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The Binns organ in the Albert Hall, Nottingham, UK

Events 2011

Christmas Concert & Festive Luncheon

Sunday 11th December 2011

The Choir of St Mary's Church - director John Keys
The Binns Organ - Andrew Abbott
Audience warmly invited to join in with the carols.

Concert at 2.45pm
Tickets £4.50 (children under 16, £1.50)
Pre-concert three course festive lunch at 1.00pm
Price £13.50 (early booking advised as numbers are limited)
Tel. 0115 950 0411
enquiries@alberthallnottingham.com
Website: www.alberthallnottingham.co.uk

Recital series 2011

All recitals take place on Sunday afternoons at 2.45pm. There is normally (unless otherwise stated) a pre-concert talk with the soloist at 2:15 in the Balmoral Room adjacent to the main hall. Lunch is available at the Albert Hall prior to the concert (pre-booking is preferable on 0115 950 0411) and light refreshments are served during the interval.

With the exception of the Anniversary Recital on 30th October when an admission charge will be payable, admission is free to the recitals. A programme containing full details of the soloist and information about the pieces to be played will be on sale at each recital price £1. N.B. at the anniversary recital the programme is free.

The Big Screen!

The Big Screen will be in use for Carlo Curley's recital on 30 October thanks to the kind sponsorship of three of our regular attenders. If you (or a group of you) would like to sponsor the Big Screen for any of the other recitals this season, please contact Ian Wells on 0115 950 4464 or ianwells@thorneywood.fslife.co.uk

Sunday 1st May 2011

Paul Hale (Southwell) - The Jim Lodge Memorial Recital

G F Handel: Overture to the Occasional Oratorio (arr. Henry Coleman)
William Boyce: Symphony No 4 in F (arr Andrew Moore)
Samuel Scheidt: Variations on a Dutch song
J S Bach: Prelude & Fugue in B minor, BWV 544
César Franck: Choral no. 1 in E
Franz Liszt: Orpheus
Jéhan Alain: Deux Chorales
Alexandre Guilmant: Sonata no. 3

The Jim Lodge Memorial Recital commemorates a long-standing treasurer of the Nottingham and District Society of Organists and a sterling supporter of the Binns Organ Recitals. Appropriately this is the first 2011 recital and it is being given by Binns Organ Trustee Paul Hale, Rector Chori of Southwell Minster. His programme falls neatly into two halves, Classical and Romantic. Framing the first half are the two great men of 1685, Bach’s noble Prelude and Fugue in B minor offering “straight” organ music while the Handel piece is a transcription, the sort of thing the Binns organ was originally built for. Between these two come a later 18th-century Englishman and a German who was born fully a century before Bach and Handel and who did so much to establish German music as we understood it.

The second half gives us romantic French music. Franck’s very ecclesiastical first Choral (we are to hear all three this season, plus his Fantaisie in A) is followed by offerings from the three “anniversary boys”: Liszt’s two-hundredth, Alain’s one-hundredth and the centenary of Guilmant’s death. It is no surprise to find Liszt attracted to the mythical poet who, like him, was irresistible to women. The short-lived Alain (he was killed in action early in the war) presents us with two chorales, although their “modal” titles should not confuse us. Finally comes the much-loved Guilmant’s third sonata.

Sunday 5th June 2011

David Graham (London)

Weitz: Grand Choeur
Boëly: Andante con moto in G minor
Saint-Saëns: Prelude and fugue in E-flat
Saint-Saëns:Benediction Nuptial
Franck: Choral no. 2 in B minor
J S Bach: Fantasia and Fugue in G minor, BWV 542
J S Bach (arr. Weitz): Mortify us by thy Grace
Liszt: Fantasia on B.A.C.H.
Rheinberger: Cantilène (Sonata 11)
Weitz: Stella maris (Symphony 1)

David Graham is the director of music at Farm Street. Should this sound confusing, the Catholic churches in central London are popularly known by their addresses rather than their dedications. This one is in Mayfair, and is the headquarters of the Jesuits. For fifty years their organist was the Belgian exile Guy Weitz, whose music frames this recital. Both pieces are plainsong-based, both of them proving that Gregorian chant can lead to some pretty exciting pieces. Weitz revered Franck, who is represented by his second Choral: the one that bears a close relationship to his Symphony in D minor. Saint-Saëns’s toccata-like Prelude in E flat comes together with his tender Bénediction Nuptiale, while JSB's mighty Fantasia and Fugue in G minor is followed by birthday boy Liszt’s homage to the Great Master.

Sunday 3rd July 2011

Joseph Wicks (Lancing - Oundle Award Winner)

J S Bach: Piece d’Orgue BWV 572
J S Bach (trans. Briggs): Air from Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D, BWV 1068
Guilmant: Pastorale (Sonate 1)
Franck: Choral no. 3 in A minor
Parry: Croft’s 136th Chorale Prelude
Bridge: Adagio in E
Whitlock: Chanty (Plymouth Suite)
Whitlock: Salix (Plymouth Suite)
Alcock: Introduction and Passacaglia

Bach in both organ and orchestral guise is followed by the two gentle giants of nineteenth-century Paris, with the monastic Pastorale from Guilmant’s 1st Sonata and Franck’s towering swansong. After that it’s 20th-century England with music made for the Binns organ: a chorale prelude by Parry, two movements, one sprightly and the other slow, from Whitlock’s Plymouth Suite, Frank Bridge’s moving Adagio and finally Sir Walter Alcock’s monumental Introduction and Passacaglia.

7th August 2011

David Butterworth (Nottingham)

J S Bach: Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 537
J S Bach: Trio Sonata no. 6 in G, BWV 530 (Vivace – Lente - Allegro)
Alexandre Guilmant: Sonata in D minor
Naji Hakim: Fanfare for Nottingham
Ferencz Liszt: Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen
John Ireland: Elegaic Romance
John Ireland: Menuetto-Impromptu
Henri Mulet: Carillon-Sortie

Custodian of the Binns organ David Butterworth gives another outing to our centenary commission, Naji Hakim’s Fanfare for Nottingham. Harking back to the Great Master he gives us the brooding Fantasia and Fugue in C minor (the one Elgar orchestrated) and a more intimate trio sonata. Liszt’s Weinen, Klagen piece was written at a terrible period in his life, but its final blazing chorale attempts to make sense of this. Two of John Ireland’s Edwardian organ pieces are heard followed by a contemporaneous French piece, Mulet’s tuneful Carillon-Sortie.

Sunday 4th September 2011

Nigel Ogden (BBC)

Berlioz, Schubert, plus!: Marching through the Classics
arr. Palmer: Tchaikowsky in the Ballroom
Ogden: Scherzo for the White Rabbit
arr. Ogden: Beethoven meets Jimmy van Heusen
Wright/Forrest: Music from "Kismet"
Various: Around the CDs.
Belton: In Honour of a Royal Wedding
Kosma: A Topical Tune
Porter-Brown: Dance of the Three Old Maids
Porter-Brown: Tuba Tune
arr. Ogden: Meteorological Mayhem
arr. Ogden: Klassical Kaleidoscope
arr. Ogden: Memories of Song

Nigel Ogden makes a welcome return with the various sorts of pots-pourris which are his trademark. The titles tempt us, and keep us guessing; perhaps we can second-guess the Berlioz and Schubert marches however. Cinema organist Reginald Porter-Brown makes two appearances, and Nigel Ogden himself takes us into Wonderland. Nor is a certain royal event overlooked...

Sunday 2nd October 2011

Daniel Moult (London)

Liszt: Excelsior!
J S Bach (arr. Liszt): Adagio from Sonata IV for violin
J S Bach: Gigue Fugue, BWV 577
Mendelssohn: Theme and Variations in D
Mozart: Fantasia in F minor, K608
Stanford: Fantasia and Toccata in D minor
Whitlock: Divertimento
Whitlock: Folk Tune
Saint-Saëns: Fantaisie in E flat
Saint-Saëns (arr. Guilmant): The Swan
Alain: Fantasmagorie
Lefébure-Wély: Sortie in E flat

The two birthday boys put in an appearance here, and even if you haven’t found Alain’s Litanies in the programmes this year you’ll think you’re hearing it in his Phantasmagorie. Guilmant makes a sort-of appearance with his arrangement of The Swan, while the more public Saint-Saëns appears with his first Fantaisie. Stanford’s increasingly popular Fantasia and Toccata is heard again this year, and we end with a most dignified piece from St-Sulpice...

Carlo Curley (Patron of the Binns Organ Trust)

Carlo Curley has just accepted the invitation to be our Patron and we are delighted to welcome him to give the 2011 Anniversary Recital. He completes our homage to Franck with the Fantaisie in A, while Guilmant is remembered with his grandiose Grand Choeur. Somewhat different Parisian sounds come from Bonnet’s delightful Elfes and Langlais’s awesome Chant Héroïque. Carlo also manages to pay homage to no less than three organists of the Temple Church in London: he plays his teacher George Thalben-Ball’s arrangement of Walford Davies’s tuneful Interlude in C, having already leapt back two centuries for a John Stanley concerto, this enhanced by some singing birds, we’re told. Naturally there are some Americans too: the exiled Dvořák, Charles Dawes (whose piece turned into a hit song), a moving meditation by Texan organist Roy Perry and Leonard Bernstein’s first appearance on the Binns organ.

Events in previous years

• Events in 2010
• Events in 2009
• Events in 2008
• Events in 2007
• Events in 2006
• Events in 2005
• Events in 2004
• Events in 2003

Sponsors

If you would like to sponsor a Recital, please contact the Chair, Hilary Silvester, for further details. Her email address is:
hilary at binns dot info

Information

If you would like any further information on the Binns organ and our annual concert series, on technical matters, on hiring availability or on any other issue, please feel free to contact the Custodian on 0115 9625400; 07850 833890; or email
dsbutterworth at halam dot myzen dot co dot uk.

EMOR mailing list

If you are interested in receiving email notification of organ recitals in the East Midlands, then why not subscribe to EMOR? "East Midlands Organ Recitals" is a mailing list which will send you occasional emails containing details of recitals in Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Lincolnshire and Nottinghamshire. To join, simply send an email to emor-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.