June has been another pleasantly varied month. It started with Anne completing the taxing jigsaw puzzle given us as a Christmas present by son Morgan. It’s a colourful and clever collage of Oxford’s ‘dreaming spires’.
On 6th June I took the train to Liverpool to hear Nathan Laube at the Anglican Cathedral. I’d always travel to hear Nathan, but the added attractions this time were the Healey Willan Introduction, Passacaglia & Fugue and the Fantasie Choral No.1 by Percy Whitlock. Organ and player excelled in these wonderful pieces, as can be imagined, as they did in the Liszt transcription (Les Préludes – Poème Symphonique) which ended the programme.
10th June saw me at Croydon Minster, to survey and report on the magnificent 4-manual Hill organ, which is in need of some t.l.c. As the three fine Oldrid Scott cases of this organ are not often seen in print, I thought this photograph would be of interest.
With the Gloucester Cathedral organ nearing completion, I made two site inspections in June – the console had been hauled up on to the Screen just before my first visit. I took plenty of photos inside the organ for my new book The Organs of Gloucester Cathedral (74pp, available from Gloucester Cathedral Shop from July 21st).
This photo shows the top notes of the Swell Hautbois and Trompette – note their French construction.
On Monday 15th June we went to hear my old friend Thomas Trotter play his regular lunchtime recital in Birmingham Town Hall. A lovely programme of light, summery music, played on the organ which bowled me over as a youngster, attending George Thalben-Ball’s Wednesday lunchtime recitals here whenever Solihull School term dates allowed. I still love it…dare I say much more than the rather clinical Klais in Symphony Hall?
For some weeks I had been planning a 19/20 June tour by 36 members of The Organ Club, based in Worcester, hearing and playing the organs in Worcester Cathedral, Tewkesbury Abbey, Pershore Abbey, Malvern Priory and two John Nicholson church organs (Newland and Twyning). A tour of the Nicholson workshops saw us divided into three groups and given a fascinating insight into all the firm has in hand at present – around six organs!
The large organs we visited are all well-known visually, so the only other photographs I show here are of the marvellous detail as the top of one of the grand towers of the south transept case (Gilbert Scott) at Worcester Cathedral, of the Elgar window in the Worcester nave, of the fine organ case at Twyning, of the extraordinary decorative scheme at Newland, and of the beautiful meadow on the NW side of Pershore Abbey.
