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The Binns organ in the Albert Hall, Nottingham, UK
Events 2005
Recital series 2005
Sunday 1st May 2005
Daniel Hyde - Jesus College, Cambridge
Flourish for an Occasion - William Harris
Sonata in D - C P E Bach
Stimmung der Nacht - Sigfrid Karg-Elert
Valse mignon - Sigfrid Karg-Elert
Choral no 2 in B minor - César Franck
Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548 'The Wedge' - J S Bach
Cantabile - César Franck
Final (1er symphonie) - Louis Vierne
The 2005 series begins with two former organ scholars of King’s College, Cambridge. Daniel Hyde opens the season royally with a piece written for St George’s Chapel Windsor, before giving us a rare opportunity to hear from Bach’s son, and then JSB himself in his monumental “Wedge” prelude and fugue. Lovers of French music will enjoy two romantic outpourings from Franck and a well-known blockbuster from his pupil Vierne, who once played in Nottingham. 2005 is the seventy-fifth anniversary of the Karg-Elert festival of May 1930, and we are to hear two extraordinary pieces Karg-Elert wrote in that year, both inspired by a cinema organ he had played in Berlin.
Sunday 5th June 2005
Ashley Grote - Tonbridge School, ex-senior Organ Scholar, King's College, Cambridge
Sonata no. 3 - Mendelssohn
Andante in F, K616 - Mozart
Grand Dialogue in C - Louis Marchand
Fugue VI on BACH - Schumann
Imperial March - Elgar arr. Martin
Chanson de Matin - Elgar arr. Brewer
Prelude & Fugue in G, BWV 550 - J S Bach
Miroir - Ad Wammes
Variations sur un vieux Nöel - Marcel Dupré
Our second Kingsman begins with a composer who never fails to surprise us. Mendelssohn’s inventiveness, easy to pigeonhole into Anglo-German heaviness or Italian lightness, is well displayed in his third sonata. He was a Bach pioneer, and his contemporary Schumann paid homage to JSB in six fugues of great importance in the development of nineteenth-century “symphonic” organ music. The great master appears with a singularly happy prelude and fugue; Marchand cannot have been so happy in his company since he famously left Dresden at dawn to avoid an improvisation contest with the great master. It was Mozart who named the organ "The King of Instruments". His Andante in F (K616) proves that even kings can behave with charm. Elgar was an organist early in his career, and he had not long completed his monumental organ sonata when he wrote the first of many concert marches – and dedicated it to Queen Victoria, no less. Elgar had his ceremonial sided but also his lighter side (and he conducted his light music delightfully, as his own records show); Chanson de Matin represents it here. Spring MAY have given place to Summer by the time of this recital; certainly the Springtime carol “Now the green blade riseth” will be heard in the assault course that virtuoso organist Marcel Dupré puts it through (both he and Elgar performed in Nottingham). Finally something totally new to Nottingham, so new that it is to be heard twice this season. Ad Wammes made his name in the nineteen-seventies with the progressive Dutch band Finch. In 1989 he composed his only organ piece, the hypnotic Miroir.
Sunday 26th June 2005
Andy Kotylo - Bloomington, Indiana, USA and Oundle prizewinner
War March of the Priests - Mendelssohn arr. Best
Fountain Reverie - Percy Fletcher
Fantasia & Fugue in G major - C H H Parry
Sweet sixteenths - William Albright
Te Deum - Naji Hakim
Prelude & Fugue in C, op. 36, no. 3 - Marcel Dupré
The Swan (Carnival of the Animals) - Saint-Saëns arr. Guilmant
Marche Religieuse (on a theme of Handel) - Alexandre Guilmant
Adagio & Allegro (6ème symphonie) - Charles-Marie Widor
American organist Andrew Kotylo starts off in real town hall style with Mendelssohn’s rumbustious War March of the Priests. He then pays homage to a local boy (from Derby) who later found fame in London’s theatres, Percy Fletcher. Parry’s organ music dates mostly from the end of his life; two of his enthusiasms (motoring and yachting) threatened to end several other people’s lives. He must have been the role-model for Mr Toad with his driving, while he proudly boasted that his yacht was regularly crewed by three cathedral organists. Andrew Kotylo reminds us of his native land with the concert rag “Sweet Sixteenths” by William Albright, but the rest of the programme is French. Guilmant once came to Nottingham; his approach to Handel is totally Victorian but his arrangement of The Swan is elegance itself. Dupré’s prelude and fugue comes from his lesser-known second set of 1936 while Widor, Dupré’s predecessor at St-Sulpice, shows that an organ symphony can contain a touch of the salon as well as the pontifical dignity appropriate to the largest parish church in Paris. And we have a curtain raiser for the anniversary recital this year, which will be given by Naji Hakim.
Sunday 7th August 2005
Simon Bell - Assistant Organist, Southwell Minster
Introduction & Passacaglia in D minor - Max Reger
Sonata in D major - C P E Bach
Prelude & Fugue in F minor, op. 7, no. 2 - Marcel Dupré
Folk Tune & Paean - Percy Whitlock
Trois Pièces - Gabriel Pierné
Miroir - Ad Wammes
Sonate 1 in D minor, op. 42 - Alexandre Guilmant
“Sheer musicianship” is how a critic summed up Simon Bell’s recital at Southwell Minster; praise indeed if you know the critic. We revisit CPE Bach’s sonata and Ad Wammes’s Miroir; otherwise it is a totally romantic programme with a barnstorming piece by the German Max Reger, three pieces by Franck’s successor at Ste-Clotilde, Pierné, who like Sir Andrew Davis and Richard Hickox in our own time forsook the organ loft for the opera house, two tuneful pieces by the inter-war composer Percy Whitlock, the “quieter” prelude and fugue in Dupré’s opus 7 set, and Guilmant’s monumental and thoroughly tuneful sonata no. 1.
Sunday 4th September 2005
Martin Setchell - Christchurch, New Zealand
Music from New Zealand
God Defend New Zealand! - John Woods arr. Setchell
Kiwi Fireworks (Five variations on God Defend New Zealand) - Paul Spicer
Prelude & Fugue in G minor ('Antipodes') - Douglas Lilburn
PokarKare Ana suite - Martin Setchell
Music from England and France
Paean: a Song of Triumph - Oliphant Chuckerbutty
Poco Adagio ('Organ' symphony no. 3) - Camille Saint-Saëns
Jig (from Five Dances) - John Gardner
Toccata in F - Jules Grison
Sortie in E flat major - Alfred James Lefébure-Wély
Martin Setchell pays homage to both his native and his adopted countries in this recital. He is Town Hall organist at Christchurch, New Zealand, and he presents that country’s national anthem and follows it with Paul Spicer’s ingenious variations on the theme. He completes his homage to NZ with a piece by that country’s most famous composer and a Suite he has composed himself. The second half is based nearer home. The composer of Paean really did exist, and that was his real name, and happily John Gardner still does exist. Two of the French pieces have an English connection: Grison’s toccata was dedicated to a Manchester organist while Saint-Saëns third symphony (of which we are to hear an arrangement of the “slow movement”) was first performed in London. Saint-Saëns despised Lefébure-Wély’s music; he also despised the Rite of Spring and Debussy’s Pelléas et Mélisande. How wrong can you be?
Sunday 2nd October 2005
David Butterworth - Clifton, Nottinghamshire, and the Binns Organ Custodian
Prelude & Fugue in G minor - Diderik Buxtehude
O Mensch bewein dein' Sünde gross, S 622 - J S Bach
Sonata no. 3 in A minor - August Gottfried Ritter
'Great' Prelude & Fugue in B minor, S 544 - J S Bach
Danse des Papillons, Waltz, March 'on Ilkley Moor' (Dance Suite) - Noel Rawsthorne
Choral no. 3 in A minor - César Franck
David Butterworth is the custodian of the Albert Hall organ. He served as consultant during its total restoration of 1993-94 and since then has remained responsible not only for its upkeep but for the recitals given on it each year. In 1973 he was responsible for the installation of two mould-breaking organs in Nottingham, by the Danish firm of Marcussen, and appropriately he begins with music by the Great Dane from whom it can be said that all modern organ music springs. And we hear from the even greater man he inspired, in both religious and more abstract mood. We then hear from a later German, August Gottfried Ritter, friend of the Reubke family (composer and organ builders). After an interlude from Noël Rawsthorne who became well known at Liverpool Cathedral and as Liverpool City Organist and whose compositions are now often heard in recitals, we hear the swan-song of César Franck.
Sunday 30th October 2005
Naji Hakim - La Trinité, Paris
Admission £8 (£5 concessions)
Naji Hakim Le Bien-Aimé: Naji Hakim
Prière: César Franck
Toccata and Fugue in F, BWV 540: J S Bach
Concerto for organ and string orchestra no. 3: Naji Hakim
(with the Nottingham Youth Orchestra conducted by Derek Williams)
Improvisation
Naji Hakim is the organist of La Trinité in Paris. He is the honoured successor to Olivier Messiaen, who was determined that Naji Hakim should succeed him. A distinguished composer in a very wide range of styles, Naji Hakim is presenting both his own music and that of the great traditions he represents, from Bach and Franck. As a “first” we are involving other musicians in this recital: several of them in fact. Some ten years ago they accompanied Carlo Curley in Poulenc’s Organ Concerto, while on 16 April 2005 they played Whitlock’s extremely rare Organ Symphony with great panache, and it is a great joy to have them join with one of the world’s most distinguished players and composers of today. And the “composition” doesn’t end there: at the end of the recital Naji Hakim will be presented with a theme (or two) which he hasn’t seen before. Immediately he will embark on a substantial improvisation around that theme, totally unprepared: expect the result to be stunning!
Programme notes by Ian Wells.
"Get Ahead" Day
Saturday 29th January, 2005
This study day for young organists was arranged jointly by the organisers of the Oundle International Summer Schools for Young Organists, the Royal College of Organists, the trustees of the Nottingham Albert Hall Binns organ, Nottingham High School and St Mary's Church, High Pavement. The tutors were James Parsons, the director of the Oundle Summer Schools, Simon Williams, Head of Access & Participation at the Royal College of Organists, and John Keys, Director of Music at St Mary’s and organ teacher at the High School.
The day included a public recital by Timothy Byram-Wigfield, the Director of Music of St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle.
Coronation March - Tchaikovsky/Bennett.
Sonata No 6 - Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy.
Overture, The Merry Wives of Windsor - Nicolai/Lemare.
Psalm Prelude, Set 2, No 2 - Herbert Howells.
Agnus Dei - Frank Martin.
Final, Symphonie III - Louis Vierne.
Events in previous years
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