The UK's leading Digital Church Organ specialist
We recently shared the interesting origins of the Sheldonian Theatre’s organ where we shared that we’d installed a Envoy 350-FV. Here I share how the voicing of this instrument went. The Sheldonian challenge, voicing in a dry space. Voicing a digital organ in a relatively “dry” space is always much more of a challenge than…
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St Cecilia is the patron saint of music, and what better way to celebrate it than with Herbert Howells’ beautiful anthem, “A Hymn for St Cecilia”? Cecilia’s traditional feast day is 22nd November. We recorded this piece in the time we had remaining at the end of the session in January, during which we had…
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Written around 1888, Faure’s Requiem is among the most well loved and widely sung of the requiem masses. It’s relatively straightforward to sing compared with, say, Duruflé’s alternative. In this episode of our Choir and Organ Tutorials from the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich we’re presenting a rehearsal and performance of the last movement,…
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In his introduction to this tutorial on Haydn’s famous chorus “The heavens are telling” from his oratorio “The Creation”, Ralph Allwood explains the piece’s origins. Haydn visited London and was very impressed with the tradition of choirs singing oratorios, in particular Handel’s works. He decided that he’d like to write such a work too. Someone…
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Louis Vierne held the post of titulaire organist at Notre Dame in Paris for a large part of his life, finally dying at the organ bench there during a concert. Blind from birth, he is best known for his organ music, although there are a small number of songs and choral works in his compositional…
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Elgar’s epic anthem, “Give unto the Lord”, is the third release in this year’s series of choir and organ tutorials from Ralph Allwood and the choir of the Old Royal Naval College chapel in Greenwich. In an engaging lesson lasting nearly forty minutes, Ralph and Jonathan Eyre discuss how to perform and accompany this monumental…
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Our second release in this series of Choir and Organ Tutorials, recorded at the Old Royal Naval College in Greenwich, is the Gloria from Schubert’s Mass in G. We’re releasing it during Eastertide, as it’s such a joyful, celebratory piece, and it suits the season of resurrection. The Gloria begins “Gloria in Excelsis Deo!”, “Glory…
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During the 1960s and 70s it was a fashionable thing among musical elites not to like Stainer’s music. My professor of music when I was a student used to relate the possibly bad taste old joke “what do you think of Stainer’s Crucifixion?” (I’ll leave you to figure out the punch line). There are some…
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Last year’s tutorial series on Psalms and Anthems, with Ralph Allwood and the Old Royal Naval College Chapel Choir, was so successful that it was decided to continue with a similar theme in 2023. Complementing roles of Director and Organist This year’s series emphasises the partnership between director and organist, showing how the roles complement…
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If you’re one of those who finds it annoying that Christmas seems to be done and dusted by the end of Advent, you’ll appreciate the January release of our recording of Mendelssohn’s “There shall a star”. Liturgically, the Christmas season runs from Christmas itself right through January and traditionally up to Candlemas in early February….
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As Christmas comes round once more, church choirs will be turning their attention to the annual carol service. A perennial favourite for inclusion is The Shepherds’ Farewell by Hector Berlioz. In our tutorial you’ll find some good advice from Ralph Allwood about the performance of this lovely piece, ably demonstrated by the choir and organist….
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During this series of tutorials on psalm singing and accompaniment, Ralph Allwood has been explaining the origins and meanings of the text. As part of this episode’s rehearsal of Psalm 133, Ralph talks about the blessings of unity—how precious it is, and how we must hold on to it. This very short psalm is sung…
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In this brief exposition of psalm singing, Ralph Allwood teaches the choir how to perform Psalm 126, to a chant by George Garrett. Garrett was Director of Music at St John’s College, Cambridge, between 1856 and 1897, and it is for this psalm chant that he is probably most widely known. As Ralph explains in…
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Psalm 124 is sung here to two chants, one in D minor by Ivor Atkins, and another based on it but in D major, written by Ralph Allwood. The chants beautifully partner the words, in the first part expressing the drama in which the children of Israel imagine being swallowed up by the deep waters…
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The splendid Evening Hymn is arguably the best-known, and best, piece written by Henry Balfour Gardiner — apparently a great uncle of the present-day conductor Sir John Eliot Gardiner. Such is the quality of this stirring anthem that it seems a pity we don’t have much else of note by Balfour Gardiner for church choirs…
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With Ralph Allwood, Mark Shepherd, and the Old Royal Naval College Trinity Laban Chapel Choir. Psalm 114 is sung here to an ancient chant known as Tonus Peregrinus, which Ralph Allwood suggests seems very likely (according to recent research) to have been used in the temple in Jerusalem, before it was destroyed. That makes it…
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With Ralph Allwood, Mark Shepherd, and the Old Royal Naval College Trinity Laban Chapel Choir. Psalm 24 is a splendid and relatively short psalm, sung here to a chant by Barnby in the “bright” key of E major. Rather like Psalm 150, featured last month, this is one of a small number of psalms that…
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With Ralph Allwood, Mark Shepherd, and the Old Royal Naval College Trinity Laban Chapel Choir The great psalm of praise, number 150: “O praise God in his holiness”, features as the first in this tutorial series on Psalms and Anthems. You’ll be able to see Ralph Allwood teaching the Old Royal Naval College Trinity Laban…
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One of an organist’s most subtle and sensitive roles is in the accompaniment of psalms and church anthems. In such an accompanying role, one’s job is rarely to stand out as a performer but to create an underlying musical foundation on which the choir’s singing can build. There may be moments of organ glory and…
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John Riley’s “Two Pieces for Manuals” are from An Oxfordshire Organ Book, published by the Oxford and District Organists Association. The two pieces in question are entitled “Lullaby in Dorian Mode” and “Mediaeval Rondeau”. < John Riley, one-time resident of Oxford, is now a freelance musician based in Edinburgh. In his notes he mentions that…
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The hymn tune Cranham is best known to us for the Christmas carol “In the bleak midwinter”. Relf Clark’s chorale prelude on the tune is from An Oxfordshire Organ Book, published in 2019 by the Oxford and District Organists’ Association. (You can find out more about this collection of pieces in the general introduction to…
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Keen readers of Viscount’s tales will know that the company jumped to attention on a Bank Holiday when the call came for an emergency hire organ at the Old Royal Naval College Chapel in Greenwich. A few months later, in September 2021, I was asked to voice a Regent 356 at the chapel. This new…
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The organ “battle” is a classic format for an exciting concert, often involving a substantial digital instrument pitted against the venue’s venerable pipe organ. If you can get yourself to Selby in Yorkshire on Friday 3rd September at 7.30 pm, there’ll be a chance to hear internationally renowned organists Martin Baker and John Scott Whiteley…
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Ian Higginson’s Sortie in B flat from his recent collection Organ Sound Colours, Vol. 1, could be a useful ‘going out’ voluntary for a church service. (You can find out more about this collection of pieces in the general introduction to this year’s tutorials.) < Sortie in B flat by Ian Higginson The piece is…
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