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Polonia, Op. 76 transcribed by Simon Nieminski
Chanson de Matin, Op. 15 Nº2, transcribed by Herbert Brewer
Prelude and Angel's Farewell from The Dream of Gerontius, Op. 38, transcribed by Herbert Brewer
Contrasts: The Gavotte ­ AD 1700 and 1900, Op. 10 Nº3, transcribed by Matthew Kingston
Variations on an Original Theme "Enigma", Op. 36, transcribed by Ruaraidh Sutherland

Bonus tracks on CD layer only:
Chanson de Nuit, Op. 15 Nº1, transcribed by Herbert Brewer
Minuet from Beau Brummel - transcribed by Purcell J. Mansfield

CD layer total playing time: 79:04
SACD layer total playing time: 71:14

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Otto Nicolai (1810-49) tr. Edwin Evans
Overture: Die Lustigen Weiber von Windsor (The Merry Wives of Windsor)

Sir Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) tr. Sir Edward Bairstow
Introduction to Act III of The Tempest

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) tr. Herbert P. Ellingford
Othello Suite (Dance - Children's Intermezzo - Funeral March - The Willow Song - Military March)

Sir Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) tr. Stanley Roper
Greensleeves (from Sir John in Love)

Matthew Locke (1621-77) tr. Simon Nieminski
Movements from The Tempest (Act I Curtain Tune - Dance of Winds (Gavott) - Dance of Fantastick Spirits (The Fantastick & Corant) - The Fourthe Act Tune (A Martial Jigge))

Sergei Prokofiev (1892-1953) tr. Roberto Bertero
The Montagues and the Capulets (from Romeo and Juliet)

Sir William Walton (1902-83)
Three Pieces from Richard III (March - Elegy - Scherzetto)

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-47) tr. Gordon Balch Nevin
Scherzo (from A Midsummer Night's Dream)

Hector Berlioz (1803-69) tr. Edwin Evans
Overture: King Lear

Click here to see the organ where this was recorded.

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak

With most miraculous organ.

(Hamlet, act 2, scene 2.)

This CD was almost titled Most Miraculous Organ, until we properly considered the context of the quotation! Nevertheless, we are delighted to be able to present to you an imaginative collection of transcriptions inspired by various works of William Shakespeare, England’s greatest bard, on a very English sounding organ.

The CD opens and closes with transcriptions of Nicolai and Berlioz by Edwin Evans (1844-1923) himself a prolific composer and one of the two successful candidates at the very first Royal College of Organists Fellowship examinations.

Otto Nicolai’s opera Die lustigen Weiber von Windsor is an adaptation of Shakespeare’s comedy, essentially following the original plot until the last scene.
Nicolai had a rather unusual career. Paternal unkindness caused him to run away when he was sixteen, arriving in Berlin to study in 1827 and then in Rome in 1831 as organist to the Prussian ambassador. After one year’s appointment as conductor of the Vienna court opera, he successfully produced operas in Italian theatres, returning to Vienna in 1841 as Court Kapellmeister, subsequently founding the now-celebrated Philharmonic Society there. With little opportunity to produce his own opera, he left for Berlin in 1848. By 1844 he had already chosen The Merry Wives of Windsor as an opera subject, but it was not until March 1849 that the work was first produced. The opera was much-admired, but Nicolai managed only to conduct the first four performances, living only a few weeks to enjoy his triumph.

Shakespeare inspired a number of Berlioz’s compositions; he read King Lear in 1831 and composed the overture the same year, under quite unusual circumstances.  Berlioz had just arrived in Rome in 1830 as winner of the Prix de Rome (at his fifth attempt) but left hastily for Paris to assassinate his fiancée, the pianist Camille Moke and her mother who had just broken off the engagement. On reaching Nice, Berlioz thought better of it; he stayed there for a month and composed the overture to King Lear. Berlioz gives a jocular account of the whole episode in chapter 34 of his Memoirs. Berlioz provided no explanation of the content of the overture, but in chapter 59 of his Memoirs he quotes the observations of the King of Hanover in 1854: Magnificent, M. Berlioz, magnificent! Your orchestra speaks, and you do not need any words. I followed all the scenes: the king’s entry to the council chamber, the storm on the heath, the terrible prison scene, and the lament of Cordelia! Oh this Cordelia! How you have portrayed her – her humility and tenderness! It is heartrending, and so beautiful!

Sir Arthur Sullivan is remembered almost exclusively for his operettas produced in collaboration with W.S. Gilbert, the song The Lost Chord and the hymn tune Onward, Christian Soldiers, but amongst his other equally great music the incidental music to The Tempest, written in 1861 towards the end of his study at the Leipzig conservatory (where he held the prestigious Mendelssohn scholarship) was his first major compositional success. Written as a graduation exercise from the conservatory, the work consisted of twelve numbers, of which six were played in Leipzig on 6^th April 1861. When the entire work was performed at the Crystal Palace on 5^th April 1862, it caused an immediate sensation, propelling Sullivan on a professional career. It was at last heard as incidental music to the play in a production in Manchester’s Prince’s Theatre on 15^th October, 1864.

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s father was a physician from Sierra Leone, his mother being English. When his medical practice failed, his father returned to Africa, deserting his family in England. Although now enduring a deprived upbringing, Samuel’s violin studies progressed apace, giving his first public recital when only eight. He also sang as a choirboy in Croydon, south London, and encouraged by his choirmaster, entered the Royal College of Music in 1890. In 1892 he began studying composition under Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, winning a scholarship in 1893. After leaving the RCM Coleridge-Taylor became a public figure, largely owing to the success of the cantata Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast. In the early 1900s, he was moving into the field of incidental music. The actor and producer Herbert Beerbohm Tree commissioned music for several plays from him, among them Shakespeare’s Othello. Around this time he became much sought after as a conductor for numerous festivals and choral societies, and as a scholar by London music colleges (Trinity and the Guildhall.) From 1904 he paid regular visits to the USA to conduct his music, although even before this, in 1901, a Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society was founded for black singers in Washington, D.C. He was described by New York orchestral players as the “black Mahler” and assumed for himself a mission to dignify the American black community at the time, regarding his Negro Melodies as being of particular importance in this respect; he himself had endured colour prejudice in Britain. Although considering emigrating to the USA to continue this work more actively, and despite a growing international reputation as a composer and conductor, Coleridge-Taylor chose to remain in Croydon. It seems that his early death from pneumonia, aged only 37, was caused by overwork.

The music of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ Fantasia on Greensleeves was first written in 1928, as part of the opera Sir John in Love, based on Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor. The scene of Shakespearian England is set by the quoting of early English folk and court songs throughout the work. Vaughan Williams’ setting of Greensleeves is quite straightforward, and has become enduringly popular. However, its origins go back to 1913, when he was music director at the Shakespeare festival in Stratford-on-Avon, Vaughan Williams adapted Greensleeves for an entr’acte of The Merry Wives of Windsor. The play fascinated Vaughan Williams so much that he began thinking of it in terms of opera.  Ultimately, the music was incorporated into Sir John in Love, first performed at the Royal College of Music on 21^st March, 1929.

Matthew Locke was perhaps the earliest English writer for the stage. Born in Exeter, he was a chorister at the cathedral there. He was appointed composer in ordinary to Charles II in 1661, subsequently writing a number of anthems for the Chapel Royal, and drawing some criticism of their novelty, which he countered vigorously in his pamphlet Modern Church Music; pre-accused, censured and obstructed in its Performance before His Majesty. Much music for the theatre followed, the most important being for The Tempest (1667) and Macbeth (1672) but there is some doubt regarding the attribution of the latter, Purcell, Eccles or Leveridge also being credited with it. The extraordinarily chromatic Curtain Tune which precedes the opening of Act 1 of The Tempest which was lavishly staged in London at the Duke’s Theatre in 1674, depicts a placid sea developing into the storm which rages as the action begins. There are several unique directions in the part books: soft – violent – lowd – soft and slow by degrees. Locke died in August 1677, an elegy on the occasion being written by Purcell.

The idea for a ballet based on Romeo and Juliet was first suggested by Prokofiev to the Kirov Theatre in Leningrad. When it was turned down, he signed a contract with the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow, composing the music in the summer of 1935. Although the ballet was abandoned as being too difficult for the dancers to follow, Prokofiev arranged the music into two orchestral suites, which were performed in Russia in 1936 and 1937. Eventually, the complete ballet was staged for the first time in Brno, where its success led to productions by the Kirov and Bolshoi ballets. The ponderous Montagues and Capulets establishes the character of the Capulet family, its themes becoming linked with Tybalt and later with Capulet himself. The quiet central section accompanies Juliet reluctantly dancing with Paris, chosen by her family to be her husband. The transcriber of this recording Roberto Bertero, has since 1994 been soloist and organ professor with the National Symphonic Orchestra R.A.I. and is titular organist of the historic organ at the Sanctuary of the Consoler in Turin, holding additional appointments in the city as organist at the Cathedral and at St Rita’s Basilica.

Sir William Walton was a chorister at Christ Church Cathedral at Oxford, later studying at the university.  Modernist trends of the time, such as jazz, influenced his music, and during the 1930s he was considered Britain’s leading young composer, having had great success with the chamber entertainment Facade (1921) the oratorio Belshazzar’s Feast (1931) and the First Symphony (1935.) His viola concerto and violin concerto also remain popular, as do the coronation marches Crown Imperial and Orb and Sceptre King George VI and Queen Elizabeth II. Sir Laurence Olivier created three film versions of Shakespeare’s plays between World War Two and the mid 1950s. Still regarded as among the greatest ever made, Olivier admitted that Walton’s music contributed greatly to their success.  Henry V came first as a World War Two morale booster, followed by Hamlet in the late 1940s and Richard III in the 1950s. Walton's creativity activity tapered off after World War Two, and he went to live on the island of Ischia, near Naples, with his wife until his death.

Having shown exceptional musical talent at an early age, Mendelssohn was encouraged by his family to study music and to make it his career, and in 1825, aged 16, Mendelssohn astonished the musical world with his Octet. This was followed a year later by the equally astounding overture A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In July 1826 he had written in a letter, “I have grown accustomed to composing in our garden. Today or tomorrow I am going to dream there the [music for] A Midsummer’s Night’s Dream. This is, however, an enormous audacity…” By 6th August the work was already completed and on 19th November, Felix and his sister Fanny performed the original piano duet version. A private orchestral performance followed later that year, and in February the first public performance was given in Stettin, to enormous acclaim. By 1842, Mendelssohn was one of the most celebrated musicians in Europe, director of the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Kapellmeister to King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia. The King also required incidental music for several new productions at the Royal Theatre, including A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Mendelssohn composed twelve additional numbers to the Overture, creating a perfect match for its style and inspiration. The premiere of the new production in November was an enormous triumph. The darting Scherzo, Entr’acte to Act II, is typical of Mendelssohn’s seemingly effortless and mesmeric style. Sir George Grove (writer of the famous Dictionary of Music and Musicians) wrote of it that it was the music which “brought the fairies into the orchestra and fixed them there.”

 
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Track List

 Promenades en Provence (Book 3)

1. Jour de fête aux Saintes-Maries de la Mer
(Feast day at Saintes-Maries de la Mer)
2. Profil de la Porte d'Orange à Carpentras
(Profile of the Arch of Orange at Carpentras)
3. Le Moulin d'Alphonse Daudet à Fontvieille
(Alphonse Daudet's windmill at Fontvieille)
4. La Chartreuse de Montrieux au crépuscule
(The Carthusian monastery of Montrieux at twilight)
5. Visions à l'Abbaye de Sénanque:
La Foi en Dieu · La Joie en Dieu
(Visions at the Abbey of Sénanque:
Faith in God · Joy in God)
6. from Bouquet de France:
Douce Merveille (Noël Strasbourgeois de 1697)

Promenades en Provence (Book 2)

7. Le Cloître de Saint-Trophime à Arles
(The Cloister of Saint-Trophime at Arles)
8. Petit Cimetière et Cyprès autour de la vieille église de Bormes-les-Mimosas
(Little cemetery and Cypresses surrounding the ancient church at Bormes-les-Mimosas)
9. Voiles multicolores au port de Toulon
(Multicoloured sails in the port of Toulon)
10. Les Cloches de Notre-Dame des Doms en Avignon
(The Bells of Notre-Dame des Doms in Avignon )
11. from Bouquet de France:
Ma Mère m'envoie-t-au Marché (version de l'Ouest)

Promenades en Provence (Book 1)

12. Vieux Noëls Provençaux (Nuit de Noël à Saint-Tropez)
Old Carols of Provence (Christmas Night at Saint-Tropez)
13. Les Grandes Orgues de la Basilique de Saint-Maximin
The Grand Organ in the Basilica of Saint-Maximin
14. Tambourinaires sur la place des Vieux Salins
(Drummers in the place des Vieux Salins)
15. Nuages ensoleillées sur le Cap Nègre
(Sunlit clouds on Cap Nègre)

When I was a teenager, on my way home from school I would sometimes browse the racks of a record shop in Croydon. One particular day, probably about 16 years ago, I happened upon an LP in the 'sale' section: extracts from Promenades en Provence by Eugène Reuchsel, played by Pierre Labric on the Cavaillé-Coll organ of St Ouen, Rouen. I was immediately attracted by the long, descriptive French titles of each movement. I had never heard of the composer, and bought it out of interest.

Reuchsel (1900-88) was famous mainly as a concert pianist; he gave over 5500 recitals, and was renowned for his interpretations of Chopin & Liszt. He also loved the organ, and was a friend of the great Parisian organists, whom he often heard play. Back in South London with my new LP, I had never heard music like it. It was of the same vintage as Vierne & Dupré (the three volumes of the Promenades were composed between 1959 & 1973) but with even more sumptuous textures, and so overtly programmatic. It was probably because Reuchsel was a pianist that his music benefits from unusual textures, which I have never yet seen in any other composer's work. The rich chords of Voiles multicolores au port du Toulon give the boats' sails their colours. Les Cloches de Notre-Dame des Doms en Avignon is a carillon like no other, with close double pedalling at the bottom of the compass, using full organ, below large chords in parallel fifths. Double pedalling is a frequently-used device: two movements end simply with a fff bare fifth in the pedals. Some of the organists who inspired Reuchsel are given dedications in these volumes. Le Cloître de Saint-Trophime à Arles is a tribute to Dupré, and is a prelude and fugato slightly reminiscent of his Prelude & Fugue in B. Provençal folk tunes also appear, notably in Tambourinaires sur la place des Vieux Salins and Nuit de Noël à Saint-Tropez.

I finally got round to learning a few of the Promenades for a recital on Easter Day, 1999. Afterwards, it was pointed out to me that the year 2000 would be the centenary of Reuchsel's birth, and that I should consider recording them. I checked for other recordings, and found no complete performance, so I set about learning them before anyone else did! As to where to record, I looked to the USA as a likely source of manageable French-style organs. I approached the Pro Organo label, already known to me as a manufacturer of excellent recordings, with advertising & distribution to match. This company is run by Fred Hohman, himself a virtuoso organist, which I have since decided should be a compulsory qualification for any recording engineer of this genre of music. He suggested that an organ by the Kilgen company (who worked in the first half of the 20th century) would be perfect for the repertoire. I discovered that their magnum opus, a very large four-manual instrument, is in the Cathedral Basilica of St Louis in St Louis, Missouri, which has the bonus of possessing an eight second reverberation time. A marvellous job was made of recording in this immense and difficult space, and the results will be available for all to hear later this month. As 'fillers' between the Promenades volumes, I have also recorded two of the Bouquets de France by the same composer; attractive arrangements of folk tunes in the spirit of Canteloube and d'Indy.

Click here to see a specification of the organ of St Louis Cathedral.

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Click here to read about the recording of Edward Shippen Barnes' Symphonies on the 1937 Wicks organ in St Mary’s Cathedral, Peoria, Illinois, on the Pro Organo web site. 

Edward Shippen Barnes was a pupil of Louis Vierne. His two symphonies are of a similar stature to Vierne's own, and they have had their premiere recording on a classic American organ, voiced by Henry Vincent Willis, and influenced by the consultant Dom Ermin Vitry, giving it a sound similar to that of Father Willis instruments, highly suited to this French-influenced music.

A preview of the liner notes:

The Symphonies of Edward Shippen Barnes
by Simon Nieminski

Many organists in the USA will remember Edward Shippen Barnes for his tutor, the School of Organ Playing (1921) but relatively few will recognise the significance of his contribution to organ literature this century. In making this première recording of Edward Shippen Barnes’ two symphonies, I hope to bring a little of the recognition due to this unjustly neglected composer.

Barnes was born on 14^th September, 1887 in Seabright, NJ. His initial studies were with Van Dyck at the Lawrenceville School, before going on to Yale to study composition with Horatio Parker and organ with Harry Jepson, to whom the First Symphony is dedicated. After graduating, his most significant period of study followed at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, with Vincent d’Indy, Abel Marie Decaux and Louis Vierne. He later spoke of the profound effect this institution had on him:

The Schola is a quaint, charming old building, formerly a monastery of Irish monks, and must be some 300 years old. For study of the organ, on account of the instructors it possesses, it is undoubtedly ahead of the Paris Conservatoire or of any school of which I have any knowledge.

As well as the influence of his great teachers, he had the opportunity to sit with other masters of the organ at their consoles:

Widor, at St Sulpice, I heard play only Bach, his own work and improvisations. All three he does beautifully. The only extended form I heard him do was the toccata form – something like his famous Toccata in F. He always brought the music to two climaxes of power during the piece, and I could never describe to you the thrill of those mixtures and the smooth 32-foot reed – and he ended softly. He usually employed a Gregorian theme from the liturgy of the mass.

Perhaps a more obvious influence on Barnes’ own writing, was that of Louis Vierne:

It was often a pathetic sight to me to see that little blind figure of Vierne, in that enormous loft, sitting so still in front of the great console – and so delighted to see you when you came. But there was nothing pathetic about the perfect mastery he had over that instrument, or about his improvising – in every style – the glory of which I could never begin to describe. I may truly say that, great as is his written music, his improvisations are equally great, and greater. He would often start with the most amazing dissonance, as, for instance, a minor second, played with full organ high up on the keyboard – from which he would weave and blend the most intricate of harmonies, modern to a degree, but all with a firm, logical plan, and end up in a blaze of glory that just carried one up to heaven. I assure you that the description is not overdrawn.

Compare this, and the following sentence with the opening movement of Barnes’ First Symphony (1918):

Another type in which he excelled was a smooth and flowing type of four or five-part composition with the mf registers of diapasons and flutes.

The First Symphony begins with a grand and densely chromatic passage on full organ, entirely reminiscent of Barnes’ description of Vierne’s dissonant improvisation. The key of G minor is not established until the end of the first page, when a four-part fugal passage begins, on soft foundation stops only. Another parallel with Vierne’s First Symphony is that of beginning with a pair of movements, one slow, the other fast. While Vierne used an introduction and fugue, Barnes gave us a Prélude and Allegro. Barnes differed in ending his introduction fff in the tonic major, before immediately snapping back to the minor key. The Allegro is broadly in sonata form, albeit with the second subject in the relative major for both appearances. This enabled the composer to present an inspired harmonic twist: a triumphant restatement of the second subject leads the listener to believe that a glorious major-key ending will be reached, until a sudden change in tempo and shocking series of modulations brings this pair of movements to their logical conclusion, firmly again in G minor.

Barnes was truly a master of the witty scherzo, which is the movement that precedes the andante. One could not wish to hear a more ravishing slow movement than this. A skilful build-up culminates in another expert and unexpected harmonic twist, with a cadence into the minor key, before easing us gently into the recapitulation of the opening theme.

Widor’s use of Gregorian themes has been quoted above, and Barnes also observed in the sonatas by Lemmens:

…with his work begins the very considerable use of Gregorian melodies as a foundation for composition, and nothing proved more productive and fruitful of worthy music.

The final movement of the First Symphony is a Toccata sur un thème grégorien; the theme being the opening of the Kyrie from the plainsong mass Orbis Factor, and similar to the preceding description of Widor’s toccata improvisation, this movement ends quietly.

Barnes’ Second Symphony (1923) bears the dedication À mon cher ami et maître Monsieur Louis Vierne. In common with the First Symphony, it has five movements, but opens rather more positively, with an unambiguous F major Allegro Moderato. This time it is two slower movements which frame the central scherzo (Intermezzo) each giving ample scope for use of characterful solo stops, frequently with tremulant specified. The Intermezzo is again a delicate scherzo, but this time of a slightly more dissonant and quirky nature, with a surprise ff ending. A gorgeous Rhapsodie (in this performance showing off the beautiful and luxurious French Horn stop) leads to the Final, the opening figuration of which bears a resemblance to the finale of Vierne’s Third Symphony, a work which Barnes held in particularly high regard:

I believe that the Vierne Third Symphony is the most concise and forceful example of sonata form – one might almost say of sonatina form, so brief are the divisions – that I have ever heard, certainly in organ music. I recommend the first and last movements as among the high points of Vierne’s work.

Barnes’ Final is certainly concise, and leads us to a thrilling climax, finally reaching the major key of the opening movement.

The Solemn Prelude included on this disc was composed in 1916, and dedicated to Harvey ‘Harry’ Alexander Matthews (1879-1973) an Englishman who emigrated to the U.S.A in 1900, later becoming organist of St Stephen’s, Philadelphia. It shows less French influence, and is a rhapsody of considerable scale.

After Paris, Barnes held a succession of important organist posts, including at the Church of the Incarnation, and Rutgers Presbyterian Church, New York City. He was hired at Rutgers in 1915 and the following year he asked the Board of Trustees for money to hire “a chorus.” The request was granted, and by 1920 the chorus consisted of the following paid singers: 7 sopranos, 3 altos, 2 tenors and 2 basses.  The Rutgers choir became famous in New York City, giving concerts in various venues and monthly Sunday evening concerts at the church. He left for St Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, in 1926, moving to Santa Monica, California, in 1937, where he became organist of First Presbyterian Church. He had been also, for many years, on the editorial staff of G. Schirmer; under his editorship were published many organ and choral works by American composers. He retired to the mountain village of Idyllwild, where he played and directed the choir at Idyllwild Community Church until a few months before his death, on 14^th February, 1958.

A note about this recording:

The exceptionally fine and versatile organ at St Mary’s Cathedral, Peoria, is in virtually unaltered condition. This instrument and the works recorded here are an ideal match, and both music and organ deserve to be much better known. Occasionally some mechanical noise from this classic instrument can be heard, particularly the motors driving the swell shutters, but we are certain that this will in no way detract from your enjoyment of this perfect pairing of instrument and music.

Henry Vincent Willis and the Wicks Organ company

Henry Vincent Willis was the son of Vincent Willis and grandson of ‘Father’ Henry Willis. He came to the United States in the mid-1930s and worked on a contract basis for several firms, including Midmer Losh on the voicing of the special ‘Willis double-languid diapasons’ at the Atlantic City Convention Hall, until he accepted a full-time position with Wicks Pipe Organ Company of Highland, Illinois.