March 12th 2020
On Monday night of the penultimate week of term was the annual staff organ recital, this follows the series of pupil recitals which have occurred so far this academic year. Organ recitals are not known for their huge audiences, however, both members of the school community and the public brought this recitals audience up to 26, which indeed could be a record. This recital was also particularly special as two ladies in the audience were commemorating the 60th anniversary of a performance of Handel’s magnificent oratorio ‘the Messiah’ in the Abbey.
The recital started with a series of baroque pieces, the first was played by school organist and Abbey assistant organist Peter Bray, he played JS Bach’s organ concerto in A minor, which is in fact a transcription of Antonio Vivaldi's double violin concerto in A minor, Op. 3 No. 8, RV 522. This piece was played on our Hauptwerk virtual organ – which tonight was using samples from Hereford Cathedral, the playing heard here displayed a large range of timbre and dynamics which displayed the capability of the instrument. My favourite movement was the Adagio, the sombre opening of the cantus firmus on the swell flutes created a mystical atmosphere in the room, this beautiful mellifluous and melancholic fugue provided stark contrast to the movements both preceding and succeeding it, especially in the final Allegro movement which featured heavily ornamented passages on the great, which had obviously been unaltered from Vivaldi’s original composition for violin.
Our Organ Scholar, Daniel Baker, performed three pieces in the recital, having recently been awarded an ARCO (associate to the royal college of organists) he played with much virtuosity and finesse. Daniel gave an introduction to his pieces which gave some context into them, the first piece, Allegro Maestoso from C.P.E Bach’s Sonata in F minor Op.2, had been written by J.S Bach’s oldest son (C.P.E) as a gift/payment for a new organ in a church. Daniel played this piece on the neo-classical pipe organ located on the balcony of the chapel, this manuals only piece required much skill to navigate it’s fiddley passages, particularly exciting in this piece was the contrast between the swell and the great. This was directly followed by the slow movement from J.S Bach’s Trio Sonata in C minor BWV 526, Daniel explained that this piece was written for Bach’s son in order for him to improve, to put it into context, in the Oxbridge organ scholarship interview one must play one of Bach’s trio sonatas as they are perceived to be extremely difficult, Daniel played this piece on the pipe organ with confidence and accuracy.
One of our Choral Scholars Hector Fiennes (a19) also happens to be a very keen organist, Hector played two movements from Buxtehude’s Prelude and Fugue in G minor. This piece showed off both the great pedal work of Hector but also the pedal register of the pipe organ, which with the combination of the 16 Bourdon and the 16 Fagot created a very authentic timbre for Buxtehude. In the Prelude Hector played semiquaver broken chords on the manuals accompanied by a stepwise pedal part in minims, in the Allegro the pedals took the melody while the manuals accompanied mostly with chords. Hector played admirably in this performance especially considering compared to the other three performers he is a relative newcomer to the organ.
Daniel Baker started the Romantic/20th Century section of this recital with Herbert Howell’s Three Psalm Preludes (Set 2 – No. 3), this work fitted the Hauptwerk organ perfectly, displaying its full range of timbral possibility. This piece is fiendishly difficult as not only does one have to execute the notes from the page but manipulate the organ to provide extra colour, there was much use of the swell box to create very dynamic organ playing, in contrast to the terraced dynamics which we had just heard in the baroque pieces, this piece with its feature of the Howell’s trademark tied quaver and French overtones seemed to lead me imagining it as an inspiration for later 20th century composers such as Leonard Bernstein. Daniel played the piece with exciting colour and contrast.
James Henderson, Director of Music of Sherborne School and Sherborne Abbey rounded up the concert with 3 contrasting pieces. After an attempt at bringing humour into the recital in his introduction, which included much degrading of Andrew Lloyd Webber and a joke about Paul Drayton writing a piece while brushing his teeth, and a brief pause in proceedings in order to troubleshoot a registration issue, Mr Henderson played Karg-Elert’s ‘I thank thee, dearest Lord’ from Chorale-improvisations. This piece displayed his position of a lively and experienced performer. The mostly homophonic composition was coloured with multiple stop changes and glorious romantic colour. Then he played Paul Drayton’s Pavane, which was composed in the 1970’s, this piece in my opinion includes jazz influences such as blues inflections and modality as well as very similar phrasing to Bebop. Mr Henderson used all five sections of the organ effectively in this piece. The Concert Finale was a work by William Lloyd Webber (father of Andrew and Julian), this piece was in three sections, the Chorale was played with an emphasis on atmosphere, there was rich harmonic colour with multiple added 9ths and 13ths but also there was the dreamy timbres of Hereford’s swell strings, this was nicely paired with the 32” double open bass at the end of the movement. The Finale movement well and truly ‘let rip’, Mr Henderson displayed his excellent playing ability in this rapturous movement ending with a fortissimo finale, making full use of the 32 Bombarde throughout but also full organ on the final chord.
I thoroughly enjoyed this recital and was particularly enthralled by the contrast of the two instruments, and the range of repertoire. It is for sure that we are very lucky to have this amount of talent within our staff and it was great to see that showcased, as these staff are normally working behind the scenes to an extent, providing accompaniments in the abbey and teaching in the music school.
Sam Talbot-Williams (U6a)
