Category: Uncategorised

Today will long remain in my memory, for it was the last time I shall conduct the St Matthew Passion with Nottingham Bach Choir. Everything came together so well on the day—Orchestra da Camera (since my youth my favourite chamber orchestra for choral society accompaniment) on top form, along with all soloists, Rogers Covey-Crump delivering a memorable interpretation of the Evangelist’s core role. NBC sang as well as or better than they ever have—they really worked hard since January on this. The long silence at the end proclaimed the effect Bach’s stupendous masterwork had on everybody in Southwell Minster. And now on with preparing for my final concert with NBC, after 29 years conducting them, on June 22—Bach, Vaughan Williams, Haydn and Parry: yummy!

Had a lovely birthday today, following a superb week’s holiday for Anne and me in Madrid and Toledo. Such wonderful art to be found, and the balmy weather allowed us to walk for miles around each city in comfort. The three monumental organs of Toledo’s utterly magnificent cathedral are glorious to behold—not so lovely to hear. Here are two photos—the back case of the organ on the south of the Quire and the renowned Emperor’s organ in the south transept.

It’s not all that often that one returns to give a second recital in later years, on an organ where one has acted as consultant and given one of the opening recitals. But today I played again on the 2005 Harrison & Harrison rebuild of the important 1928 Skinner-inspired Henry Willis III in the Memorial Chapel at Glasgow University. The organ sounded utterly magnificent, was a pleasure to play and—mercifully—nothing seemed to me a bad decision 14 years ago. A relief and a real treat!

What a wonderful day today! We spent the morning at the British Library looking at the ‘Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms’ exhibition, and the afternoon at Tate Britain going round the Burne-Jones exhibition. In the latter was a gloriously decorated piano made by Broadwood to Burne-Jones’ designs. Here’s a photo of it.

Anne and I very much enjoyed joining the Leeds Organists’ Association at their Annual Lunch today; actually the very first time I have eaten a meal at a golf course! It was a very happy gathering and we enjoyed both making new friends and also keeping up with old ones such as Simon Lindley and John Sayer. My speech seemed to go down pretty well; it majored on great Leeds figures in our musical world—Dr Spark, J. J. Binns and Donald Hunt.

Last November 5th I wrote about our visit to Florence and posted a collage of images of St Cecilia playing her portative organ. The sharp-eyed may have noticed that one image showed the pipes reversed—the bass pipes at the treble end—which would not work, of course (see Monday 5th November). Today I came across another such image, in a window in the beautiful closed chapel of the Old Brompton Hospital. We’re trying to save the wonderful old Holdich organ—but that’s another story.

It’s been a non-stop year of organ consulting and concerts and I’ve loved every minute—well, nearly every minute—of it. The consulting work was bracketed by three Markets: the largely new organ at Market Bosworth which was finished by Cousans Organs and dedicated in March; planning the rebuilding and enlarging of the organ at Market Harborough, which Henry Groves will carry out in a year or so’s time, and getting the green light from Market Deeping for Clevedon Organs to begin a restoration and improvement in January 2019. All very satisfying. 2019 will see me end my 29 years conducting Nottingham Bach Choir; doubtless the odd tear will be shed [by me!] as it’s been a stimulating and wonderful run, with so many musical highlights. The photographs are of an organ on which I reported this week. My final survey of the year, and very much a one-off!

When people ask “How are you enjoying retirement”, what they must mean is “from Southwell Minster”, because ‘retirement’ as such is years ahead! Take this past eight days, for example—a fairly typical week: Saturday Nov 24, rehearsing and conducting a monumental performance of Elgar’s The Apostles with Nottingham Bach Choir; during the week, writing two long organ reports, then driving to Devizes to begin advising another church. Plenty of organ practice in between and then a trip to Oxford to give an organ recital on Saturday Dec 1 at New College—the organ of my undergraduate years. And tomorrow, Monday 3rd? Off again to an organ-builders to inspect work on an exciting project for Orford parish church. Retirement? You must be kidding!

It was a privilege this evening to accompany my good friend, the baritone Stephen Cooper, for a song recital in the long-running Music in the Great Hall series at Southwell Minster. Stephen had selected a rich and varied programme of songs appropriate to the day (Remembrance Sunday 2018), both familiar and unfamiliar, as a glance at the programme will show. It proved a musically and emotionally satisfying end to a particularly significant and memorable day in our nations’s history.

Anne and I recently spent a wonderful few days in Florence—still warm and sunny. We soaked up not just the sun but the art, which is super-abundant, particularly in the churches and of course in the Uffizi Gallery, where we spent some hours. Interestingly, many paintings displayed cherubs, angels, or St Cecilia playing varieties of improbable little portative organs. Here is a group of close-ups of some of those images; I think they’re delightful.