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Review of Lunchtime Recital in Brentwood Cathedral on Wednesday, 16th July 2008, given by Hannah Parry, Organist & Director of Music, All Soul’s, Harlesden
A pub quiz is unlikely to ask for a list of the attractions of the London Borough of Harlesden, but in case it does, here's one answer. All Souls' Church has a young (she’s 20) organist and Director of Music, Hannah Parry, and she demonstrated her skill convincingly at Brentwood Cathedral on 16 July.
Mendelssohn's sixth sonata set the tone, and its contemplative last movement gave us all a chance to ponder our luck at hearing, over the last months, this procession of past and present organ students from The Royal College of Music. What made this one doubly special was the presence of her friend and fellow student Rachel Ridout. She brought her alto saxophone for the Fantasia on Veni Creator Spiritus by Proulx. Rachel, also 20, and Hannah moved in perfect harmony through this testing contemporary piece. Rachel's command of her instrument, which she has been playing since she was seven, matched perfectly Hannah's control of the cathedral's large three-manual organ. That was particularly evident in the final piece, Pièce Héroïque by César Franck.
As the elderly say of policemen, organists are getting younger all the time.
John Horton
Brentwood Cathedral Choir visit Rome
A recent tour to Rome proved a tour de force for Brentwood Cathedral Choir. The tour, arranged with the help of Fr Andrew Headon, Vice-Rector at the Venerable English College in Rome and priest of the Brentwood Diocese, saw the choir perform throughout a packed weekend.
An evening Mass and concert at the ancient Pantheon was attended by Frank Campbell, the British Ambassador to the Holy See. The highlight of the tour was 12.15 Sunday Mass in St Peter’s Basilica, at the Altar of the Chair, for which the choir also sang. Monsignor Bill Nix, who recently notched up 40 years of priesthood, and Fr Dominic Howarth, the diocesan youth director, concelebrated at the Mass. Fr Dominic also concelebrated at Mass for which the choir sang in the basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, during which the music included that of Palestrina, who had been a choir boy there in the 1500s. The choir, choir parents, and friends from Cathedral House were also warmly received at St Ignatio by their priest, Fr Feruccio.
Having been previously to Antwerp in 2001 and Paris in 2002, the tour was long-awaited and much enjoyed. The choir are hoping to make a trip to the United States next year.
The Misprint That Wasn't
Review of Lunchtime Recital by Tom Little - Brentwood Cathedral - 18th June 2008
Forget that feeling of satisfaction when you looked at the programme for Tom Little's organ recital at Brentwood Cathedral and spotted that he was to play the same Bach piece twice.
Based on the hymn Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, the two items had, it's true, what you might call different bar-codes; and therein lay the differerence. BWV659 was a calm, reflective setting of the tune, accompanied by the sweetest flute stop on the organ; and BWV660 is a cerebral fugal version, yet still preserving the chorale's appeal. BOGOF, as they say in Tesco: buy one, get one free. Except that both came in a free-admission recital with a voluntary collecting bowl.
So what else was free on offer? Reger's Dankpsalm began the afternoon's menu; a bit on the snarling side for a hymn of thanksgiving but including two suitably introspective passages; and a piece by Graham Fitkin, born 1963, in Cornwall. Tom sang alto in Truro Cathedral choir, and got to know him. The piece, disarmingly titled ORGAN (what else?) boasts what the Met Office would call scattered violent storms, but with sunny intervals. Tom Little handled the changes in the weather with aplomb. He brought the piece home from Cornwall, and it makes a nice change from the inevitable blood-vessel-busting jar of clotted cream.
Having come so far along the goodies in this menu, it’s amazing that I’ve left the best dish to the end: the Great G Minor of Bach, the Fantasia and Fugue BWV 542, where the fugue makes you snap your fingers, tap your feet and want to DANCE. Unless it’s you that’s playing it, in which case we listen to the jaunty fugue subject, the second voice and the third, then hold our breath and wait for the same tune in the pedals, which worried Tom not one bit. Enough to make us want to give up the pedals for good.
This piece added to the golden thread running through the whole concert: JOY, and thank heaven for the brilliant idea of tapping the upcoming talents at a London college.
One Wednesday in each month is the day to postpone your lunch if you’re in or near Brentwood: the next is 16th July: Hannah Parry – Bach and Reger again. It’s a winning combination.
And he made a little speech thanking the cathedral for putting on these recitals by students, past and present, of the Royal College of Music. It is, he said, a tremendous encouragement to us.
You can say that again, Tom.
John Horton
Organ Masterclasses given by Margaret Phillips
RSCM/Essex & East London Music Committee
in conjunction with Brentwood Cathedral Music Department
Organ Masterclasses given by Margaret Phillips
(International Concert Organist and Professor of Organ, Royal College of Music)
Saturday 10th May 2008 in Chelmsford & Brentwood Cathedrals
A beautiful early summer's day, dry with hot sunshine, encouraged the 14 participants to demonstrate their skills to Professor Phillips and an audience of families, friends and fellow musicians in the pleasantly cool and inspiring interiors of our two cathedrals. In a two-hour morning session on Chelmsford Cathedral’s delightful 2-manual & pedal Chancel organ built by Manders, the 6 allotted players (details as follows) featured German and English music, a part of the repertoire in which Professor Phillips excels and is justly famed for, both through her extensive recordings (many of which were on sale on the day) and live performances.
- Fay Hepworth - Buxtehude - Toccata & Fugue in F, BuxWV 157
- Peter Wakeford - Mendelssohn - Prelude in C minor
- Natasha Tyrwhitt - Drake - Bach - Prelude and Fugue in C (Major/minor?) BWV 545
- Hannah Gosling - Bridge - Lento
- Alan Ball - Whitlock - Darwall’s 148th (No. 1 of Six hymn preludes)
- Alexander Jones - Thalben-Ball - Elegy
Margaret allowed each player to perform their chosen piece in full, then concentrated on areas requiring improvement such as rhythm, time signatures, phrasing, registration, fingering and pedalling. All advice and instruction was given with a true empathy and understanding of each individual’s capabilities, and relayed clearly to the audience via microphone and speakers.
In Chelmsford Cathedral
The afternoon session on Brentwood’s impressive 3-manual & pedal organ installed by Percy Daniel & Co. in the Cathedral’s resonant acoustic, featured 8 players and again the chosen music was a mixture of English and German.
- Sam Adams - Ireland - Menuetto-Impromptu (from Miniature Suite)
- Paula Harris - Mendelssohn - Fugue in C minor, Op. 37/2
- Henry Drummond - Bach - Prelude & Fugue in C minor, BWV 549
- Robert Scholes - Gordon Young - Prelude in classical style
- Sam Bardsley - Bach - Prelude & Fugue in E minor, BWV 533
- Rory Thorndike - Buxtehude - Prelude, Fugue & Ciacona, BuxWV 137
- Matthew Jorysz - Mendelssohn - (from) Sonata no. 4
- Joseph Attaman - Bach - Prelude in G minor (from 8 short Preludes & Fugues)
Most if not all of the players were unfamiliar with the Brentwood instrument and therefore needed guidance on the extra attention to detail needed to ‘play the acoustic’ effectively, particularly in a building which was empty apart from the Master class participants & audience. This session was considerably enhanced by the provision of a video-camera and large projection screen, which allowed the audience to view at close quarters the players’ hands or feet at the console. The equipment was kindly supplied and operated by John Miley who has provided this worthwhile facility in many cathedrals, churches and chapels in recent years.
In Brentwood Cathedral
Margaret brought our successful event to a wonderful conclusion with a recital of the following pieces:-
Bairstow - Scherzo, from Sonata
Bach – Christ, unser Herr, zum Jordan kam (BWV 684) from Klavierubung iii
Messiaen - Communion, and Sortie, from Messe de la Pentecote
Messiaen’s music was highly symbolic as the Feast of Pentecost was to be celebrated the following day. His Sortie, written to represent the mighty, rushing wind of the Holy Spirit, concluded the proceedings with an appropriately overpowering, almost terrifying, long-held chord on full organ!
Many thanks are due to all who made this event such a success, in particular John Rippin (RSCM/EEL Organ Representative), Andrew Wright (Master of Music, Brentwood Cathedral), Peter Nardone and Robert Poyser (Director of Music, and Assistant, Chelmsford Cathedral) and of course Margaret Phillips who made a very welcome return to our area following her hugely successful recital in Brentwood Cathedral a year ago.
It is to be hoped that an event of this type can in future become an annual fixture within this area’s organ education scheme, thus encouraging more players of all ages and, in particular, young organists, to take advantage of the helpful, friendly and professional tuition that is available.
Steve Knight 28.05.2008
The Berkeley Ensemble
Review of Lunchtime Recital – Brentwood Cathedral – 28th May 2008
There is currently running at the cathedral the RCM Organ Showcase Series. Extra to this, the cathedral hosted a recital by the Berkeley Ensemble – members of the Southbank Sinfonia with a penchant for British Music, and that for combined strings and wind.
Their attractively concise programme appealed well to the nature of the lunchtime setting here. And their performance was characteristic of a group who play together regularly and share a common understanding and insight into both the repertoire they play, mode of performance, and insight into interpretation. The Berkeley Ensemble is an assuredly complimentary band of artists.
Samuel Barber’s Adagio for Strings (1938) set the scene for what was a charming and inviting introduction to good chamber music and chamber music playing. John Ireland’s Sextet for clarinet, horn and string quartet gave a panorama of mood, ambience, colour, musical expression; those spontaneous post-concert vocalizations from the audience revealing an appreciation of the work’s diverse yet cohesive musical ideas – an engaging listen! One hopes to hear more from the Berkeley Ensemble in Brentwood.
James-Anthony Devor
Brentwood Earns a Benediction
Review of Lunchtime Recital by Liam Cartwright - Brentwood Cathedral 21st May 2008
A conversation killer: you were at a concert in Brentwood Cathedral and the first item was by a Belgian – a Belgian! – which called forth the organ’s full power and kept the hands and feet of the organist very busy. A Belgian? Yes, Guy Weitz, who died 38 years ago and, judging by his Antiphon Ave Regina, left you wondering what else he wrote.
It was enough to establish Liam Cartwright’s assured technique and, for all that the piece is largely unknown, made us look forward to the next piece all the more, for here was something by the master, J. S. Bach. But this was unknown to many of us – BWV 531, the Prelude and Fugue in C. It was an early work which is probably the excuse most organists give for not playing it. Just behold that opening solo on the pedals: that’s your true reason. Cartwright pulled it off with a flourish, and, this got him nicely limbered up for a piece by that well known pianist Franz Liszt. He twigged, as have many composers before and since, that, if you take the letters of the name Bach, and use the German nomenclature for those notes, you get what an Englishman would call B flat, A, C, and B natural. Play that on a piano and you get notes which make a thoroughly unmusical phrase. How could one possibly write a fugue on that? Liszt did, and by the end we had got the B-A-C-H message; four slow, hefty bangs on the head with a heavy mallet, delivered with painful accuracy. But you don’t go away whistling the fugue subject; it’s not that sort of fugue.
At last, we relaxed to a charming prelude on a familiar hymn, Be Thou My Vision, by Zsolt Gardonyi, who would now be in his mid-sixties, so we may hear more of him.
Finally, French, turn of the last century, a sure source of fireworks: three movements including the Finale from Louis Vierne’s Symphonie number one, with its solid meat-and-two veg Prelude and its seldom-heard dainty allegro vivace. And then the Finale, with its sparkling manuals and its stately pedal theme – almost drowned out by the aforementioned manuals.
So the procession continues, of former organ students from the Royal College of Music. Brentwood can be proud. The town, some divine is sure to say, is indeed blessed.
John Horton
Review of Lunchtime Organ Recital - Wednesday 16th April 2008
Timothy Wakerell – Organ Scholar Southwark Cathedral
It’s a winning formula that Brentwood Cathedral has hit on: plan a series of concerts, call it Organ Showcase and chat up your friends – professors and students at the Royal College of Music – and promise anyone who’ll travel out to Brentwood and give a recital a magnificent three-manual organ in an acoustic to die for.
April was a case in point: Timothy Wakerell left the college in a blaze of glory last year and has since got his ARCO and the organ scholarship at Southwark Cathedral.
Freed at last from the intrusive rumble of trains, he could caress two of Brahms’s Eleven Chorale Preludes, Herzlich tut mich verlangen and Schmucke dich, bringing out their sensual beauty to the full.
Nothing sensual about Bach’s BWV 540, the Great F Major, which was tackled with the gusto it demands, including the two terrifying pedal solos. With that under his belt, we knew it was going to be worth missing lunch.
And we were well set up to face Messiaen, though this movement from his Pentecost Mass, with its bird-call-inspired phrases, immediately appeals, making his dissonances beautiful in context.
One delight which you don’t get at every recital – CCTV. It may be watching our every move in the world outside but here it was something of which even Bach might have approved. To use a boxing term, you could see every left jab of Mr Wakerell as he piled on the decibels, hitting one general piston after another in the Reger Fantasia and Fugue in d, Op 235b, which strained even this organ’s lungs. There are so many reasons to miss your lunch on a Wednesday in Brentwood.
By John Horton, 17th April 2008
Organ Showcase Recital Series: 12th March 2008, Geoffrey Tuson.
The third event in this fine series was performed on Wednesday 12th March by Geoffrey Tuson, organist at St Andrew’s Church, Frimley Green and Mytchett, Surrey. Geoff opened his programme with Bruhn’s Praeludium in G Major, a bright and lively work that exhibits many facets of Baroque composition at its best. This was followed by J. S. Bach’s well-known Chorale Prelude Schmucke dich O liebe Seele, a very reflective and meditative piece which was beautifully and sensitively phrased by the performer.
The major item in this recital, Paul Hindemith’s massive Sonata no.1, a twentieth-century work, quite contemporary in places, is a thorough test of any organist's capabilities and Geoff handled its demands with finesse and style, showing great attention to detail.
Mendelssohn’s Prelude and Fugue in C minor closed the programme and, for this reviewer, it was a refreshing change to hear this fine work with its insistent and driving rhythms. Mendelssohn’s Preludes & Fugues are sadly absent from so many recital programmes as compared with his more popular Six Sonatas.
The Cathedral’s modest audience showed their appreciation of Geoff’s recital with warm applause. His performance and achievement was all the more praiseworthy due to the fact that vital preparation and practice time had been severely curtailed as a result of some technical ‘glitches’ outside of his control. Well done, Geoff, and we hope to see you and hear you again soon.
Steve Knight
Lunchtime organ recital - Ashley Marshfield - 20th February 2008
Fellow RCM organ student Ashley Marshfield gave the second in our Showcase Series. Ashley’s growing experience as a singer here at the Cathedral shone through in his performance. His awareness of the generous acoustics of the building was apparent in his use of the organ’s tone colours; the flute and solo reed stops were used to great effect. Coupled with a distinctive pacing and articulation of the pieces, this made for a charming rendition of a well thought-out programme including Bach’s great Prelude and Fugue in A minor, Howells’s Master Tallis’s Testament and popular favourite, Lefébre-Wely’s E-flat Sortie.
James-Anthony Devor
A Day with Christopher Walker - 5th January 2008
Words could never do justice to describe the inspiring, informative and sheer joy experienced by those who attended the day lead by composer, musician and renowned international liturgical facilitator, Christopher Walker.
What an uplifting start to 2008 it was. For over 100 people including catechists, teachers and musicians who gathered in the Cathedral Parish Hall on Saturday, 5th January.
Participants received wonderful teaching which was interspersed with music, song and short guided meditations. Christopher’s deep spirituality became more tangible as the day progressed. Starting with the principles of good liturgy we were then introduced to resources for Children’s Liturgy of the Word. The Lectionary was ‘Sunday’ and music resources to accompany the readings for the liturgical seasons, both produced by Christopher and Sister Paule Freeburg DC will have inspired and encouraged those who celebrate the Liturgy of the Word with children in their parishes.
Those involved with RCIA (the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults) received new insights for celebrating the liturgical rites of the process of initiation. It would be true to say that all present were deeply moved by the way Christopher engaged us with word, gesture and song, thus conveying the depth and power of the Rites. We are so fortunate to have available to us the resources produced by Christopher for celebrating these important Rites.
Another profound experience was an introduction to a scripture based Way of the Cross for Children, a resource for schools and parishes.
After lunch we were joined by musicians from a number of parishes whose gifts greatly enriched the afternoon sessions. We were led in music, song and reflection as Christopher shared more of his published and some unpublished compositions for the liturgical season and other occasions.
By 5.00 pm all were ready to take leave from what had been a truly uplifting and enriching day and with minds and hearts spiritually nourished.
In expressing our gratitude to Christopher for an outstanding day, our thanks must go to our Diocesan Director of Music, Andrew Wright, and to Margaret MacLeay at the Music Office who made this day possible. This collaboration with the Diocesan Advisor for Adult RE enabled the coming together of those involved in a variety of ministries in the diocese. We are truly grateful for his leadership and inspiration.
Tribute Concert 15th December 2007
Download programme here as a .pdf file: 15th December Concert
Lunchtime Recital on the 17th October 2007 by Crosswinds Wind Quintet
You’d think an audience would come away disappointed after hearing Crosswinds, a quintet of worryingly young wind players, at a Cathedral lunchtime concert. Well, we were promised music by Arnold, Barber and Holst and, because of the generous acoustic we could not hear the announcement of what they were to play.
Whatever, it was superb, and the way these youngsters launched into each piece (flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and horn) with a minimum of hand gestures, eyebrow raising or a noisy intake of breath, bore witness to the fact that they’d all done it before, several times, and furthermore, thoroughly enjoyed doing it each time.
Older generations who shake their heads sadly and mutter about Young People These Days should have been there; and those that were will never say it again!
John Horton
GOSPEL ROCKS CATHEDRAL
On 29th September Brentwood Cathedral echoed to the sound of Gospel music from the London Community Gospel Choir directed by the Revd Bazil Meade.
The audience of about 400 included 60 members of the Workshop Choir who sang with the main singers for part of the programme. The programme included well known favourites such as Swing low, sweet chariot and O happy day. The event was attended by the Mayor and Mayoress of Brentwood, Mgr William Nix, Fr Dan Mason and Mr Andrew Wright.
The concert was so well received there will a repeat performance in September 2008.
All material © 1999-2008 Brentwood Cathedral Music.
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