LIGHT NOT SLIGHT

One of the two Radio City Music Hall Consoles

Within the Radio City Music Hall in New York is an organ installed by the Rudolph Wurlitzer Company. Designed to play a wide range of music, it is unusual in having two consoles – one either side of the vast stage.

Whilst such instruments have introduced audiences to the light classics as well as popular melodies of the day over many decades, parish church organists have, by and large, avoided such music. However, an increasing number of organists are discovering that their organ can be almost as versatile and are adding ‘light’ music to their repertoire. And as the BBC has demonstrated through several radio programmes over the past couple of years, ‘light’ music does not mean ‘slight’ music.

An organist that has made a career of playing ‘light music’ on classical organs is Nigel Ogden. Nigel has been presenter of the BBC Radio programme ‘The Organist Entertains’ for many years and it is the longest running specialist music programme on the network.

Nigel is as much at home on a mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Organ as he is on a classical organ housed in a cathedral or a modest Methodist chapel and has composed a number of works that can be played on both types of instrument.

One of his most popular compositions is ‘Penguins’ Playtime’, published by Stainer & Bell (Ref H320 £4.00). The attached video demonstrates one interpretation of the work on a classical organ. And as one person has commented ‘This tune makes me laugh’. – And so it should.

Other works by Nigel include ‘An Art-Deco Three Piece Suite’ (Ref H358 £6.00), ‘Scherzo for the White Rabbit’ (Ref H348 £4.25) and ‘Saints of a Spree’ (Ref H461 £4.25) – a delightful piece based on the spiritual ‘When the saints come marching in’ but with a number of unexpected twists. Listen for yourself with this video recorded at a church in Finland.

In 2012 Nigel’s contribution to music was recognised by the British Academy of Songwriters and Authors in association with the Performing Right Society who presented him with the much coveted Gold Badge Award in the form of a tuning fork.

http://www.stainer.co.uk/ogden.html#h348

LOVE IT OR LOATHE IT Caleb Simper

When Stainer & Bell (by a circuitous route) acquired the catalogue of A. Weekes and Co. Ltd, it greatly increased its selection of church anthems, due, in the main, to one man – Caleb Simper.

To many, Victorian composers of church music are no longer in vogue, and Simper does not feature in the famous ‘Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians’. However, the original publishers proudly printed on copies of his anthems ‘Sung throughout the civilised world’ – as indeed they were. By 1892, about 2.5 million copies of his anthems had been sold. This increased to around 3.25 million by 1895 and surpassing 5 million by 1920. Halcyon days for a publisher!

Although loved by church and chapel choirs who had little musical knowledge and who found the simplicity of the works within their limited abilities, the anthems were derided by others. Ralph Vaughan Williams said about Simper and Maunder (composer of Olivet to Calvary) ‘Composers with ridiculous names: their names are about the one thing these composers couldn’t help; other aspects of their activities are less innocent.’ And when all things Victorian were out of favour and structures such as the Albert Memorial in Hyde Park and St Pancras Midland Hotel were scheduled for demolition and church choir cupboards cleared, Erik Routley, in his book ‘A Short History of English Music’, wrote: ‘From the Crucifixion you go downwards to the underworld of Michael Costa, Caleb Simper and J. H. Maunder’.

One advocate of Simper’s anthems in recent years was the late Christopher Turner, who, in 1995, persuaded us to publish a volume entitled Five Anthems for the Liturgical Year (Ref D85 £6.00) which has sold surprisingly well. Simper’s organ works, unlike his anthems, have never been out of print, and all twelve books Seventeen Voluntaries (Refs 16010 – 16021 £5.75 per volume) are themselves sold in quantity to the ‘civilised world’. Written on two staves, the voluntaries are tuneful and provide the backbone to many church services.

Born in Barford St Martin, Wiltshire in 1857, Simper was largely self-taught. He attempted a number of professions, including piano tuning, before finding his vocation as an organist. He was briefly manager of a music shop next door but one to the Elgar family business. Ten years later he moved to Barnstaple, and there he remained, occupying a number of posts as organist and choirmaster until shortly before his death in 1942.

So, like the yeast extract ‘Marmite’, who promote their product on a ‘love it or hate it’ basis, the choice is yours. Fortunately enough organists fall into the former category to force us to reprint the Voluntaries on a regular basis.

http://www.stainer.co.uk/acatalog/organ_composers_l_to_z.html

ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE

In her 2012 Christmas broadcast, the Queen looked back on a year of celebration and reflected on the importance of public service.

Commencing with the National Anthem, played in the Ballroom at Buckingham Palace by the British Paraorchestra, Her Majesty proceeded to congratulate those who participated in the Olympic and Paralympic games and for the inspiration they had given to our young people. She also mentioned those who were serving the country on Christmas day, including those in the armed forces and working in our hospitals before quoting a verse from Christina Rossetti’s poem ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’. The broadcast concluded with the Military Wives Choir singing a further two verses of the poem to a setting by Harold Darke. We were made aware that the Queen intended the Darke setting to be used in the short programme some two weeks prior to transmission, but were sworn to secrecy.

Voted as the most popular carol by fifty choirmasters and choral experts across the UK and the USA in a survey conducted by the BBC Music Magazine in 2008, the setting, written in 1909, was also used in the famous Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols from King’s College, Cambridge where Darke was organist during the Second World War.

The Queen’s 2012 recorded Christmas TV broadcast was unique, being the first to be filmed in 3D and the first by Sky rather than alternating between the BBC and ITV, but it was her grandfather, King George V who was the first monarch to broadcast to the Empire in 1932, albeit on the wireless. The text was written by Rudyard Kipling and began ‘I speak now from my home and my heart to you all; to men and women so cut off by the snows, the desert or the sea, that only voices from the air can reach them’.

The King’s broadcast was live and was scheduled to be aired at 3pm which was deemed the best time to reach most of the Empire by short wave transmitters in Britain. In the event, the broadcast began at five past three (twenty-five minutes to four Sandringham time since the King insisted that all clocks were set half an hour fast) and lasted two and a half minutes. An hour-long programme preceded the broadcast bearing greetings from all over the Empire.

The King’s last Christmas broadcast in 1935 was made less than a month before his death. His son, Edward VIII, never made a Christmas speech to the nation, having abdicated on 11^th December 1936, and no Christmas message was broadcast that year. King George VI’s first Christmas broadcast was in the following year, overcoming, to a large extent, his stammer as shown in the film ‘The King’s Speech’.

Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II’s first Christmas broadcast was in 1952. The Queen used the same desk and chair as her father and grandfather had done. ‘Each Christmas, at this time, my beloved father broadcast a message to his people in all parts of the world . . . As he used to do, I am speaking to you from my own home, where I am spending Christmas with my family’. The first televised broadcast was in 1957 and since 1960 the speech was recorded in advance so that tapes could be sent around the Commonwealth for showing at the most convenient time. Most recordings have been made in Buckingham Palace, but Sandringham and Windsor have also been used.

The Queen has broadcast to the nation every year of her reign save in 1969 when a repeat of a documentary on the Royal Family was already scheduled.

In the Bleak Midwinter — words by Christina Rossetti, music by Harold Darke

SATB and organ (Ref CH8) £1.75                            SSA with optional organ (Ref W107) £1.75

TTBB and organ, arr. John Rutter (Ref W223) £1.75

(Optional string parts are also available for all versions)http://www.stainer.co.uk/ch8.html