Events around the Binns Organ in the Albert Hall, Nottingham, UK

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The Binns organ in the Albert Hall, Nottingham, UK

Events 2007

Recital series 2007

The recitals begin at 2.45pm, and are usually preceded by a talk given by the soloist at 2:15pm. Admission is free, except for the recital on 4th November. Programmes with full notes are on sale at all recitals, price £1 (but included in the cost of admission on 4th November).

Sunday 6th May 2007

Elli Garou - Oundle Award winner

PRAELUDIUM IN G MINOR 49 Dietrich Buxtehude (c 1637-1707)
PRELUDE AND FUGUE nr 1 op 37 Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
PRÉLUDE, FUGUE et VARIATION César Franck (1822-1890)
INTRODUCTION AND FUGUE from SONATA nr 2 Max Reger (1873-1916)
INTERVAL
SONATA nr 2 Paul Hindemith (1895-1963)
ENTRÉE, CANZONA et SORTIE op 62 Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)
LE MONDE DANS L’ATTENTE DU SAUVEUR from SYMPHONIE-PASSION op 23 Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)

Elli Glarou opens the 2007 season with a homage to Bach’s great precursor Buxtehude, the tercentenary of whose death is being commemorated this year. It is not always realised that Mendelssohn was a Bach pioneer in this country, and we hear one of his responses to that familiar Bachian form the prelude and fugue. Another, more large-scale, German work is the extract from one of Reger’s rarely heard sonatas, while we are to hear twentieth-century (and very attractive) classicism from Hindemith.
The rest of the programme is French: César Franck, who set the seal on the Romantic movement in France, and the great twentieth-century player, composer and teacher Marcel Dupré, who once performed in Nottingham. His two works come at opposite ends of his career, the late Entrée, Canzona et Sortie being however just as “wilful” as his Symphonie-Passion, first heard in a department store in Philadelphia which just happened to possess a six-manual 451-stop organ. The movement we are to hear heralds Christ’s birth; the final movement of the symphony will be heard at the anniversary recital on 4 November.

Sunday 3rd June 2007

Roger Fisher - Chester
We regret that there will be no pre-concert talk before Roger Fisher's Albert Hall recital on Sunday 3 June, and apologise for the short notice of this. The recital will of course begin as usual at 2:45.

SINFONIA FROM CANTATA 29, WIR DANKEN DIR J S Bach (1685-1750) arr Harvey Grace (1874-1944)
OVERTURE TO HANSEL AND GRETEL Engelbert Humperdinck (1854-1921)
SONATA nr 7 Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901)
INTERVAL
MODERATO IN F Neils W Gade (1817-1890)
ELIZABETHAN SERENADE Ronald Binge arr W S Lloyd Webber (1914-1982)
SONATA nr 1 Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)

Roger Fisher, who was for many years organist of Chester Cathedral, pays a return visit to the Albert Hall (he gave a recital here in the series promoted by Stephen Sherwin). He gets us off to a flying start with the sinfonia (or overture) from Bach’s cantata nr 29, and follows it with a transcription of the sort for which organs like the one in the Albert Hall were originally designed. He completes the first half with a substantial sonata by the best-known native of Lichtenstein (Roger Fisher famously recorded Rheinberger’s seventh sonata at Chester).
After two shorter pieces (Elizabethan Serenade, written in the reign of the second monarch to bear that name, is intended to evoke the first) this recital ends with Guilmant’s ever-popular, ever-fresh, ever-tuneful first sonata.

Sunday 15th July 2007

Jeffrey Makinson - Manchester

PRAELUDIUM. FUGA UND CHACONNE BuxWV 137 Dietrich Buxtehude (c1637-1707)
ALLEIN GOTT IN DER HOH SEI EHR BWV 662 / 664 J S Bach (1685-1750)
SONATA nr 3 Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847)
TOCCATA AND FUGUE (HOMMAGE Á DIETRICH BUXTEHUDE) Petr Eben (b 1929)
INTERVAL
FIVE SHORT PIECES Percy Whitlock (1903-1946)
SUITE op 5 Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)

Jeffrey Makinson continues our homage to Buxtehude in his anniversary year and matches it with a contemporary composer’s homage to the Great Dane. Two chorale preludes by Bach are followed by one of the well-known sonatas by Bach pioneer Mendelssohn.
The second half features two composers who were almost exact contemporaries but who wrote very different music. The Englishman Percy Whitlock first became famous with his Five Short Pieces of 1929. These attractive pieces have remained popular with audiences and organists alike and never been out of print, from the opening Allegretto with its touches of Delius, the Folk Tune (surely a homage to Whitlock’s teacher Vaughan Williams), the reflective Andante tranquillo (perhaps a suggestion of Rochester Cathedral, where Whitlock had been assistant organist), the sprightly Scherzo and finally the rousing Paean dedicated to Whitlock’s fiancée.
Maurice Duruflé is best known for his Requiem, though music lovers are also grateful for the part he played in helping Poulenc to write his organ concerto. A delightful man to know by all accounts, but a most fastidious composer, Duruflé published very little; his three-movement Suite of 1933 contains his best-known organ piece, the Toccata.

Sunday 12th August 2007

David Butterworth - Nottingham

POSTLUDE from the GLAGOLITIC MASS Leos Janacek (1854-1928)
PRELUDE AND FUGUE IN C MINOR BWV 546 J S Bach (1685-1750)
PIÈCE HÉROÏQUE César Franck (1822-1890)
TOCCATA, FUGUE ET HYMNE SUR AVE MARIS STELLA Flor Peeters (1903-1986)
INTERVAL
PRELUDE AND FUGUE IN D (HALLELUJAH) Franz Schmidt 1874-1939
SONATA ON THE 94th PSALM Julius Reubke (1834-1858)

Binns organ curator David Butterworth begins with the organ solo from Janacek’s great hymn to nature, the Glagolitic Mass. He then presents Bach at his most sonorous with the Prelude and Fugue in C minor. Franck’s stormy Pièce Héroïque is followed by an exciting Gregorian-chant based piece by Flor Peeters, prolific composer and well-travelled player who gave a recital at the Albert Hall in May 1978.
The second half begins in German twentieth-century classical mood; the hallelujah of the title reminds us that the composer went on to re-use the theme in a Hallelujah chorus of his own. And finally, Romantic music par excellence in the short-lived Julius Reubke’s stormy presentation of the 94th psalm.

Sunday 2nd September 2007

Nigel Ogden - Lytham

March – Queen Elizabeth (from The Three Elizabeths) Eric Coates
Potted Overtures (arr Ogden)
A Centenary Waltz Franz Lehar
“Pretend” Bach X 2 Nalle / Templeton
Arabesque nr 1 Debussy
Crown Imperial Walton
INTERVAL
March in G Smart
Two topical tunes Weill / Warren
Themes from the Ballet Egyptien Luigini arr Helyer
A Genius Called . . . Gershwin
Klassikal Kaleidoscope arr Ogden
Memories of song arr Ogden

Our “popular” programme this year sees a welcome return of Nigel Ogden who begins by saluting our local genius Eric Coates and his wartime portrayal of the then Princess Elizabeth. Franz Lehar, who lived long enough to record some of his own music, is featured next, while “Pretend” Bach includes Bach Goes to Town by Alec Templeton, a Prelude and Fugue all right but with some distinctly bluesy touches in the prelude and a jazzy swing to the fugue subject. Debussy tried to write an organ piece but thought better of it; his piano music transcribes well, however. The orchestral version of Walton’s Crown Imperial contains an organ part; Herbert Murrill effectively arranged the whole piece for organ.
Of the second half, the opening of Luigini’s Ballet Egyptien acquired surreal words in the days of ITMA; as for the rest it is quite obvious from the titles that Nigel Ogden is going to keep us happily guessing.

Sunday 30th September 2007

Philip Rushforth - Chester

FANTASIA AND TOCCATA op 57 C V Stanford (1852-1924)
BELL SCHERZO Edwin Lemare (1865-1934)
FINALE from SYMPHONIE PATHÉTIQUE Piotr Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) arr Charles Macpherson (1870-1927)
TOCCATA AND FUGUE IN D MINOR BWV 538 (DORIAN) J S Bach (1685-1750)
INTERVAL
INTRODUCTION AND PASSACAGLIA Walter Alcock (1861-1947)
EVENING SONG Edward Bairstow (1874-1946)
VALSE MIGNONNE Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
OVERTURE “THE LAND OF THE MOUNTAIN AND THE FLOOD” Hamish McCunn (1868-1916) arr Jeremy Cull

Philip Rushforth, formerly assistant organist at Southwell Minster and now at Chester Cathedral, performs Bach’s “Dorian” toccata and fugue in D minor (the other one!) but otherwise gives us a fully romantic programme, with substantial pieces ideal for the Binns organ by Stanford (professor of music at Cambridge) and Alcock (organist of Salisbury Cathedral who played at for coronations). Lighter pieces are to be heard by Bairstow, organist of York Minster who played at the opening of the 1934 organ in Southwell Minster and frightened the life out of the congregation when he drew what he thought was a soft stop for the final Amen but got the Tuba, and by Karg-Elert who wrote his delightful Valse Mignonne after playing a cinema organ In Berlin; “May Saint Cecilia forgive me” he wrote, not entirely seriously one suspects.
We are also to hear two transcriptions: first the tragic finale to Tchaikovsky’s last symphony, but then a fine Scottish piece familiar to anyone who ever watched “Sutherland’s Law”.

Sunday 4th November 2007 (Anniversary Recital)

Sophie-Véronique Choplin - Saint Sulpice, Paris

IMPROVISATION ON A SUBMITTED THEME (1)
PRELUDE AND FUGUE IN F MINOR BWV 534 J S Bach (1685-1750)
ALLEGRETTO MA NON TROPPO César Franck (1822-1890)
PASTORALE et POSTLUDE from 24 PIÈCES EN STYLE LIBRE Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
TU ES PETRA from ESQUISSES BYZANTINES Henri Mulet (1878-1967)
INTERVAL
MODERATO et ANDANTE SOSTENUTO from SYMPHONIE GOTHIQUE C-M Widor (1844-1937)
RÉSURRECTION from SYMPHONIE-PASSION Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)
IMPROVISATION ON A SUBMITTED THEME (2)

Sophie-Véronique Choplin, co-titulaire at the great Parisian church of St-Sulpice, presents some little-heard Bach, his Prelude and Fugue in F minor. Otherwise she pays homage to fellow Parisian organists, beginning with a little-known piece by Franck (Ste-Clothilde) and ending the first part with a rousing toccata by Henri Mulet (Sacre-Coeur).
Then we hear from three of her esteemed predecessors at St-Sulpice. Vierne was assistant there before moving to Notre-Dame, while Widor’s reign there was, as he liked to point out, as long as Queen Victoria’s. The extracts we will hear (from his Symphonie Gothique) were recorded by Widor in April 1932, at the session when he also set down his famous Toccata. Widor (in post 1870-1933) was succeeded by Dupré (1934-1971, playing his final services on the day of his death), which meant that St-Sulpice had only two principal organists in 101 years. We are to hear the finale of Dupré’s Symphonie-Passion.
The great art of French organists is improvisation. Presented with a short previously unseen theme, they will then go off into whatever world suits them, dazzling us with unexpected musical forms and unexpected sounds that are totally unplanned. There will be two such improvisations at this recital; no-one will know what they are until they are revealed to the soloist at the console.

Events in previous years

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