‘With this book in hand, no composer need ever again write badly for the organ!’ says John Rutter, in his foreword to James Mitchell’s The Pipe Organ, A Composer’s Guide, just published by OUP. Rutter points out that most solo organ literature down the ages has been written by those who play the instrument.  Now both organists and non-organists can understand what makes good organ writing, with this concise and very readable manual. James Mitchell (above) is curently Sub-Organist at Gloucester Cathedral, and a prize-winning composer. He noticed that traditional orchestration textbooks we ..read more

Andrew Parrott (above) is perhaps best known for his pioneering work in early repertory, notably in performances with his own Taverner Consort with whom he has made 60 or so recordings.  It is difficult to describe his magnficent new book The Pursuit of Musick with anything but superlatives:  here is a treasure trove of commentary on music and musicians exploring 600 years of musical activity in Europe from the first troubadours to the emergence of the pianoforte. These are the unfiltered voices from the past, and the modern musician will quickly note that, really, not a lot has cha ..read more

How do you play Bach’s music today? Martin Schmeding and Daniel Moult discuss this daunting question in a new documentary boxed set from Fugue State Films, and take as their starting point the cultural life of 18th-century Central Germany: the social history, theology, architecture, and most of all the sound world created by the instruments that Bach knew and played. Throughout the 20th-century there have been many approaches to playing Bach.  I personally recall the primness of the beginnings of the Early Music Movement, when it was considered a very bad thing to show too much emotional ..read more

Hymns represent the accumulated theological wisdom of generations, written by both lay people and the clergy, explains Robert C Mann, in the introduction to his new book The Church Sings its Faith, a history of the development of congregational song. Mann writes from a faith perspective, and includes questions at the end of each chapter for possible group discussions within a church setting, but this book is an important resource for any academic students of hymnody, and of interest to any organist who is intrigued to know more about the origins of the tunes and texts for one of their core ac ..read more

Repertoire books for beginner keyboard players (including organists) tend to contain quite a lot of music from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries for obvious reasons:  up till the early nineteenth-century writing was generally diatonic, in simple key signatures with just a few straightforward modulations. But organists as they develop need to absorb the idioms and tropes of Romantic composition for the organ: the typical musical gestures of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the characteristic harmonic patterns and key shifts, not to mention aquire a seamless legato alon ..read more

We struggle in the gloom of February, with a post-Covid glimmer on the horizon but still some distance away.  It’s been a year of trying to keep going with lockdown resolutions, but actually, what is required right now is some gripping reading.  May I recommend, as a rattling good yarn and page-turner, a novel by an organist.  Kevin Bowyer studied with Christopher Bowers-Broadbent, David Sanger, Virginia Black and Paul Steinitz, and in his early career won first prizes in five international organ competitions.  His 1987 world premiere of Kaikhosru Sorabji’s two hour solo S ..read more

Cantantibus organis.  Two little words that created a myth which by the end of the sixteenth century was unstoppable, it was so appealing. St Cecilia, a Roman Christian and noblewoman, died (unpleasantly) as a virgin martyr, with no obvious musical skills or interests.  Well, actually, we don’t even know if she really existed, but around AD450 Arnobius the Younger, a monk living near Rome, assembled stories about her into an account, the Passio sanctae Caeciliae.  According to this, an arranged marriage brought Cecilia into crisis, and during the wedding festivities ‘…while the ..read more

Here’s a boxed set about the organ that is serious enough for organ buffs, but would make a great gift for anyone interested in classical music in general, or in our built heritage.  Fugue State Films have just released Steven Benson’s documentary film A LEGEND REBORN : the Voice of Kings, which tells the story of the recent restoration of that  ‘Rolls Royce’  of organs, the 1934 Harrison & Harrison organ in King’s College Chapel, Cambridge.  The story is ably presented by David Briggs (organ scholar at King’s 1981-84), who also demonstrates the organ with a performanc ..read more

‘By far my most successful organ piece, so far, is my Toccata on the Beatles’ All you need is love,‘ says Paul Ayres, in the booklet accompanying his Rainbow Toccatas CD.  It’s one of the tracks on the CD, along with some of his other ‘classicised’ versions of Beatles favourites.  These are not just straight transcriptions, but the tunes cleverly hidden, and recast, inspired by a variety of traditions of organ playing, from the French Baroque to Mendelssohn and Franck. The Toccata on All you need is love was written back in 2007, when someone suggested to Paul, then Assistant Organi ..read more

Photographer Sara Rawlinson found herself involuntarily clutching the armrests of her office chair when editing the photos for her King’s College, Cambridge project – you see, she’d been hoisted 60 feet up in the air in a cherry picker when taking some of them.  The spectacular results, with the vaulting, organ and Flemish stained glass of the Chapel resembling the interior of an exquisite jewellery box, got her on the shortlist for Historic Photographer of the Year. I found Sara’s work when reviewing Fugue State Films recent release of a boxed set on the 2016 restoration of the King’s C ..read more