed her ‘aspect gracile’, is, however,
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 47
JEANNE DEMESSIEUX
Demessieux performing radiant in the glittering iridescence of the Lumière (7), an
on the organ in
Westminster Abbey étude in feather-light pianistic ease.
(1967) Considering the complexities found in the Méditations,
it is remarkable to note that Messiaen’s Messe de la
Pentecôte would not appear for another four years (1950).
Each of the Six Études addresses a particular aspect
of pedal technique. They were written during her studies
with Dupré, to whom she presented them as a token
of her thanks. She gave the first complete performance
in Meudon in October 1944. Having just written 13
transcendental studies (which he later hastily regrouped
into other things) to push her technique past its limits,
Dupré must have received her gift with considerable
astonishment – if not a little unease – as the difficulties
they contain exceed any of his. They occupy a fabled
place in the repertoire, conquered by only very few. Felix
Aprahamian used to joke about how many organists used
to leave a copy lying around the organ in the hope others
would think they were learning them! Messiaen enthused
about them, and noted that though the études of Ligeti
and Xenakis were more advanced (i.e. modern), nothing
equalled Demessieux’s where pedalling is concerned.
(This said, Rolande Falcinelli’s unknown four études do.)
Not one of the études offers the player any respite,
except on the final resolution chords of each: the technical
onslaught and agility required – as much as the physical
and mental freedom, for much mental preparation and
awareness is required in them – is unrelenting. Apart
from the octaves brisés of Toes (1) and onslaught of
Octaves (6) in the manual parts, there are the large open
chords demanded of the hands. Demessieux had, as the
well-known photo of her sitting at Saint-Sulpice as a
young woman shows, a highly developed articulation of
the hand. Despite a small physique, she had long, slim
fingers of remarkable flexibility. But the real work is
below, on the pedals. The stamina required throughout
make these studies a real test of athleticism far, far beyond
mere speed.
48 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
Dupré described Thirds (2) as ‘a masterpiece, a jewel
… the constant murmuring on the pedals while the
hands dream on the keyboards.’ But the twisting physical
requirements for Sixths (3) and the faultless repeating
mechanism of the pedalboard for a perfect rendition of
Repeated Notes (5) make particular and new demands:
this writer has played the latter on instruments where
many pedals simply do not, or cannot, repeat fast enough
to separate the notes. The musical appeal of the set
pales somewhat alongside the magic (even disbelief)
of watching the feet – no wonder Duruflé exclaimed,
upon witnessing Demessieux play these at her opening
Salle Pleyel recital (25 February 1946), ‘Next to Jeanne
Demessieux we all play the pedals like elephants!’
Late in 1943 Demessieux wrote a delicate, scherzo-
like study in 1943 – Nativité – completed after ten days
(on 6 January 1944) just before she began to write the
Études. She wrote that, haunted by the privations and
horrors of Parisian Christmases during the Occupation,
her intent was ‘to do something light, having witnessed
the Nativity, shivering, miserable and tender’. Noting
its difficulty and that she’d written it for her own
technique, Dupré was delighted by the piece and
insisted she shouldn’t change a thing. The piece was
published (Éditions Delatour, 2005) in two versions in
the same copy – one offers the bare essentials, devoid
of further direction, and the second gives supposedly
editorial directions of registration and fingering,
though the registrations are by Demessieux herself, to
be found in her hand on the manuscript [Ex.2].
One might wonder why this prodigiously gifted
artist did not write more. The large-scale early works
aside, only a few significant works appeared afterwards.
Perhaps there was little time left in her hugely demanding
international performing career, alongside all her
church commitments and teaching in Paris, and at the
conservatoires of Nancy (1950-52) and Liège (1952
until her death in 1968). Added to this, she began to
feel increasingly ‘hemmed in’ and even cheated by the
demands of her professional life, escaping whenever she
could to her beloved Aigues-Mortes in the south of the
country, and the exhilaration of true freedom, charging
around on the famous Camargue horses she so loved. The
battle with ailing health wore down her energies and was
ultimately lost on 11 November 1968. But she left a legacy
that invites further exploration.
Readers might like to explore Demessieux’s organ music
in performances by her devoted pupil Pierre Labric on
the Solstice label (www.solstice-music.com; SOCD346/7),
which capture the true spirit of Demessieux’s style.
D’Arcy Trinkwon is an international concert organist. From
his early interest in the instrument, Jeanne Demessieux
– the person, the musician – has been one of his greatest
inspirations. darcytrinkwon.com
www.choirandorgan.com
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Oktoberfest
Founded the year after the end of the second
world war, the Bavarian Radio Chorus has
developed into an internationally acclaimed
choir. Clare Stevens takes a look behind
the scenes. PHOTOS ASTRID ACKERMANN
I
t was major news in the UK music press
when Sir Simon Rattle announced in
January this year that he would become
chief conductor of the Munich-based
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra (BRSO)
in 2023, relinquishing his role as music
director of the London Symphony Orchestra
(LSO). The LSO quickly insisted that he
would continue to have a special relationship
with them as lifetime conductor emeritus,
but analysis of the announcements reflected
disappointment in London that his tenure at
the helm will be shorter than expected.
50 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
Less attention was paid to the fact
that Rattle’s title in Munich embraces
the Bavarian Radio Chorus as well as the
orchestra. Choirs matter to Sir Simon: in
previous incumbencies with the City of
Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and
Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, he entrusted
Simon Halsey with the task of developing
their associated choruses. Halsey was also
in post as director of the London Symphony
Chorus well before Rattle took charge of the
orchestra. So what sort of chorus awaits Sir
Simon in Bavaria?
The Bavarian Radio Chorus (BRC) is a
50-strong full-time professional ensemble;
most of the singers are German, although
Austria, the US, Japan and Korea are also
represented. It was founded in 1946 as the
first of three musical ensembles associated
with the Bayerischer Rundfunk / Bavarian
Radio; the symphony orchestra followed in
1949 with Eugen Jochum as chief conductor
of both choir and orchestra, and the Munich
Radio Orchestra (MRO) in 1952 with Werner
Schmidt-Boelcke as its principal conductor.
The chorus works regularly with both
www.choirandorgan.com

orchestras, although the relationship with the
MRO is more collaborative, whereas it is fully
integrated with the symphony orchestra.
The chorus also undertakes independent
engagements with other orchestras, as well
as making its own recordings and running
a subscription concert series. Prior to the
Covid pandemic, the schedule was hugely
varied, says Andrew Lepri Meyer, a member
of the tenor section since 2006: ‘We might
do a couple of symphonies with our own
orchestra, then something like Sweeney Todd
[the musical by Stephen Sondheim] with
www.choirandorgan.com
The singers of the Bavarian Radio Chorus
‘embrace the unknown as much as the known’
the radio orchestra and then maybe some
Bach with the Academy for Ancient Music,
Berlin. We also have a series called Musica
Viva where we perform modern pieces
that are often extremely challenging, even
experimental.
‘Two or three of our subscription concerts
per season would be with guest conductors,
so we would probably work with 10-15
different conductors over the course of a
year, and we would have guest chorusmasters
preparing some concerts. There are always
new things, it’s never routine.’
The role of the chorus director has grown
in significance over the years, with Michael
Gläser, in post 1990-2005, the first to be
styled artistic director and the instigator
of the subscription concert series. He was
succeeded by Dutchman Peter Dijkstra,
whose international career had been
launched by winning first prize in the Eric
Ericson Competition in Stockholm; he raised
the BRC’s international profile and expanded
its repertoire significantly. Dijkstra’s approach
was very structured, says Meyer: ‘At the
beginning of rehearsals he would do a lot
of very technical work with us and he paid
a lot of attention to detail. We sang a lot of
a cappella music with him.’
Since 2016 the artistic director has been
London-born conductor and composer
Howard Arman. A graduate of Trinity
College of Music, Arman has spent most
of his career in Europe, combining salaried
posts with freelance work. He has worked
with all the German radio choirs, and before
taking charge of the BRC was artistic director
of the Leipzig Radio Choir (1998-2013)
and formed the period-instrument Handel
Festival Orchestra in Halle. Other posts have
included musical director at the opera houses
in Altenburg and Gera and the theatre in
Lucerne, Switzerland, and he is currently
principal guest conductor at the Gärtnerplatz
theatre, Munich.
When he took over from Peter Dijkstra,
Arman knew the BRC well from guest
conducting appearances. ‘My thoughts went
immediately in the direction of using the
latent abilities of this great chorus to realise
less usual repertoire: pieces requiring a
theatrical approach to vocal performance or
a familiarity with various “entertainment”
BAVARIAN RADIO CHORUS
genres and so on,’ he says. ‘The choir is
well-known for its stylistic flexibility, but to
continue broadening it, particularly with new
music written specifically for BRC, is a joy.
I am grateful that the singers embrace the
unknown as much as the known.’
Arman’s role includes working with
colleagues at the orchestra to shape the choir’s
season, but he also has freedom to choose the
repertoire for his own projects. For example,
the recent choir-and-orchestra CD of works
by Arvo Pärt (reviewed in C&O July/August
2021) celebrated the composer’s 85th birthday
and his close connection to the choir over
many years, while a recording of Arman’s own
completion of Mozart’s Requiem, scheduled
for publication by Carus, had been an
ambition for ‘perhaps 15 or 20 years’.
Comparing the two most recent artistic
directors, Andrew Lepri Meyer reflects
that they have two different philosophies:
‘Howard is much more inclined to let things
happen organically, let everyone sing freely
and then do any repair work that is necessary.’
BRC’s other key relationship, of course,
shared with the orchestra, is with their chief
conductor. The roster of previous incumbents
of this post could scarcely be more
distinguished: Eugen Jochum was succeeded
by Rafael Kubelík (1961-82), Sir Colin Davis
(1983-1992), Lorin Maazel (1993-2002), and
Mariss Jansons (2003-2016).
What was it like to work with Jansons? ‘The
choir’s concerts with him were always special
moments,’ says Arman, ‘not least because,
Artistic director Howard Arman
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 51
although they were not always frequent, he
concentrated on works of great significance,
and with which he had a particular affinity.
I always had the impression that he allowed
the music to “grow” during rehearsals,
meaning that musicians could fill the space
he gave them.’ Meyer concurs: ‘You really
felt he was from another era, old school,
he had that magic about him, his slightest
movement would command your attention.
The most rewarding things to do with
him were Russian music – for example,
in Rachmaninov’s The Bells and concert
performances of Tchaikovsky’s operas Eugene
Onegin and The Queen of Spades we really got
to see the passionate side of him. In general,
my personal impression was that he was very
much the authoritative conductor, everything
was wonderful and technically clean; but
as singers we crave that passion. With the
Russian music and texts there was something
extra, and those are the special memories of
him that I will keep.’
The future belongs to Simon Rattle, who
has already undertaken several projects
with the choir; the rapport was immediate,
according to Arman. ‘We had a very nice short
conversation afterwards about the future and
what we can do to really bring us into the
21st century, reaching new generations with
different media,’ adds Meyer. ‘He’s full of ideas,
energy and excitement.’
52 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
Of course, everything at the moment is
affected by the pandemic. The BRC’s very
active education and outreach programme
had been brought to a halt when we spoke,
and the choir had been forced to work in
completely unfamiliar, smaller configurations
for livestreams and recordings, maintaining
three-metre distancing. Performing Arvo
Pärt’s music, which is so exposed and
has such long lines, proved particularly
challenging.
‘Normally as an ensemble singer you can
feel as well as hear what your colleagues
are doing all around you, but in these
circumstances you are completely isolated,
you have to just sing and trust that the blend
is going to happen,’ says Meyer. ‘Everyone
has to be very engaged, and yet we can’t react
spontaneously to what is going on as we
would do normally.
‘But everything has a plus and a minus. It
has become easier with subsequent projects,
as we have learned how to sing like choral
soloists, and it’s amazing how many things
are still automatic despite the distance. I think
that’s because we’ve got a core group, some
of whom have been singing together for 30
years; we know each other so well that there is
almost a sense of telepathy, where we breathe
together and we stop together.’
The aim has been to develop recording
projects that were both easier to manage
under the restrictions and of artistic
significance in their own right. Arman saw
this as an opportunity to record repertoire
that would not normally figure in the BRC’s
programmes, such as Elgar’s Songs from the
Bavarian Highlands (reviewed in C&O May/
June 2021) and vocal music by Debussy and
Reynaldo Hahn (soon to be released), both
of which include much music for women’s or
men’s chorus.
Arman was determined not to be forced
into compromises, such as implausibly
reduced scoring for orchestra or choir. ‘Music
has always been composed in the context of
its own time, and it was important that we
continued this by reacting musically to the
situation, performing pieces which mirrored
and commented upon what was happening
outside the studio,’ he says. ‘Rupert Huber
and I were the first to write new pieces with
this aim; both were conceived as video
projects, and can be seen on our website.
‘Nonetheless, we as performers require
the energy which flows in both directions
between audience and performer, and it is
important that concerts are now beginning to
take place again.’
br-chor.com
Clare Stevens works as a writer, editor and
publicist in the Welsh Marches, where she
sings with Hereford Choral Society.
www.choirandorgan.com
 Karen McFarlane Artists
Representing the world’s premier organists and choirs since 1921

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Work in progress
Paul Hale turns to current projects by Wood Pipe Organ Builders of Huddersfield and
Henry Groves & Son of Nottingham
T
his series has so far focused mainly on
the larger organ building firms, but
of course these are far from being the
whole story. Worldwide, there are hundreds
of diligent small firms doing first-class
work – much of it often unsung. In this, and
occasional future issues, we shall be visiting
some of these to look at what work they have
in hand.
This time we turn the spotlight on two
firms founded – as many were – by an
entrepreneurial organ builder trained in one
of the major companies. Henry Groves & Son
was established in 1957 by Alvin Groves, who
54 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
had trained at Henry Willis & Co. and brought
another Willis man, Arthur Bailey, to work
with him, setting up a Nottingham workshop.
Wood of Huddersfield was founded a decade
later (in 1967) by Philip Wood, who had been
trained at Peter Conacher & Co. and acted
as their Northern Ireland manager for some
years before returning to Huddersfield. Both
firms remain in family hands: Alvin Groves’s
grandson, Jonathan Wallace, came into the
company in 1985 and took over the reins in
1991. Philip Wood’s son, David, joined the
firm in 1976 and became managing director
in 1999.
WOOD OF HUDDERSFIELD
The two firms initially developed in
somewhat different directions. In addition
to routine tunings and overhauls (of which
Conacher and Binns organs tended to
dominate), Philip Wood was bitten by the
emerging neo-baroque bug, and with his
feet firmly on the ground, devised a series
of unit extension organs classically voiced,
co-marketed with the Early Music Shop in
Bradford, where I remember playing one in
the 1970s. His interest in progressive organ
design took a leap forward when the company
won the contract for a new tracker werkprinzip
three-manual for Huddersfield Polytechnic
www.choirandorgan.com

(now the University), installed in 1977. This
superb instrument (with a case design by
David Graebe – one of his very first) built a
fine reputation in no time at all and has now
been used for RCO Diploma examinations for
many years.
With the advent of that organ, Philip Wood,
with a particularly able small band of former
Conacher employees and apprentices, never
looked back. Many of their projects over the
years can be read about on the company’s
comprehensive website, including the major
instruments which the firm has rebuilt, among
them Wakefield, St Asaph, Blackburn and
Southwell cathedrals, plus Beverley Minster.
Under Philip’s son, David, the firm has
developed an enviable reputation for sensitive
restoration and conservation work on all sorts
and periods of organs, and David’s skills as a
voicer/finisher are evident in all their organs,
from bringing the best out of the Snetzler
pipework at Beverley Minster to transforming
( opposite) David Wood tuning the organ of St Mark’s, Broomhill (Sheffield)
The Wood of Huddersfield team work on a Forster & Andrews organ destined for a church in Bath: (clockwise, from top l) the soundboard after repalleting, with
Brian Brooman; Paul Rayner planing the table; Michael Hynes recentring a roller arm; Michael Leadbetter rounding out damaged pipes; squashed trebles
WOOD OF HUDDERSFIELD
www.choirandorgan.com
the voicing of the Noel Mander organ formerly
in Jesus College Chapel, Cambridge and now
in the chapel of Truro School. And what David
and his team don’t know about the organs
of J.J. Binns isn’t worth knowing – it helps
that they have curatorship of the Binns order
books.
Alvin Groves in Nottingham took a different
approach, being less adventurous than Philip
Wood and content to stick in general to more
routine work, though he too made judicious
additions of upperwork to organs which
lacked it. However, in addition to restoring,
rebuilding or re-actioning many organs in
Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire churches,
he recognised the need in some churches
to replace a poor and worn-out instrument
with a better one. So for many years the firm
advertised in the Church Times their services
in buying redundant organs, restoring them
and placing them in new homes. This kept
the team busy and took them all over the
WOOD OF HUDDERSFIELD
WOOD OF HUDDERSFIELD
WOOD AND GROVES
UK – from the Isle of Wight to Paisley, via
Ulster. In 1969 Groves bought out E. Wragg &
Son of Nottingham (est. 1894) and acquired
their staff, their workshop and their extensive
tuning round, many of the organs being by
Lloyd of Nottingham, often fitted with a rather
poor pneumatic action by Wragg. When
Alvin’s grandson, Jonathan Wallace, took over
the firm, the company branched out in fresh
directions, developing a fine direct-electric
action chest into which the organ tuner can
crawl to make adjustments – a modern version
on a smaller scale of the Austin ‘Universal
Air Chest’, along with remarkably small wind
regulators which take very little space and
produce a perfectly steady wind supply. This
has meant that the firm has been able to build
or rebuild many organs in a notably compact
manner, often on a mezzanine floor at ceiling
level in an existing organ chamber, allowing
churches to put the ground floor space to
other uses. This concept has proved notably
WOOD OF HUDDERSFIELD
WOOD OF HUDDERSFIELD
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 55
 WOOD AND GROVES
popular and at any one stage Groves probably
has one such organ under construction, based
usually on a corpus of vintage pipework in
an otherwise new organ. Jonathan Wallace’s
senior colleague is Paul Johnson, whose
family firm, the Johnson Organ Co. of Derby,
was taken over by Henry Groves in the early
1990s. Groves’s very comprehensive website
has a substantial list of completed projects,
particularly since Jonathan Wallace took over
running the company.
By happy coincidence, at the time of writing
each firm was restoring a two-manual tracker-
action Forster & Andrews organ made in Hull
during 1879/80. As organ builders know, F&A
organs are always solidly built and have a fine
tone (getting less bright towards the end of the
19th century), though their coupled actions
can be heavy for the player.
The Forster & Andrews instrument Wood
of Huddersfield is currently working on
was made for St Margaret & St Leonard’s,
Edinburgh, a church which has been Roman
Catholic since 1992, URC before that, and
celebrates its position as the Edinburgh
home of the Tridentine – Latin – Mass.
However, the organ had been abandoned

Jonathan Wallace, Alvin Groves’s grandson, installing top notes on the 1900 Norman & Beard organ for Olton
HENRY GROVES & SON
56 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
many years ago when the URC congregation
had fitted a suspended ceiling at gallery level,
marooning the organ in the upper void.
This fine instrument is now destined for the
Catholic church of Our Lady and St Alphege,
in Bath, where it will replace a worn-out small
Rushworth & Dreaper of 1915. Fortunately,
both churches had their organ in a gallery
(west in Bath – typical R.C. position; east
in Edinburgh – typical Non-Conformist
position). The Edinburgh organ was in a
terrible state, with much squashed pipework
and neglect/damage throughout, so needed a
full restoration, which included glue-flooding
and repalleting the soundboards. The front
pipes had at some stage been painted what
David Wood describes as ‘Corporation
blue’. He says that ‘this will be removed and
a suitable F&A finish applied.’ All this is
time-consuming but rewarding work, for
the craftsmen know that in putting the organ
back to ‘as new’ condition, albeit within
the parameters of historic conservation
disciplines, it will be set fair to play well for a
further century or more.
The next contract for David Wood’s
team is an organ of James Conacher – very
familiar ground for the firm because of its
long-standing connections with Conacher’s
work. It is worth noting that there became
two branches of the Conacher firm: James
Conacher split from his brother Peter in 1879.
Why? Because in that year James accepted
Huddersfield Council’s contract to help Henry
Willis & Co. install a second-hand Father
Willis in the town hall, much against Peter’s
wishes, as Peter had been very keen for the
firm to install in the town hall what would
have been the Conacher magnum opus. The
rift led to James and his son (a skilled voicer)
setting up shop separately, producing fewer
organs than the parent firm (which Peter
abruptly renamed ‘The Old Firm’ to make
quite clear who was whom). Sadly, James’s firm
lasted only until 1902. David Wood holds the
view that James Conacher organs have a more
interesting and characterful tone than those of
‘The Old Firm’, mainly because of what his son
had learnt from the fine Willis which he helped
install in the town hall – a 51-stop four-manual
instrument of 1865, built for the Newport
(Monmouthshire) Royal Albert Hall. David
Wood has looked after and repaired the town
hall organ (as rebuilt by Harrison & Harrison
in 1980) for decades. The James Conacher
organ now in hand in David’s workshops is
that from Carlecotes Parish Church (near
Holmfirth), made around 1890, whose small
stop list, interestingly, looks almost identical to
that which Father Willis would have supplied
for that number of stops.
In Nottingham, the Henry Groves team
has been building and installing a radical
reconfiguring of the much altered and
somewhat spoiled 1900 three-manual Norman
& Beard in St Margaret’s church, Olton
(Solihull). Internally an almost clean start has
been made, with a new layout to ensure the
organ’s tone really gets down the nave, with
a new space-saving wind system and new
chests for Great and Choir. The Swell and
Pedal soundboards have been restored, the
Swell box enlarged for a new 16ft reed and the
1980s console updated, with an entirely new
electrical system throughout the organ. Tonal
revisions have pulled the scheme together
and from about the time this issue of C&O is
published the instrument will once again be
able to give a hearty lead to the congregation
and accompany the church choir at St
Margaret’s, directed by Eddie Guard – as it has
been, with distinction, for many years.
www.choirandorgan.com

HENRY GROVES & SON

(top row, l to r) The Olton Norman & Beard, behind the front pipes; a unit chest being wired
(bottom row, l to r) Paul Johnson curving a reed tongue; the Forster & Andrews organ for St Margaret’s Rochester: restored internal action; Great pipes post-restoration
At the same time, Jonathan Wallace and
his team have been working on a similar
instrument to the Edinburgh F&A of the
same date, situated in St Margaret’s church,
Rochester (Kent). The number of Forster &
Andrews organs in Kent (quite a distance
from Hull) is at first surprising, but when one
considers that so many F&A instruments left
Hull on a ship destined for far-away places,
sailing down the east coast and up the Medway
into the docks at Rochester or Chatham was
an easy trip. At St Margaret’s, the soundboards
also needed a complete overhaul, with glue-
flooding, repalleting and new pallet-springs,
including the recommissioning of the split
pallets (designed to lighten the touch) which
had been screwed shut. There has been a full
restoration of the tracker action, stop action,
keys and pedals and a releathering of the large
reservoir. Access to the Swell and Great has
been improved for the tuner, having been
made almost impossible in 1904 when F.H.
Browne & Son added a large-scale Horn stop
www.choirandorgan.com
HENRY GROVES & SON
HENRY GROVES & SON
to the Swell, on a clamp slide. This pushed
the front of the Swell box out across the main
Great/Swell passageboard, leaving room only
for the tiniest and most slender of tuners.
The Great Fifteenth, on the back of the Great
soundboard, was in danger of being squashed,
so a decision was made to move the Fifteenth
pipes to the Dulciana slide, and store the
Dulciana pipes on the roof of the Swell box.
Leaving the former Fifteenth upperboard
empty has created room for a tuner to work on
the passageboard without catching any pipes.
In addition, as the Swell has its basses in the
middle, tuning doors have been made in both
ends of the box (as in Hill swell boxes) so that
the flues can be reached adequately for the first
time in over a century. At the time of writing
the organ was being reassembled in the church
and the casework cleaned and wax-polished.
Henry Groves’s next contract is the rebuilding
of a Rushworth & Dreaper near Grimsby, with
sufficient worked planned to keep them busy
for the next two or three years – two of them
WOOD AND GROVES
HENRY GROVES & SON
HENRY GROVES & SON
for their ‘mezzanine’ level instruments.
Though these two firms have worked
through the Covid months on contracts
already signed-up, and though they both
have future contracts waiting to be signed,
one senses that they and all in the organ craft
are holding their breath to see what happens
when churches assess their financial position.
Will hoped-for projects be delayed? Will they
be cancelled as churches reassess priorities?
It is almost certain that a slack period lies
ahead. Let us all strive to encourage clients to
take heart and sign up for their long-desired
organ projects. For a church congregation and
PCC, there is little to compare with the delight
aroused at the dedication of a new or rebuilt
organ. Their sense of pride and achievement
is palpable – and isn’t that just what we need at
the moment?
Paul Hale has been writing about the organ
for many years, while working as a cathedral
organist, recitalist, teacher and organ consultant.
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 57
 O
f Sicily, the large island perched on
the toe of Italy in the Mediterranean
Sea, Goethe wrote, ‘To have seen
Italy without having seen Sicily is not to

JOY
have seen Italy at all, for Sicily is the clue to

ER’S
TRAVELL
everything.’ Sicily is painted on a larger canvas,
bathed in hotter sunshine, nourished by
volcanic earth, and casts a spell that means
hardly anyone visits only once.
Palermo, the island’s capital is situated on
the north-west coast by the Tyrrhenian Sea.
It features heavily in the novel Il Gattopardo
(‘The Leopard’) by Lampedusa. Among
the dozen or so theatres in the city are the
Teatro Massimo (opera house) and the Teatro
Politeama Garibaldi (home to the Orchestra
Dubbed ‘God’s kitchen’, Sicily is ‘the clue to everything,’ Sinfonica Siciliana). Richard Wagner, in
declining health, stayed with his family in
wrote Goethe. Matthew Power tests the theory
Palermo (1881-82) at the Grand Hotel et des
Palmes where he completed Parsifal and had
his portrait painted by Renoir.
The Galleria d’Arte Moderna Sant’Anna
(1910) is dedicated to Sicilian art from the
19th and 20th centuries. In a beautifully
restored convent, the works are displayed
thematically. The Galleria Regionale della
Sicilia houses the island’s best medieval art
collection in the Palazzo Abatellis. The ground
floor has sculptures and frescoes, the first floor
is devoted to paintings. Highlights include
portraits by the 15th-century Sicilian artist
Antonello da Messina.
There are many flea markets in the city
where you will sometimes find rewards.
Be prepared to barter a little – I had to buy
five pairs of cotton socks rather than two
as the elderly stallholder appeared to have
no change for my €10 note – but they were
still a bargain! I was fortunate to stay in
an apartment just north of the Moorish
cathedral, adjacent to the Mercato del Capo,
a daily market selling fruit, vegetables, street
food, and the freshest fish and shellfish. Get
there first thing in the morning for the chance
to buy lobster, swordfish and octopus; and
leave room in your suitcase for packets of
dried herbs, which will bring a real taste and
aroma of Sicily into your kitchen for months.
For Saracen arches and Byzantine mosaics,
visit the city’s Palatine Chapel of the Norman
kings of Sicily, built by Roger II in 1132. Take a
trip to Monreale on the slope of Monte Caputo
MATTHEW POWER

Saracen and Norman fortifications on top of

Mount Erice reflect a part of the island’s history

58 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021 www.choirandorgan.com


COURTESY LAGRASSA.INFO
The unique La Grassa organ at San Pietro, Trapani
overlooking the fertile valley called La Conca
d’Oro (the golden basin), full of orange, olive
and almond trees. A 20-minute bus ride from
Palermo, the highlight of this boutique town
is the Duomo with its golden mosaic interior,
lavishly decorated Crucifix Chapel and
museum of ornate 17th-century vestments.
On Sicily’s east coast is its second city of
Catania, now its industrial and logistical
centre. Sprawling beneath Mount Etna, it faces
the Ionian Sea. The legacy of catastrophic
earthquakes and rebuilding is a metropolis
of baroque beauty. Similar riches are found
further south in Syracuse, birthplace of
Archimedes and visited by St Paul, and in the
refined style at Noto.
Catania’s favourite son was the operatic
composer Vincenzo Bellini (1801-35).
The house where he was born is now the
Museo Belliniano, exhibiting original scores,
photographs and his death mask among its
memorabilia. The city named a piazza, its
main theatre and an airport in his honour,
though his ultimate accolade is the tomato and
aubergine pasta dish ‘spaghetti alla Norma’,
referencing his famous opera.
A short walk from Bellini’s house is his
resting place, the Cattedrale di Sant’Agata,
majestic on the Piazza del Duomo, facing
a great lava elephant, a talismanic symbol
protecting the city from the looming volcano.
In the 18th century Catania’s municipal
architect Vaccarini rebuilt the cathedral with
an impressive baroque façade plus columns
pinched from the local Roman amphitheatre.
The organ gallery on the west wall contains
an interesting restoration by Mascioni
(bit.ly/3xkRlvA). The original three-manual
www.choirandorgan.com
Cathedral of St Agatha, Catania
instrument of 1877 by French organ builder
Nicolas Théodore Jaquot was relocated
from the choir in the apse to the balcony
and enlarged in 1926 by the Italian builders
Laudani e Giudici. In 2014 Mascioni rebuilt
the Jaquot mechanical-action instrument
while preserving the new stops added by
Laudani e Giudici on separate windchests.
The player can select only the French stops,
or combine the whole instrument.
Set aside a day to ascend Mount Etna, the
island’s active volcano. Landing at Catania
introduces its vast scale – you fly past rather
than over the mountain. There are many
excursions available; visit a local travel agent
Self-taught and illiterate, La Grassa founded
a dynasty of Palermo-based organ builders
and select what suits you. I chose to go on
an all-day guided tour comprising a local
guide driving six of us in a minibus. We
visited several archaeological sites on the
ascent and descent and lunched at a vineyard.
The volcanic soil, intense summer sun and
steep slopes make for perfect wine-growing
conditions.
The comparatively wild west coast is
peppered with ancient Greek settlements
including Agrigento, Segesta, Selinunte
and the small island of Mozia near Marsala,
where there is an International Piano
Competition and the Mario del Monaco
Opera Competition. Keep travelling up
the coast and you will come to a third city,
Trapani, which hosts a lively music festival in
July. Mainly modern with its port and train
TRAVELLER’S JOY
MATTHIAS SÜSSEN
terminus, the central baroque district is worth
exploring. The church of San Pietro contains a
unique and eccentric organ, built by Francesco
La Grassa (1802-68) (bit.ly/2TTQdSg).
Self-taught and illiterate, he founded a
dynasty of Palermo-based organ builders.
Inside are bizarre-looking ranks of pipes and
percussion instruments which can be played
from controls at the three mechanical-action
consoles. A highlight of Trapani is to take the
cable car up the mountain to Erice, a medieval
village fortress 2,460ft above sea level. There
are spectacular panoramic views, medieval
churches, charming cobbled streets, and
reasonably-priced restaurants. In August, it
hosts a relaxed Medieval and Renaissance
Music Festival.
Sicily does have some downsides; one
might be the sometimes unreliable transport
system, so plan ahead. The other is simply that
once you have tasted any kind of fruit grown
here, especially tomatoes, oranges and figs,
everything back home will seem bland by
comparison!
Flights from international airports go to
Palermo and Catania. Ferry services from the
Italian mainland to Palermo, Messina and
other destinations are available from a variety
of locations. Train and bus services on Sicily are
unpredictable and sometimes disrupted, but
cheap. Tickets can be purchased online, or at
train stations and on buses at the time of travel.
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 59
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 PERSHORE ABBEY RENDERING / FRATELLI RUFFATTI
BOURNEMOUTH SYMPHONY CHORUS / TIM ARNOLD

SUZI DIGBY / COURTESY SUZI DIGBY

Organbuilders

NEXT ISSUE
NOVEMBER 2021
FRATELLI RUFFATTI
Following the progress of the Italian organ builders’ new
instrument for Pershore Abbey.

BESIDE THE SEASIDE…

How the Bournemouth Symphony Chorus grew from being a
municipal choir to partnering one of the UK’s top orchestras.

PORTICO PRELUDES
An ambitious project by Northern Ireland’s Portico of Ards
has commissioned ten works for organ.

IN CONVERSATION
‘Choral conductor, music educator and social entrepreneur’ –
Suzi Digby talks to David Hill.

www.ruffatti.com DENMAN IN YORK

It has taken two years, but the 1885 Denman organ is now
restored by Nicholson & Co. and installed in St Lawrence Church.

Via Facciolati, 166 • 35127 Padua, Italy Plus…

Phone (39-049) 750-666
www.ruffatti.com
International news and previews, specialist reviews, readers’
ruffattiorgans
offers, and a supplement of Early Music Festivals.
organs@ruffatti.com
OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 61
 ON RELEASE
NEW DISCS COMING OUT IN... OCTOBER 2021
The three-movement title work, Say it to the
still world, casts Shibe as Orpheus with his lyre
in a piece that draws fragments of text from
Rilke’s poetry to meditate on language, loss and
the transcendent power of song. The other two
works, Elegy for Esmeralda and poppies spread,
were also composed for this set of performers.
On Ghost Songs [MSV 28599] the Dublin-
based 36-voice chamber choir Laetare Vocal
Ensemble and director Róisín Blunnie present
contemporary choral music from Ireland by
Rhona Clarke, Seán Doherty and Michael
Holohan. Also on the disc are songs for voice
and harp from Síle Denvir, extracts from
plays read by Marina Carr, Paula Meehan and
Dairena Ní Chinnéide, and poems by the earlier
JO BUCKLEY

poets Lola Ridge and W.B. Yeats, read by radio

presenter Carl Corcoran.
The Dunedin Consort with director John Butt In keyboard releases, on Stylus Luxurians
[RIC 433] Yoann Moulin presents harpsichord

J
ohn Butt directs the Dunedin Consort
in a collection of Bach’s finest cantatas on
Linn Records [CKD 672]. Bass Matthew
Brook takes centre stage in the melancholic
yet optimistic title work Ich habe genug,
with soprano Joanna Lunn joining him to
portray the dialogue of Jesus and the Soul in
the profound Liebster Jesu, mein Verlangen.
Known as ‘Actus Tragicus’, the early cantata
Gottes Zeit ist die allerbeste Zeit is a grander
affair with its sublime choruses and unusual
instrumentation.
Sean Shibe joins Delphian regulars the Choir
of King’s College, London in a disc of works
for electric guitar and choir [DCD 34246] by
Shibe’s friend and compatriot Lliam Patterson.
works by Weckmann, Tunder, Froberger and
Ritter for the second part of his anthology of
German harpsichord music. Moulin takes as his
starting point the famous competition organised
when Weckmann and Froberger met at the
court of Dresden in the winter of 1649-50. In the
1650s, influences of the French style were grafted
onto models drawn from Italian music.

CHORAL CDS
Bach: Ich habe genug
Dunedin Consort/Butt
Linn Records CKD 672
The Carol of the Bells
The Sixteen/Christophers
Coro COR 16188
A Ceremony of Psalms
St Mary’s Singers and Abbey Brass/
Drayton, Wicks
FS Records FSR 191
Christmas Carols with the King’s
Singers
Signum SIGCD 683
Robert Fayrfax: Music for Tudor
Kings and Queens
Ensemble Pro Victoria/Ward
Delphian DCD 34265
Ghost Songs – Contemporary Music
and Words from Ireland
Laetare Vocal Ensemble/Blunnie
Métier MSV 28599
Haydn: Die Schöpfung
Chor der Bayerischen Staatsoper,
Bayerisches Staatsorchester/Richter Rossini: Petite messe solennelle KEYBOARD CDS
Hanssler HC 20076 Coro Ghislieri/Prandi German, French and English
Origins Arcana A 494 Masterpieces for Organ
Sjaella See, See the Word Is Incarnate Jeremy Thompson, Casavant organ
Fuga Libera FUG 784 (Gibbons, Tomkins, Weelkes) (1995), First Presbyterian Church,
The Music of Richard Pantcheff Chapel Choir of Trinity Hall, Charlottesville, Virginia
vol.2 Cambridge, New Vialles, Orpheus Raven OAR-169
London Choral Sinfonia/Waldron Britannicus/Arthur Stylus Luxurians
Orchid Classics ORC 100175 Resonus Classics RES 10295 Yoann Moulin (hpschd)
Arvo Pärt: Passio Ralph Vaughan Williams: Ricercar RIC 433
Helsinki Chamber Choir/
An Oxford Christmas
Schweckendiek
Chapel Choir of Royal Hospital,
BIS 2612
Chelsea/Vann
Lliam Patterson: Say it to the Still Albion ALBCD 050
World
Choir of King’s College, London, Verdi: Requiem
Sean Shibe (elec. gtr)/Fort Jessye Norman, Agnes Baltsa,
Delphian DCD 34246 José Carreras, Yevgeny
Nesterenko, Bavarian Radio
Jacob Regnart: Missa Christ ist
erstanden Choir and Orchestra/Muti
Cinquecento BR Klassik 900199
Hyperion CDA 68369 Vespro da Camera – Monteverdi
Noël éternel and Friends
Maîtrise de Radio France/Jeannin Musica Fiata/Wilson
Alpha 422 CPO 555317-2

62 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021 www.choirandorgan.com

Rating: ★★★★★ Highly recommended ★★★★ Very good ★★★ Good ★★ Average ★ Poor

THIS ISSUE’S

VOX LUMINIS / ANDREA FELVÉGI

BART NAESSENS / EMILY VAN DEN BROUCKE

REVIEWERS
Early Music Editor
Rebecca Tavener
Organ Music Editor
Stephen Farr
Choral Music Editors
Joy Hill
Jeremy Jackman
Jeremy Summerly

Chris Bragg
Rupert Gough
Douglas Hollick
Brian Morton
ALFRED SCHNITTKE / YNGVILD SØRBYE

OSLO CATHEDRAL / HIROTOMO

David Ponsford
Michael Quinn
Philip Reed
Clare Stevens

KEYBOARD CDS 64
EARLY MUSIC 67
CHORAL CDS 68
ORGAN MUSIC 71
CHORAL MUSIC 72
THE SIXTEEN / ROBIN MITCHELL
REVIEWS CONCERTS • KEYBOARD CDS • CHORAL CDS • DVDS • ORGAN MUSIC • CHORAL MUSIC • BOOKS
KEYBOARD CDS
Johann Sebastian Bach:
Seven Toccatas for
harpsichord
Pieter Dirksen
Etcetera KTC 1722 [71:56]
★★★★★
Bach’s seven
extant toccatas are
presented here,
with the
conjectural links to the lost
seven suites of Buxtehude
depicting the nature of the
planets, works that Bach
doubtless knew. Dirksen plays a
fine harpsichord based on the
1628 Ruckers, and ideal for this
music. These are gripping and
rhetorically exciting
performances, Dirksen having a
natural affinity with this music,
and scholarly knowledge of the
background. The D minor
Toccata is perhaps the closest to
Buxtehude in style, and from
the monumental scale and
variety of the F sharp minor
Toccata to the brilliance of
those in G major and D major
this is magnificent playing by
Dirksen, and a glimpse of the
young Bach’s virtuosity in both
composition and performance.
Excellent sound and
informative notes, very highly
recommended.
DOUGLAS HOLLICK
Hymne til Ærø
Kevin Duggan, Flentrop organ,
Dunblane Cathedral
Odradek ODRCD 408 [67:52]
★★★★★
The Dutch
Flentrop organ in
Dunblane is an
ideal vehicle for
resident organist Kevin Duggan
to bring us a musical evocation
of Denmark. Duggan is no
stranger to these parts, and his
own compositions, including
64 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
the title track, were written
while living and working in
Denmark. He gives some
impassioned performances of
lesser-known Danish music.
Worthy of mention are the five
characterful preludes by Jesper
Madsen. The album is
bookended by the more familiar
‘Great’ prelude of Bruhns and
Nielsen’s last composition, the
25-minute Commotio. Duggan
ably demonstrates how this
challenging work, awkwardly
both neo-baroque and
symphonic, works brilliantly on
this organ.
RUPERT GOUGH
Friedrich Wilhelm
Zachow: Complete Organ
Music
Simone Stella, Pinchi organ
Opus 444 (2011), Church of San
Giorgio, Rieti, Italy
Brilliant Classics 96022 (2CDs)
[79:00; 77:18]
★★★
The Halle
musician
Friedrich Wilhelm
Zachow (1663-
1712) is primarily remembered
as the influential mentor to the
young Handel. A complete
survey of his organ works,
therefore, prompts the question
as to whether he deserves
reassessment in light of his own
achievements as a composer.
Probably not is my conclusion.
True, there are interesting
shades of the Italian toccata
style in the free writing and
some hints of Handel too – the
vigorous Capriccio in D minor,
for example, which could
almost have come from the pen
of the pupil. Of the numerous
chorale-based works, many are
manualiter and there is a
tendency to stick rather closely
to the standard procedures:
fugal entries, line-by-line
treatment with preliminary
imitation, partita, etc. There is
no suggestion of a developed
chorale fantasia – indeed, not a
single chorale-based piece lasts
even four minutes.
Simone Stella plays with
effervescence and energy on
the pleasant-sounding 2011
Schnitger-inspired Pinchi organ
(II/25) in Rieti, but don’t expect
any revelations here.
CHRIS BRAGG
Summer Echoes
Gordon Turk, Hope-Jones
organ (1907), Ocean Grove
Auditorium, New Jersey
Raven OAR-166 [63:38]
★★★
The organ at the
remarkable
wooden, 6,500-
seat auditorium in
Ocean Grove began life as a
modest but powerful
instrument by Robert Hope-
Jones. Since Gordon Turk’s
appointment as Auditorium
Organist in 1974, he and John
Richard Shaw have collaborated
to expand the organ to nigh on
a dozen times its original size,
with the sound largely
emanating from voluminous
chambers behind and below the
stage. The organ is now
considerably larger than our
own giants in Liverpool and
London, with pipework hailing
from a variety of sources: newly
made by Schopp, recycled from
Skinner, Möller, Kimball,
Aeolian, et al. Inevitably, there is
a slight sense of happenstance
in the tonal picture despite
many obviously elegant softer
colours, splendidly effective in
the rarer Anglo-American
romantic miniatures heard here
by Stebbins, Thiman and
Alexander Matthews. Karg-
Elert’s Clair de lune shows off
chimes and celestes, while the
ubiquitous Nun danket alle Gott
has a bar chopped off at the
beginning of the middle
section. Gordon Turk’s playing
is sometimes splashy, but his
affinity with the period pieces
on the disc is obvious.
CHRIS BRAGG
Organ Music for Two,
vol.5
Elizabeth and Raymond
Chenault, Aeolian-Skinner
organ (1962), Cathedral of
St Philip, Atlanta, Georgia
Gothic Records G-49336 [67:57]
★★★★
The doyens of the
organ duo world,
the Chenaults
have been
entertaining audiences for
decades, and this fifth album of
recent commissions and
arrangements contains some
real delights. The large 1962
Aeolian-Skinner organ
responds well to the grand
textures provided by four hands
and feet, particularly in the
most significant works: Philip
Moore’s Triptych and Rachel
Laurin’s Fantaisie à deux. Also
from the pen of Laurin is an
imaginative Cantabile à deux,
written in 2020 for the
Chenaults and this organ.
Various other spiritual, gospel
and hymn arrangements fill this
charming and well-presented
concert album.
RUPERT GOUGH
Con Abbandono
Arjan Versluis, Bätz-Witte
organ, Grote Kerk, Gorinchem,
Netherlands
D.E. Versluis DEV-AV1039 [72:42]
★★★★
The three-manual
organ featured
here is an
interesting 1853
rebuild (by C.G.F. Witte from
www.choirandorgan.com
CONCERTS • KEYBOARD CDS • CHORAL CDS • DVDS • ORGAN MUSIC • CHORAL MUSIC • BOOKS
Utrecht) of an 18th-century
instrument largely by Bätz.
Preludes and fugues by
Mendelssohn and some Brahms
chorale preludes naturally
sound very effective. The
transformative placement of the
Bovenwerk in a swell box in
2007 allows Arjan Versluis to
demonstrate ably how later
romantic music is possible –
even Franck’s Prière fares well
(albeit missing the highest notes
of the compass). Armed with
plenty of registrants, Versluis
opens the recording with an
ardent rendition of Reger’s
Toccata in D minor op.59,
saving the D major Fugue for
the final track.
RUPERT GOUGH
The Gramophone Shop
Celebrity Series
Lorri Lail (a), Danish
Broadcasting Madrigal Choir,
Finn Viderø (org) / Mogens
Wöldike (dir)
Danacord DACOCD 893-896
(4CDs) [76:14; 77:25; 78:52;
73:23]
★★★
These recordings,
made between
REVIEWS
These four CDs contain The Gramophone Shop, were registrations that must have
motets by Schütz, Lassus, bringing 17th-century music to contrasted dramatically with the
Palestrina, Hanssler and Josquin the ears of a new audience. contemporaneous organ culture
des Prez, cantatas by Tunder, The series was superseded in the USA (and the UK as well),
Weckmann, Lübeck, Christoph by the LP in due course, and although there is still a legato
Berhard and Buxtehude, and in terms of what we know of technique that was considered
organ music by most of the historical performance practices fundamental to organ technique
major composers of the 17th today, the performances do at the time.
century, particularly Buxtehude, sound dated. Singers – both The recordings are variable
which Finn Viderø recorded on solo and choral – and violinists in quality, with some tracks
the famous 1601 Compenius prized their blanket vibrato, heavily overlaid with surface
organ in Frederiksborg sounding through long sustained noise, but this adventurous
Castle, as well as on three phrases often at rather slow project is significant to
Marcussen organs. Therefore, tempi. Viderø’s organ recordings those interested in historical
these pioneering recordings, must have been a revelation, recordings.
produced by HMV specially for using colourful mutation-based DAVID PONSFORD
Claviorganum – Handel: Concertos divided stops enable the organ to be
and Sonatas accompanied by the harpsichord. The three
Bart Naessens, claviorgan by Markus organ concertos demonstrate the soundworld
Harder-Völkmann (2002), Il Gardellino and musical possibilities with extraordinary
Passacaille PAS 1060 [74:40]
★★★★★
In the notes, Bart Naessens focuses
Excellent and stylish
on the documented history of this playing
hybrid organ-harpsichord, arguing
that it was a common instrument success, while the concerto grosso, trio sonata
for about 350 years in Europe. The organ here and flute concerto reveal its versatility as a
has three stops, and the Italian-style continuo instrument. Excellent and stylish
harpsichord has two 8ft sets of strings. Both playing from Naessens and Il Gardellino.
instruments can be played separately, and DAVID PONSFORD
Belgian conductor-harpsichordist-organist Bart Naessens

1940 and 1950, are

part of the history
of recorded music, as well as
part of the modern history of
‘early music’. New York-based
The Gramophone Shop was one
of the best-stocked record
shops, issuing successive
editions of The Gramophone
Shop Encyclopedia of Recorded
Music – now standard reference
works. When the shop began
issuing 78rpm recordings under
its own label, Danish artists
began recording music that
included 17th-century
EMILY VAN DEN BROUCKE

north German cantatas as well

as Buxtehude’s organ music, a
repertoire about which they
were passionate.

www.choirandorgan.com OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 65

REVIEWS CONCERTS • KEYBOARD CDS • CHORAL CDS • DVDS • ORGAN MUSIC • CHORAL MUSIC • BOOKS
Sebastián de Albero:
Sonatas para clavicordio
I à XV
Mario Raskin, harpsichord by
Christian Kroll (1776)
Disques Pierre Verany PV 721051
[56:55]
★★★
Sebastián de
Albero is an
unjustly forgotten
Spanish
composer. Born in 1722, he was
a contemporary of Scarlatti and
Soler but died young in 1756.
The 15 sonatas here are
arranged in pairs like those of
Scarlatti, and with many of the
same characteristics. The
harpsichord by Kroll has a fine
sound, but the recording seems
rather close, and no further
information is given.
Mario Raskin is a fine
advocate for this music,
which should certainly be
better known. If his playing is
rather too detached much of
the time, he certainly has the
virtuosity to bring this music
alive. I particularly liked a
D major Andante with typically
Spanish folk music influence,
and Sonatas in A minor and
D major that showed the
brilliance of Albero’s style.
This is an interesting
and enjoyable CD, giving
a further context for the
sonatas of his more illustrious
contemporaries.
DOUGLAS HOLLICK
Widor: Organ
Symphonies, vol.5
Christian von Blohn, Voit organ,
St Joseph’s Church, Sankt
Ingbert, Germany
Naxos 8.574279 [76:26]
★★★
This volume of
Christian von
Blohn’s series of
complete Widor
66 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
recordings features the Fifth
and Sixth Symphonies, plus the
Prélude: Adagio from the
Eighth Symphony which
became redundant in Widor’s
1901 revisions.
The German romantic organ
built by Voit is surprisingly
adept at interpreting this
music, only disappointing a
little in the tutti. While the
opening movements of both
symphonies have grandeur
and drive, the final movements
lack the precision and clarity
of French reeds. The ‘famous’
Toccata is taken at a speed that
leaves the winding (and the
listener) breathless with the
repetition, and staccato often
inaudible. The intermediate
movements fare much better,
with well-judged rubato and
lyrical phrasing.
RUPERT GOUGH
Matthew Larkin
Casavant organ Opus 550,
St Paul’s Anglican Church, Toronto
Atma Classique ACD2 2857
(2CDs) [95:05]
★★★★
Matthew Larkin
pays eloquent
homage to the
mighty IV/112
Casavant organ of Toronto’s
St Paul’s Anglican Church, even
as he artfully exploits its
British-American cathedral-
sounding design. A wide-
ranging programme deftly
reflects its multi-hued
transatlantic accent, with
adopted Torontonians Healey
Willan (a former St Paul’s
Cathedral organist) and Ernest
MacMillan alongside
Couperin, Duruflé, Franck and
Messiaen. European voices
from the baroque to the 20th
century are heard, too,
accompanied by Canadians
Andrew Ager and Benjamin
David Mallory.
Making much of the
instrument’s broadly toned
diapasons, colour-saturated
solo stops, Elysian strings and
muscular reeds, Larkin revels
in its proclivity for quiet drama
and bursts of glowing beauty,
even if the sound, in warm,
cossetting acoustics, feels
somewhat receded.
MICHAEL QUINN
Florentine Romantic
Organ Music
Matteo Venturini, Colonna-
Tronci organ, San Michele
Arcangelo Parish Church,
Corsanico; Serassi organ,
Basilica di Santa Maria di
Nazareth, Sestri Levante, Italy
Brilliant Classics 96223 [67:05]
★★★★
Here’s a welcome
glimpse into
overlooked
byways of the
19th-century Tuscan organ
school, played with
persuasively nimble conviction
by Matteo Venturini on two
well-chosen period
instruments. A quartet of
liturgical voluntaries provides
an attractive introduction to
the virtually unknown Padre
Antonio Casini. Three excerpts
from Istituzioni teorico-pratiche
per organo, a hybrid exercise
bending then-faddish operatic
excess towards the sobriety of
the emerging Cecilian
movement, adroitly point to
Giovacchino Maglioni’s once
huge influence.
Luigi Ferdinando
Casamorata’s varied 12 short
exercises in the form of verses
for organ and 16-minute
Messa completa are
marvellous, discretely
sophisticated miniatures from
the arch-reformer.
MICHAEL QUINN
Corradini: 12 Ricercari;
Vendi: Canzoni
Federico del Sordo, Graziadio
Antegnati organ (1565), Santa
Barbara, Mantua; harpsichord
by Tony Chinnery (2009) after a
17th-century model
Brilliant Classics 96136 [64:37]
★★★
During the last
decade, record
companies have
released CDs of
previously unknown Italian
keyboard music – presenting
composers only known about in
history books. Nicolò Corradini
(d.1656) spent his working life
in Cremona, and these 12
Ricercari are his only extant
keyboard works, rediscovered
by L.F. Tagliavini in 1957. Each
ricercar is based on multiple
themes, and follows the strict
polyphonic style of the 16th
century.
Hardly anything is known
about Fr. Vendi (fl. 16th-17th
centuries), but his Canzoni are
lighter in character, making a
good contrast. The Antegnati
organ sounds brilliant. A CD
for the library.
DAVID PONSFORD
Magical Memories for
Trumpet and Organ
Tine Thing Helseth (tpt), Kåre
Nordstoga (org), Oslo Cathedral
Lawo LWC 1216 [67:52]
★★★★★
From the very
first notes of
Charpentier’s Te
Deum you know
there is some classy playing in
store. Tine Thing Helseth’s
clearly very personal
compilation intersperses classic
baroque trumpet repertoire
with romantic miniatures and
arrangements of traditional
Norwegian folk melodies. The
classic bridal marches together
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EARLY MUSIC
Rebecca Tavener rounds up the
latest releases
If there’s a commonality between these four
recent releases it is the passage of light and
dark, revelation and obscurity, and I make no
apologies for beginning under the shadow of
death with the debut CD of Cappella Amsterdam, directed by Daniel
Reuss. In Umbra Mortis [Pentatone PTC 5186 948] is an imaginatively
apt juxtaposition of late renaissance Holy Week Responsories by
Giaches de Wert (better known for his madrigals) with the Sieben
Passions-Stücke of Wolfgang Rihm (b.1952). Rihm, a composer not
as celebrated in Germany as he should be due to the long reach of
the stultifying hand of Darmstadt, instructed the first performers to
‘sing it like early music’. This gorgeously toned choir do just that with
impeccable blend and balance, rich and refined tones, as they explore
a chromatic kinship between two composers separated by four
centuries.
Also from the Netherlands, six singers join the expert and insightful
instrumentalists of Holland Baroque for Brabant 1653 [Pentatone
PTC 5186 895], to shine a light on rarities by Verdonck, Rosier,
Hollanders, and featuring three works by organist/composer/monk
Benedictus à Sancto Josepho (1642-1716), recorded in ‘The Year
of Brabant Monasteries and Convents 2021’. This largely Marian
programme ‘explores the monastic musical tradition of 17th-century
north Brabant’ in a wide range of styles, including tastefully
accompanied plainchant and solo and ensemble motets, performed
with a nimble, poised delicacy. Deliciously free ornamentation
from instrumentalists matches excellent solo and ensemble singing.
Hollanders’s O vos omnes, definitely one for Gesualdo fans, is
followed by an innocently beguiling Ave Maria from the celebrated
Belgian comedian and cabaret artist Hermann Finkers (b.1954),
commissioned for this anthology and sung as a solo (though the
composer tells me he intended it to be choral) with tender affection.
‘Compelling interpretations’: Vox Luminis
www.choirandorgan.com
REVIEWS
Claroscuro – Luces y sombras del Siglo de Oro [CdM
215] is a homage to Cervantes in works both pre-dating and
contemporaneous with him, picking up musical ideas from Don
Quixote in dance, song and chivalric romance. Hoping to express
‘light and shadow from the Age of Gold’, Capella de Ministrers, in
probably the group’s most miniature form, is directed by Carles
Magraner from the viola da gamba. The notes draw a parallel
between Victoria’s Requiem and Cervantes’s Don Quixote, with the
former polyphony on the cusp between renaissance and baroque
and the latter romance as the first modern novel – ponderous stuff in
the context of this programme and a bit off-course considering the
lack of sacred music, but that doesn’t detract from its many attractive
qualities. There’s just one voice, a flexible soprano, who works
sensitively with her instrumental colleagues to exemplify the maxim
Cervantes placed in the mouth of Sancho: ‘Where there is music,
there can be no evil.’
A rainbow of vocal colour and
exquisite attention to text
Luminous by name and nature, Vox Luminis and the Freiburger
Barockconsort, directed by Lionel Meunier, draw us towards the light
and further into the 17th century with Biber Requiem [Alpha 665].
A rainbow of vocal colour and exquisite attention to text adorn these
compelling, involving, detailed interpretations from soloists, choir, and
instrumentalists of the highest order. They bring all their considerable
skills to the elegantly mournful Biber – the mellow key of F minor
perfectly communicating spiritual comfort and reassurance – which
sits among a selection of fascinating motets and sonatas by Nicolai,
Bernhard and Fux. This tremendously uplifting and attention-grabbing
programme is complemented by gloriously clear, immediate, and
thrillingly present recorded sound.
Rebecca Tavener is a singer and director specialising in early and
contemporary music. She is founder-director of Canty, Scotland’s only
professional medieval music group.
FOPPE SCHUT
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with suites by Telemann and
Jeremiah Clarke are delivered
with a graceful and stylish
lightness. In the more lyric
pieces Helseth’s sound is truly
vocal, laden with emotion and a
natural vibrato.
Sensitive accompaniment is
provided by Kåre Nordstoga on
the 1998 Ryde & Berg organ.
Balancing trumpet and organ
is always tricky, and I would
ideally prefer less distance
between the two instruments;
but this is a small criticism of a
delightful album.
RUPERT GOUGH
Bernardo Pasquini:
Quindici Sonate a Due
Cimbali
Marina Scaioli and Francesco
Tasini, harpsichords by
Gianfranco Facchini (1985) and
Tony Chinnery (2003), both after
18th-century Italian models
Tactus TC 631804 [79:35]
★★★
Pasquini’s 15
sonatas for two
harpsichords were
written as an
instruction manual for his
nephew Bernardo Felice
Ricordati in 1703-04. They
survive only in manuscript, and
the primary feature is that only
the bass lines and basso
continuo figures are notated,
together with occasional fugue
subjects in the treble range.
They are, therefore, half-
compositions, the whole of
which are to be realised through
improvisation – and great fun
to play. For recording purposes,
Tasini has ‘realised’ the right-
hand parts, which rather defeats
the improvisatory challenges.
Furthermore, tempi are often
pedantic. A good idea, but one
can imagine more exciting
interpretations.
DAVID PONSFORD
68 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
CHORAL CDS
Hymns of Kassianí
Cappella Romana / Alexander
Lingas (dir)
Cappella Records CR422 [76:40]
★★★★★
There’s surely no
group more
qualified to realise
the music of the
earliest known female composer
– a ninth-century Byzantine
religious phenomenon. Noble,
talented, single-minded and
strong, Kassianí rejected
marriage, founded a monastery,
and created magnificent sacred
music and poetry. Her work,
now rising above earlier
censorship and misogynist
misattribution, is here
celebrated with hugely
impressive, authoritative
scholarship and performance
practice, sonorously glorious
vocal colour, and pride by the
male and female voices of
Cappella Romana, singing
music for Christmas and Holy
Week. This SACD, recorded in
solemnly monumental
acoustics, captures both spirit
and music with divine intensity.
REBECCA TAVENER
Edward Pałłasz: Choral
Works
Collegium Cantorum Choir of
the Cze˛stochowa Philharmonic
/ Janusz Siadlak (dir)
Dux 1692 [75:57]
★★★★★
The music of
Edward Pałłasz
(1936-2019) is not
so well known
outside his native Poland. Self-
taught as a composer, he
worked in student theatres in
Gdańsk and Warsaw, as well as
at Warsaw’s Komedia Theatre.
He held a range of teaching and
administrative positions and
was the recipient of many
prestigious prizes in his
homeland. His compositions
include a large quantity of
theatre incidental music, a
Symphony ‘1976’, a two-act
opera Ja, Kain (2011) and plenty
of chamber, instrumental and
choral music. The present, well-
filled CD offers a representative
selection of his choral music
dating from the 1980s, from the
expressive Three Mournful
Songs (1982-84) to the
delightful Kashubian Christmas
Carols (1994), which prove the
most immediately appealing of
the pieces on the CD. Pałłasz is
well-served by the Collegium
Cantorum Choir under their
founder Janusz Siadlak, who
respond well to Pałłasz’s
harmonic palette and gift for
word setting. Their unfussy
manner coupled to the highest
musical standards suits this
music extremely well.
PHILIP REED
Domenico Scarlatti: Te
Deum;
Alessandro Scarlatti:
Salve Regina, Magnificat;
Howells: Requiem
Carlotta Colombo (s), Mirko
Guadagnini (t), Intende Voci
Ensemble, Franz Silvestri
(hpschd), Gabriele Palomba
(theorbo) / Mirko Guadagnini
(dir)
Urania Records LDV 14071
[59:26]
★★★★
This CD offers
an unusual
programme built
around the theme
of fathers and sons. Both
Alessandro and Domenico
Scarlatti are represented, the
former more substantially with
well-judged accounts of settings
of the Salve Regina à 4 and the
five-voice Magnificat, in which
Mirko Guadagnini introduces
appropriate solos to vary the
palette. Domenico’s eight-voice
Te Deum is no less strikingly
performed, with the singers
obviously relishing the interplay
between the two SATB choirs.
It’s very unusual to find
a European group tackling
Howells’s Requiem, music
which we tend to consider as
so English. Written in 1936
in memory of Howells’s, son
who died prematurely, it is a
highly personal work, an act
of remembrance and catharsis,
which was not made available
until three years before
Howells’s own death in 1983.
Apart from some occasionally
infelicitous English vowels, the
singers of this Italian chamber
choir manage it extremely well,
aided by their finding a warmer
sound for it than the slightly
abrasive, closely miked Scarlatti
items.
PHILIP REED
Joanna Marsh: Sanctifica
Nos – Works for Choir,
Organ and Viol Consort
Choir of Sidney Sussex College,
Cambridge, Fretwork, Martin
Baker (org) / David Skinner (dir)
Resonus RES 10283 [58:37]
★★★★
This valuable,
digital-only album
of music by British
composer Joanna
Marsh gathers together a
selection of her most recent
choral works. All reveal her
fresh style and her persuasive
word-setting. Several pieces
from the album – such as
Evening Canticles (St Paul’s
Service) and Martha and Mary,
written for the Choir of Sidney
Sussex College, Cambridge,
where Marsh was composer-
in-residence from 2015 to 2020
– reflect her strong interest in
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Tudor music, notably in their
inclusion of a consort of viols –
here, the ever-reliable Fretwork.
With compositions for viols and
for organ (a contribution to the
contemporary Orgelbüchlein
project), this album was clearly
a labour of love for all involved,
who rise to the occasion with
high-quality contributions. The
Choir of Sidney Sussex College
makes a youthful and fresh
sound, with generally clear
diction and excellent
intonation. While the balance
across this 22-voice choir is
admirable, their clear and
unfussy sound does
occasionally feel slightly lacking
in body in some of Marsh’s
bigger moments.
PHILIP REED
Grayston Ives: Requiem
Ronan Busfield (t), Choir of Jesus
College, Cambridge, Britten
Sinfonia / Richard Pinel (dir)
Signum SIGCD 682 [42:48]
★★★★
Grayston Ives has
been steeped in
Anglican choral
music since his
Ely chorister childhood, but
REVIEWS
there’s a distinctly French accent
to this touching Requiem,
commissioned in 2008 for the
550th anniversary of Magdalen
College, Oxford, where he was
Informator Choristarum.
Richard Pinel assisted at that
performance and this
thoughtful, affectionate
recording is testimony to
his enthusiasm for the work.

Good night, beloved
The Sixteen / Harry Christophers (dir)
Coro COR 16184 [68:48]
★★★★★
Mostly recorded in October last year when the UK’s
lockdown restrictions were temporarily lifted, this
characteristic programme from Harry Christophers
and The Sixteen offers balm for the soul after the
exigencies of Covid. What’s on offer is a pleasing anthology of
sacred and secular music spanning five centuries, ranging from
arrangements of the Londonderry Air by Bob Chilcott and Eriskay
Love Lilt by Roderick Williams (is there no end to his talents?),
contemporary contributions from Peter Maxwell Davies (Lullabye
for Lucy), James MacMillan (Children are a heritage of the Lord) and
Eric Whitacre (Sleep), as well as Stanford’s familiar The Blue Bird and
Bax’s tour de force Mater ora filium, among so much else. Built
around themes of children, night-time and lullabies, plus a few
Beauty of tone, sensitivity to words
rousing pre-sleep items, this latest CD from The Sixteen displays all
the choir’s famed beauty of tone, evenness of blend and sensitivity
to words. A classic The Sixteen recording.
PHILIP REED

The Sixteen: their new CD offers ‘balm for the soul’

FIREDOG

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It is also an admirable showcase
for the combined forces of Jesus
College, Cambridge’s Chapel
and College choirs; the boy
trebles of the former and the
sopranos of the latter each get
a movement to themselves,
but otherwise sing together,
very effectively. The Britten
Sinfonia’s playing is
immaculate.
CLARE STEVENS
Sergei Taneyev: At the
Reading of a Psalm
(Cantata no.2)
Lolita Semenina (s), Marianna
Tarasova (a), Mikhail Gubsky
(t), Andrei Baturkin (b), St
Petersburg Cappella Choir
(Vladislav Chernushenko, dir),
Boys’ Choir of Glinka Choral
College (Vladimir Begletsov, dir),
Russian National Orchestra /
Mikhail Pletnev (dir)
Alto ALC 1445 [68:59]
★★★★
Taneyev seems a
relatively minor
figure today, but
he was a dominant
figure in late 19th-century
Russian music, as scholar,
teacher and pianist as well as
composer. Two important
cantatas frame his career. John
of Damascus was his op.1, while
At the Reading of a Psalm op.36
was completed shortly before
his death in 1915, perhaps
immediately eclipsed by the
disasters of the Eastern Front. It
shouldn’t have been, for it met
the Slavophile mood of the
moment perfectly, a hymn to
the old Russian past that was
being swept away by an alien
modernity. Structured
somewhat like Beethoven’s
Missa solemnis, the Cantata no.2
is given a plain and unadorned
reading by the two choirs and
an orchestra that guides the
music expertly every step of the
70 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
way, as was intended. This is
a historically important
rediscovery, late emerging from
the Soviet suppression of sacred
music.
BRIAN MORTON
Alfred Schnittke: Choir
Concerto, Three Sacred
Hymns; Arvo Pärt: Seven
Magnificat-Antiphons
Estonian Philharmonic Chamber
Choir / Kaspars Putninš (dir)
BIS 2521 [60:22]
★★★★
Schnittke was
looking back to
the traditions of
19th-century
Russian choral music when he
wrote his Choir Concerto, part
of a widespread (shared by the
Estonian Pärt) rediscovery of a
body of music and faith that had
been buried by half a century of
dialectical materialism. The
work hovers constantly between
the introspective and the
outgoing, with passages of deep
contemplation followed by
outbursts of witness and
celebration. It’s a difficult
balancing act for the choir, but
here it is handled with absolute
sureness by singers and their
charismatic conductor. The Pärt
material feels like something of
an afterthought, if not actually a
filler (as might be said of
Schnittke’s Three Sacred
Hymns). Quality is much more
important than width here.
BRIAN MORTON
Sławomir Czarnecki:
Vesperae in Exaltatione
Sanctæ Crucis
Aleksander Kunach (t), Dawid
Biwo (b), Polski Chór Kameralny,
Instrumental Ensemble of the
Polish Baltic Philharmonic in
Gdańsk / Jan Łukaszewski (dir)
DUX 1677 [64:19]
★★★★
If anyone still
needs a quick
run-down on
what
‘postmodernism’ means,
Czarnecki’s music, with its
confident blend of Gregorian
chant, contemporary
minimalism, organum and
sonorism, plus half a dozen
other identifiable influences,
should do the trick. The trick
for players and singers is not to
exaggerate the contrast between
ancient and modern elements,
but to treat them equally as
elements of a consistent creative
vision, and that is what this fine
Polish ensemble has done here.
Jan Łukaszewski is alert to the
significance of the various
psalms and antiphons that
structure the piece, but he lets
each one convey its own –
sometimes unexpected – charge
without trying to crunch the
whole sequence into a template.
The long ‘Hymnus Vexilla regis’
comes early, but it’s crucial to
the success of the thing: it’s done
magnificently.
BRIAN MORTON
Marco Galvani: Invisible
Cities – Choral and
Electronic Music
Sansara / Tom Herring (dir)
Resonus RES 10280 [55:10]
★★★★
Italo Calvino’s
fiction, with its
unavoidable
echoes of the
Decameron, acquired new
significance during our latter-
day plague. Calvino’s novel
provides the title and
inspiration for the electronic
interludes in Marco Galvani’s
beautiful, effortlessly
polystylistic setting of
Lamentations. There are already
clichés surrounding work made
under Covid restrictions, but
here the audible space round
the voices makes perfect sense:
each singer caught in a moment
of private pain and loss, but
belonging to a multitude
undergoing the same pain.
Galvani’s music touches at a
very immediate level, an
assertion that only in
community do we survive
and thrive.
The choir brilliantly
communicates the humanity of
the music, which is perhaps its
most appealing element.
BRIAN MORTON
Vivaldi: Gloria RV 589;
Magnificat RV 610a
Le Concert Spirituel /
Hervé Niquet (dir)
Alpha 620 [50:31]
★★★★★
We’re all used to
fast performances
of Bach and
Handel, but I can’t
recall ever hearing the first
movement of Vivaldi’s Gloria
setting off at such a lick as it
does here under the direction of
Hervé Niquet. However, he
never sacrifices musical detail
for speed, and there are
moments of reflection too in
this superb recording, using
female voices only to replicate
the forces of the Pietà (the girls’
orphanage in Venice where
Vivaldi taught). It is a refreshing
reminder that famous works
endure for a reason.
Equally ravishing is Paris-
based Le Concert Spirituel’s
delivery of the earliest of three
versions of Vivaldi’s only
Magnificat setting, bubbling
with joie de vivre.
Also included are a dance-
like Laetatus sum RV 607 and,
as a sprightly conclusion, the
double-choir Lauda Jerusalem
RV 609.
CLARE STEVENS
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Threads of Gold 2
Choir of York Minster, Benjamin
Morris (org) / Robert Sharpe
(dir)
Regent REGCD 544 [74:12]
★★★★
York Minster’s
second volume
celebrating the era
spanning the
whole of Queen Elizabeth I’s
reign and the early years of
James I’s includes some of the
most famous liturgical works in
the choral repertoire as well as
less familiar verse anthems by
Byrd, Tomkins, Parsons,
Gibbons and Tallis – all
Gentlemen of the Chapel Royal.
Robert Sharpe and his excellent
choir approach each piece anew
and with an audibly devotional
spirit, their sound burnished by
the luminous acoustics of the
minster’s Lady chapel; the
intimacy of quiet passages is
particularly impressive. Treble
lines are taken by either boys or
girls, although only the soloists’
names in some of the pieces
indicate which is which.
CLARE STEVENS
REVIEWS
Benedetto Marcello: ‘spiritual cantatas’, which
Psalm 42 & Psalm 50 couldn’t be used liturgically
Nina Cuk (a), Diego Buratto (t), because only Latin texts were
Raffaele Zaninelli (b), permitted at the time. They
Coro Istituzione Armonica, were performed for the first
Ensemble Il Narvalo / Alberto time in the Cavallerizza,
Turco (dir) Venice, and are written in a
Brilliant Classics 96135 [57:46] style that favours melody over
★★★ counterpoint or harmony.
The settings of While the repertoire is
the first 50 psalms intriguing, the singing of Coro
by Benedetto Istituzione Armonica, formed
Giacomo in 2018 to explore works from
Marcello (1686-1739) in a Verona Cathedral’s archives, is
contemporary Italian a bit unrefined for my taste.
paraphrase were conceived as CLARE STEVENS

MIXTURE
Virtuosic demands in works by
Szathmáry and Kabeláč, and a
tribute to Captain Tom Moore
Written as the test piece for the 2020
Bach competition in Leipzig, Zsigmond
Szathmáry’s Silberklänge (Bärenreiter BA11263, £18.00) is a
virtuosic and imaginative exploration of the timbral possibilities of
the glorious Silbermann in the Georgenkirche Rötha – a modestly
sized two-manual of about 25 stops. It is, as one would expect,
difficult, but in a very elegant way – refinement of articulation is a
fundamental part of the discourse of the piece – and is characterised
by mercurial shifts of metre, tempo (it’s not every day you see
a metronome marking of crotchet=127), motif (BACH makes a
pretty inevitable appearance, in an oblique way) and registration.
There’s clearly some sort of graphic notation in operation when it
comes to the management of stop changes, but no sign of a key
to its realisation, which is a minor annoyance. Stop combinations
(specified rigorously) change every few bars, and at various
junctures stops need to be removed slowly, creating vivid effects
which it’s pointless to try and reproduce by pushing pistons. It’s a
fascinating meeting of two musical worlds, composed by a musician
of great individual imagination, and on an appropriately voiced
mechanical action instrument it would make a striking impression
– but you really need to be sure of your audience, who need to be
made of stern stuff.
A similar rigour pervades Miloslav Kabeláč’s Four Preludes
( Jan Hora and Luboš Mrkvička, eds; Bärenreiter Praha, £9.50),
also written as a test piece (Prague Spring competition, 1966).
Kabeláč was a major figure in Czech music of the 1960s, and
developed an individual system of notation which he felt clarified
the metrical content of his music in a manner not possible with
traditional notation. This new edition (the works have been out
of print for some while) presents the pieces in both the original
notation and transliteration into standard form; the performer
can thereby test the veracity of the composer’s assertion that usual
notational practice could not adequately reflect the subtleties
of his works. The jury’s out on that point, but this is fine music,
giving a sense of a refined musical intellect at work. It’s fair to say
that it tends towards the terse and aphoristic; it will not ingratiate
itself. Illuminating contextual notes and some elegant facsimiles
complete the volume.
In this rather austere company, some readers may find it a relief
to turn to something closer to home, and more straightforwardly
expressive. It’s a sad fact of the circumstances of recent months that
by the time Antony Baldwin’s Lament for Captain Tom (Banks
Music Publications, £3.50) was in print, Captain Tom Moore and
This is fine music, giving a sense of a
refined musical intellect at work
his extraordinary efforts as a charity fundraiser had been overtaken
by the rolling 24-hours news cycle. But that does not detract from
the sincerity of intent behind this unassuming short piece, revised
from an unpublished original early in 2021. By the composer’s own
admission, the ghosts of Croft and Purcell hover over the work, a
short G minor Saraband which flirts with the idea of being a ground
bass, but never quite gives in. It would be useful in any number of
memorial contexts – one stop and pedals are all that is required.
Stephen Farr is director of music at All Saints’ Church, Margaret Street,
London, having previously held posts at Christ Church and Worcester
colleges, Oxford, Corpus Christi College Cambridge, and Winchester
and Guildford cathedrals. He is a solo recitalist, continuo player and
accompanist with many leading choirs and ensembles, and is currently
chief examiner of the Royal College of Organists.

www.choirandorgan.com OCTOBER 2021 CHOIR & ORGAN 71

REVIEWS CONCERTS • KEYBOARD CDS • CHORAL CDS • DVDS • ORGAN MUSIC • CHORAL MUSIC • BOOKS
CHORAL MUSIC
Lillie Harris: Margaret
SATB+sols, (div) unacc.
Stainer and Bell Ltd
9790220227578, £2.50; pdf
version 9790220227561, £20.00
for 30 copies or £2.00 for 1 single
copy
Sarah Quartel Songbook
– 10 songs for upper
voices
Upper voices in 2-4 parts, & pno
or drum, or unacc.
Oxford University Press
9780193551053, £10.50
Barbara Strozzi: Che si
può fare? (arr. Olivia
Sparkhall)
SSA & pno/chamb. org.
Banks Music Publications
KCS008, £1.95
Clara Schumann:
Ave Maria (ed. Olivia
Sparkhall)
SA & pno/org.
Banks Music Publications
KCS007, £1.75
Lillie Harris’s Margaret was
first performed at the National
Youth Choir of Great Britain’s
Showcase event early in 2020
when Harris was one of four
young composers selected for
the NYCGB’s Young
72 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
Composers Scheme. The piece
is dedicated to the memory of
Margaret Hollard/Valentine/
Colfe (c.1565-1643), and
the text was discovered on
a 17th-century plaque in a
church in Lewisham saying that
Margaret was ‘a willing nurse,
midwife, surgeon, and in part
physitian to all, both rich and
poore.’ With simple repeated
melodic motifs in D major and
then a chromatic harmonic lift
to a soft 7th chord, it feels as if
the piece is immediately given
a contemporary edge, taking
us from the ancient stone to
the present day. The composer
uses a clever linguistic twist
in ‘meadow dwelling medica’,
which is used as a play on
words of the original meaning
of Lewisham – ‘dwelling in
the meadows’ – and the term
‘medica’, and the 13th-century
word describing a woman
doctor. I love the strong
feeling of reverent reflection
that is evoked in this piece
through its gentle, hymn-like
style and opportunities for
some short solos which add
to the poignancy of the story
that this piece tells, echoing
the sentiment stated by the
composer in the preface to the
piece: ‘I wondered how many
more “Margarets” are out there,
lost to history.’ The vocal writing
is not overly demanding, and
I think it would be a strong
and artistically valuable choice
for a small vocal ensemble of
competent singers.
Hot off the press this year is
the Sarah Quartel Songbook.
This 91-page anthology of
11 pieces not only represents
very good value in relation
to the price, but could offer
a stimulating educational
opportunity to study and
perform a variety of works by a
single composer. The collection
embraces a wide range of secular
texts and musical styles, and
includes some of the composer’s
well known favourites, such
as Voice on the Wind, Sing, my
Child, and The Birds’ Lullaby;
but it also features some exciting
new pieces, including All shall
be well, setting the text by
Julian of Norwich, that she was
commissioned to write for the
National Children’s Chorus
in the USA. The composer
explains in her commentary
to this piece that the text was
shared with her by the young
singers at the beginning of the
first Covid lockdowns and how
they expressed their feelings
about their choir and choral
singing as ‘places for self-care,
self-expression and healing’. It
is accompanied by piano and
a violin part, with expressively
flowing vocal writing in each of
the four parts. The vocal ranges
within the parts – like all of the
writing in this anthology – never
go too low, and the soprano
part, when it does touch on the
higher soprano range, never
stays there for too long and so
is ideal for young voices as well
as adult upper voices. I was also
drawn to another new piece,
Refuge, written for the Atlanta
Women’s Chorus which received
an online premiere in 2021
because of the pandemic. This
setting of a text by US poet Sara
Teasdale (1884-1933) includes
the line ‘For with my singing I
can make a refuge for my spirit’s
sake, a house of shining words,
to be my fragile immortality.’
This is a highly expressive choral
piece which would lend itself
to the voices of an experienced
upper voice ensemble.
As well as the contemporary
compositions published by
the Kassian Choral Series
– Choral music by Women
Composers, I was interested
FOPPE SCHUT
Julian of Norwich, by David Holgate
to see the inclusion of some
upper voice settings of music
by significant composers of the
past, including the beautiful
song Che si può fare? (with a
full English translation under
the text within the score) by
Barbara Strozzi (1619-77), and
Ave Maria by Clara Schumann
(1819-96), both edited or
arranged by Olivia Sparkhall.
I appreciate that too much
information on a score can be
overwhelming. However, in the
case of these historical pieces,
I think some more details
regarding their provenance
would be desirable. The Clara
Schumann particularly, with its
change of text from the original
German part-song to the Latin
sacred text, is interesting, and
this background information
could enhance the rich musical
picture it presents. However,
the imaginative arrangements
succeed beautifully in giving
upper voices a taste of these
fine pieces of music within the
context of the collective upper
choral voice.
JOY HILL
www.choirandorgan.com
 Download free sheet music
for choirs or solo organ
Choir & Organ commissions six new works from young composers every year
as part of our New Music series, making each score freely available to download
and perform for six months.

Explore new repertoire by up-and-coming composers and listen to

recordings of premiere performances on our website.

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n July/August 2021
Choir & Organ           
      
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Copyright © Joseph Bates

This piece may be photocopied for
pp 2021, after
performance until 31 August
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Copyright © Lisa Robertson
all copies must be destroyed.
until 31 December 2021, after which
This piece may be photocopied for performance January 2022, please contact lisarobertson234@gmail.com.
1
To obtain copies for performance from
Choir & Organ July/August 2021

Download current scores at

choirandorgan.com/new-music
ENCOUNTERS
RICHARD YARR, NIIOC FOUNDER
sure that the competition – the first ever for
FRANCESMARSHALL_MARSHALLLIGHTSTUDIO7868
some competitors – is a positive experience.
We offer prize money, feedback, prestigious
recital opportunities (both Westminster Abbey
and Trinity College, Cambridge have offered
their instruments since the inaugural year)
and a recording of their performance to each
competitor for use as a promotional tool. For
the first three years, all competitors were from
the UK, and for the first five years all winners,
likewise, were British. In 2016, the winner was
Lithuanian organist Mona Rozdestvenskyte,
who this year was a prizewinner at St Albans
International Organ Festival (IOF), the natural
next step up from NIIOC.
The 2020 online edition was the first time
that the competition was streamed live.
Naturally, the competitors missed the face-to-
face camaraderie, but through the wonders of
modern technology we were delighted to offer
a jury with feedback, and for all competitors
to appear on the same screen for the
announcement of the results. The competitors
played the local instrument of their choice,
performing a fixed 20-minute programme
‘ I
with no edits and covering a breadth of
’d been an adjudicator for a range of repertoire.
music competitions when in early In providing such an open experience, this
2011 I realised that the organ didn’t digital edition extended our outreach. We
feature in many, due to venue limitations. believe more people attended – from a wider
Young organists, in my view, weren’t being international audience – than in previous
catered for, so I started to look around at years. Covid has fast-tracked the digital
what competitions were available for them. experience and the creative arts have had to
In general, the upper age range was 28-30, so embrace the relevant technology. The IOF
anyone at music college, or 21 and younger, subsequently took on the same company and
would find themselves up against organists digital model for their competition.
with extended professional experience. I am heavily involved in choral music here
A lot of the festivals to which I had access in Northern Ireland. I am chair of the Charles
had an upper age limit of 21. I did lengthy Wood Festival of Music & Summer School
research into what 21-year-olds were (CWFMSS). I founded the BBC Northern
accomplishing, talked to teachers about the Ireland School Choir of the Year and am
prevailing standards, and had preliminary director of music at a church in Belfast.
conversations with organists and close Coordinating singing during the pandemic
colleagues, including David Hill, who later has way surpassed the challenges faced by
became a patron of the Northern Ireland instrumentalists. So many reports have been
International Organ Competition (NIIOC).
I formed a working group to set up the project,
without a website, logo, or funding. Since 2011,
filed regarding Covid and singing, and the
consensus favours a risk-averse approach. It
has all seemed very vague and inconsistent
we have raised over £100,000 to ensure the and been quite frustrating. Students have
competition continues every year. had to take their GCSE practical singing
We aim to do everything we can to make examinations outside. Meanwhile, we’ve
74 CHOIR & ORGAN OCTOBER 2021
witnessed stadiums crammed with people
singing their heads off.
CWFMSS has continued unabated. In 2020
we delivered a digital festival with all the same
elements as 2019: organ recitals, workshops
and singing lessons with Paul Farrington
on Zoom, and a range of choral Evensongs
and church worship, albeit with four singers
instead of a full choir. Our social media
numbers went through the roof, so that is
something we have looked to develop and take
forward to the 2021 hybrid festival.
Owing to social distancing, the Charles
Wood Singers were 22 in number instead
of 40, and made up of professional section
leaders, professional mentors and those
studying singing to a high level. The ensemble
is recording a CD featuring choral works by
Wood, Stanford and Beach, which will be
released in 2022. We also started the Charles
Wood Song Competition three years ago, and
this year it has even attracted singers with
established recording contracts.
I was a church organist for 25 years for
the Church of Ireland in Lisburn. Through
my work with BBC, I was aware of the First
Presbyterian Church in Rosemary Street,
the oldest place of worship in Belfast, with
incredible acoustics and an established music
tradition. It has good infrastructure and
facilities, including a three-manual T.C. Lewis
organ (1907), so naturally I was keen when the
post of director of music came up. The Sunday
worship is traditional in its approach and is
supported by our church choir. The musical
life of the church has been enhanced by the
annual Summer Recital Series with Northern
Ireland Opera. We have also appointed our
first musicians-in-residence, the acclaimed
harpist Tanya Houghton, and the Banham
Scholars, eight professional singers with a close
link to Northern Ireland Opera.
To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the
NIIOC, all 10 winners will perform in two
concerts: in Southwark Cathedral on Monday
28 March, and then in Belfast Cathedral
on 6 April. I am extremely proud that the
‘
competition – in terms of catering for those
21 and under – is the leading international
organ competition.
Richard Yarr was speaking to Matthew Berry.
www.choirandorgan.com
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