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The Binns organ in the Albert Hall, Nottingham, UK

Events 2008

Recital series 2008

All recitals take place on Sunday afternoons at 2.45pmThere 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 essential on 0115 950 0411) and light refreshments are served during the interval.

WITH THE EXCEPTION OF THE RECITAL ON 26 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 paid will be on sale at each recital price £1. N.B. at the recital on 26 October the programme is free.

Sunday 11th May 2008

David Butterworth - Nottingham

Fantasia and Toccata in D minor, op.57 C.V. Stanford (1852- 1924)
Le jardin suspendu (Trois Pièces no.2) Jehan Alain (1911-1940)
Etude Symphonique, Op.78 Enrico Bossi (1861- 1925)
Grande Pièce Symphonique, Op.17 A. Cèsar Franck (1822-1890)
Handel in the Strand (Clog Dance) Percy Grainger an. Wolfgang Stockrneier (1882-1961)
Die Kunst der Fuge I-IV, 1080 J.S. Bach (1685-1750)
Glenalmond Suite (2007) Naji Hakim (born 1955)
Vater unser in Himmelreich, 682 J.S. Bach
Vater unser in Himmeireich (alio modo), 683
Toccata and Fugue in D minor, 565 J.S. Bach

David Butterworth, Custodian of the Albert Hall organ, launches our 2008 season with the Edwardian splendour of Stanford’s exciting Fantasia and Toccata. The rest of his programme is more exotic, from Alain’s evocation of the hanging gardens of Babylon, through Bossi’s virtuoso pedal study to the beginning of the French organ symphony, Franck’s Grand Pièce Symphonique. One of the stranger transcriptions is then heard, by one of the stranger composers to grace the world of music, Percy Grainger, and we are taken into the world of contemporary music with Naji Hakim’s Glenalmond Suite, based on the carillon at the renowned Scottish school and quite as imaginative as the pieces he played for us at the Albert Hall not long ago. Finally it is the turn of J S Bach: two choral preludes based on the Lord’s Prayer, a rather well-known piece to finish, but before it Bach’s last will and testament to the musical world, four pieces from the Art of Fugue.

Sunday 1st June 2008

Henry Fairs - Birmingham University Organist

Allegro Maestoso (from Sonata in G, op. 28) Edward Elgar (1857-1934)
Prélude (from Suite, Op.5) Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986)
Communion - les oiseaux et les sources (from Messe de la Pentecôte) Olivier Messiaen (1908-l992)
Praeludium in d BuxWV 140 Dietrich Buxtehude (ca.1637-1707)
Interval
Zweit Sonate d-Moll, Op. 60: Improvisation - Invokation - Introduktion und Fuge Max Reger (1873—1916)
Master Tallis’s Testament Herbert Howells (1892-1983)
Allegro Marcato (from Sonata in G minor, Op. 58) J.P.E. Hartmann (1805—1900)

Birmingham University Organist Henry Fairs pays homage to Dietrich Buxtehude, from whom all modern organ music surely springs, but otherwise his feet (and hands) are firmly rooted in romanticism, from Elgar (the very stuff of this organ) to Reger (here being very focused for a change) and another Dane, Hartmann. We find Howells evoking an England of four centuries before him, while two Parisians complete the picture: the spookiness of a great Parisian church for Duruflé and an evocation of the Holy Spirit, no less, from centenarian Olivier Messiaen.

Sunday 13th July 2008

Ahreum Han - USA

Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C Major, BWV 564 J S Bach (1685-1750)
Chanson de Matin, Op. 5, No.2 Edward Elgar
Sonata IV in B flat Major, Op. 65 Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847)
I. Allegro con brio
II. Andante Religioso
III. Allegretto
IV. Allegro Maestoso e vivace
Scherzo in G minor, Op.49, no.2 Marco Enrico Bossi
Allegro Deciso (from Evocation, Op. 37) Marcel Dupré
Interval
Symphonic choral on Ach Bleib mit deiner Gnade Op.87, No.1 Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
Valse Mignonne, Op. 142, No.2 Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933)
Adagio from Symphony III, Op. 28 Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
Hamburger Totentanz Guy Bovet (born 1942)

Distinguished American organist Ahreum Han gives us the full range, from Bach at his most inventive, through Bach pioneer Mendelssohn to the world of transcription in Elgar’s charming miniature. Bossi makes another appearance, with a scherzo which enthusiasts of a certain age remember from Francis Jackson’s 1963 York Minster record. The beauty of a Vierne slow movement is contrasted with the anger of Dupré and the high drama of Karg-Elert’s chorale setting. But the remaining pieces are outrageous: Karg-Elert again, with a waltz after he had had a go (the phrase is not inappropriate to judge from reminiscences of his playing) on a cinema organ, while Guy Bovet’s piece is, as they say, something else.

Alan Spedding - Beverley Minster

Fanfare Jaak Nikolaas Lemmens
Largo, Allegro, Aria and Two Variations Michael Festing (arr. G T Thalben Ball)
Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV537 J. S. Bach
Concerto, Op 55 Christian Heinrich Rinck
Allegro maestoso - Adagio - Allegretto
Prelude on The Old 104th Hubert Parry
Interval
Sonata III, Op 56 Alexandre Guilmant
Allegro maestoso e con fuoco - Adagio molto - Fuga
Organ Book Jean Langlais
Pastoral Song - Musette - Scherzando - Pasticcio
Impresion Teresiana Eduardo Torres
Sonatina Davide de Bergamo
Toccata Theodore Dubois

Beverley Minster organist Alan Spedding, whose compositions have been heard both here and at Southwell, offers us several first performances on the Binns organ. Lemmens gave Widor a link back to the music of Bach, and it is a rather sombre Bach we hear in a piece also well known in its orchestration by Elgar. The seriousness of purpose shown by Rinck may be contrasted with the music of Davide de Bergamo, described by one commentator as an eighteenth-century Lefébure-Wely. Guilmant manages to be both tuneful and serious, as does his contemporary Parry, who celebrates two anniversaries this year: 160th anniversary of his birth and 90th anniversary of his death. The twentieth century is recalled with the exuberant Langlais and the mysterious Spanish priest Torres, while we end cheerfully with Dubois’ Toccata.

Sunday 31st August 2008

Sarah Baldock - Chichester Cathedral

Grand Choeur Dialogue Eugene Gigout
Pastorale & Berceuse (from 24 Pièces en style libre) Louis Vierne
Pièce d’Orgue BWV 572 J.S. Bach
Two Chorale Preludes:
Nun komm der Heiden Heiland BWV 559
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme BWV 645
Sonata no. 2 in C minor, op. 65, no.2 Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy
Grave - Adagio
Allegro maestoso e vivace
Fugue, Allegro moderato
Canzona & Scherzetto (from Sonata in C minor) Percy Whitlock Imperial March Op 32 Edward Elgar arr. George Martin

Chichester Cathedral organist Sarah Baldock gives us the lighter side of French music with Gigout’s piece needing two choruses at least, as the title shows, plus Vierne’s well-known lullaby and his gently drifting Pastorale. Bach pioneer Mendelssohn appropriately follows the great master himself, here at his most French in the Fantasy in G with its sonorous central section and lively ear-tickling outer sections. Bach’s religious music follows, the second of the two preludes reminding us that after her recital there will be on 115 shopping days to Christmas. Elgar’s first-ever concert march is preceded by two movements from Whitlock’s monumental sonata: here we have the contrasting moods of the ecclesiastical Canzona and Whitlock’s “cinema” side with the Scherzetto.

Sunday 28th September 2008

Simon Gledhill
"On the lighter side"

Overture to The Thieving Magpie Gioachino Rossini
In a Country Lane Eric Coates
Demande et Réponse (from Petite Suite de Concert) Samuel Coleridge-Taylor
British Theatre Organists Remembered:
(i) March: After the Movies Gerald Shaw
(ii) Mink and Pearls Stanley Wyllie
(iii) On a Spring Note Sidney Torch
The Dance of the Hours (from La Gioconda) Amilcare Ponchielli
Interval
Television March Eric Coates
Sketch of a Dandy Haydn Wood
Viva Mexico! arr. Ronald Hanmer
Evening Primrose Billy Mayerl
Themes from The Planets Gustav Holst:
(i) Mars, The Bringer of War
(ii) Venus, The Bringer of Peace
(iii) Jupiter, The Bringer of Jollity

All music transcribed for organ by Simon Gledhill.

Simon Gledhill makes a welcome return and pays due homage to local genius Eric Coates (you may well remember his Television March, which used to introduce BBC transmissions). Well-known cinema organists of the past are recalled, and there are the customary transmissions. When Opera North were touring the Rossini a few years ago they always referred to it among themselves as “Gazza”, pronouncing it as you would the nickname of a distinguished footballer of the time. Demande et Réponse is turn-of-the-century music at its most elegant, but can you hear the Dance of the Hours without thinking of hippopotami? New to the Albert Hall, at least as solos, are three movements from The Planets. Prepare for blast-off!

Sunday 26th October 2008

Adrian Partington - Gloucester Cathedral

Dithyrambe Basil Harwood
In An Old Abbey Basil Harwood
Dalby's Fancy and Dalby's Toccata Herbert Howells
Paean Herbert Howells
Prelude on Rhosymedre R Vaughan Williams
Elegy C Hubert H Parry
Fantasia and Fugue in G C Hubert H Parry
Interval
Prelude and Fugue in G, BWV 541 J. S. Bach
Trois Danses Jehain Alain

Adrian Partington makes a welcome return in a new role as organist of Gloucester Cathedral, and it is to composers of his adoptive county that he first pays homage: Basil Harwood, whose complete works he has recorded, Herbert Howells (Adrian played one of the three volumes of his music issued by Priory) and two much-loved Gloucestershire men, Vaughan Williams, the most accident-prone organist of them all, and Sir Hubert Parry. Surely Bach’s most cheerful prelude and fugue is followed by the ground-breaking Three Dances of Jehain Alain, which depict three stages of that life: the joy of childhood expressed in two themes, one chorale-like and the other jazzy; a funeral dance, and a final dance, likened to "a drunken boat with shreds of themes for sails" whose final chords “ring out like gunfire".

Events in previous years

• 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

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.