Organ Pieces YOU SHOULD LEARN ♫ // And can you solve the MYSTERY of our rotating organ?
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 ก.พ. 2023
- NEW CD OUT NOW: ben-maton-music.square.site/p... Two (or is it three?) of Ben's MOST USEFUL organ pieces for services.
I think postludes should be short and snappy...What do you think?
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More about me and the church at www.benmatonmusic.co.uk
When in 1869, the organ was formally 'opened' on January 17th, it was positioned at ground level with console behind the north choirstalls. This is a common position enabling the organist easy access to members of the choir and the ability to slip on and off the organ bench to conduct. When the organ was raised onto its present loft in 1897, it remained in its original position and four stops were added to the Swell organ by Arthur Hill. Recently, the organ builder Stephen Cooke concluded that the extensions to the pedal organ would make rotating the organ to face the congregation a very expensive project. This had been considered by the firm Hill, Norman & Beard in 1994 but not taken forward. The extremely clear acoustic in St. Martin's (as heard in Ben's fine playing) seems to carry the sound of the organ into every corner of the building and so it seems irrelevant where the pipes are positioned. [For further details, see my book 'Organs & Organists of St. Martin's Church, Salisbury' available on Amazon UK.] Sorry Ben, couldn't resist the plug!
All of your videos Ben are very moving. You have such a sensitive touch at the organ, which makes the pieces that much sweeter. Thank you for sharing your talent with us. So beautiful.
Excellent hymn playing.!
My teacher used to tell me that the most important ingredient to becoming an organist is learning the art of hymn playing with a controlled legato touch.
You display every element of that ingredient. Well done Archie
BWV 731 is my favorite organ piece. Always love hearing our Church organist play this. If I was an organist, this piece would always be within reach.
SO beautiful…thank you Ben. God gifted you - You play wonderfully!!
I am going through your videos. I find them all beautiful and very relaxing. Can’t wait for new ones.
Yes about the rotating of the organ! Beginning in about 1850 the Oxford Movement was born which advocated choral music to be an integral part of the liturgy. The English Parish Church organ became part of that movement and the instrument was then considered to be at one with the Choir and what is now known as the English Choral Tradition took off. For the next 100 years many composers wrote new music to be included in the Church of England liturgy. The organ and organist therefore needed to be ‘with’ the Choir, either on the floor level in the chancel with the choir or at least facing the choir where the instrument and organist could make a more tightly knit performance of that new liturgy. Many new organs at that time were now no longer placed in the west gallery as was the norm but down in the chancel next to the choir. So before 1850 or there abouts the St Martins organ would have faced down the knave of the church to accompany the congregation with hymn singing and play solo voluntaries etc. The organ would have been turned away from the knave to the chancel to conform with the new sung liturgy we know and love today.
Catholic Church organs tended to be in a West Gallery with the choir, and have generally remained despite reordering. It often works well acoustically.
No organs for us Orthodox - the men have to provide the sustaining ground notes.
Marvelous playing my friend!
My guess about rotating the organ is that, in spite of better projection down the nave, the front of the organ was changed to face the choir to make the organist visible for directing the choir. I have been in several situations in which the organ sound was primarily projected into the chancel. This made the organ louder for the choir but not as loud for the congregation, which allowed for more robust accompaniments for the choir which often turned slightly toward the congregation to better project, but the organ sound remained loudest in the choir which gave the choir more support. This was especially advantageous in playing canticle settings and Anglican chant psalm tone painting.
I've always preferred this placement both musically and architecturally.
St. Martin's is a very beautiful building in a lovely setting. I've had the opportunity several time of sitting among the graves in a cemetery while the carillon or tower bells are played. Meditation for all occasions.
Thanks again (and again and again) for your excellent videos.
Beautifully played. I particularly liked the solo voice in the first Liebster Jesu.
The Trombone is awesome!
Greetings Ben. I’ve watched several of your lovely little village discoveries over the past few months as your style of video delivery is mesmerising, so thank you indeed. Then this video randomly came up for me this morning and I was SO pleased to hear that you have such a beautiful playing style too as shown in particular in the Buxtehude Toccata. Lovely to listen to indeed. Thank you.
I used to hear this a lot in the late '70's and '80's as wedding prelude music. May have even had it at my own wedding in '81.
Thank you Ben for sharing your God given talent combined with your years of dedicated practice. I was already a "fan lady" (too old to be called girl 😂), when I encountered this video. I am delighted and so very pleased at 6:47 when you give a rousing intro to Diedrich Buxtehude and played one of his great songs. You are a gem! Keep shining!
In fact, I can hardly think of a more appealing recording in terms of registration and playing than this one.
My favourite. Thank you.
Lovely performance! All three pieces are favorites of mine. Thanks!
dit is mijn absoluut favoriete Bach stuk
en je speelt het geweldig goed
veel dank !!
Wow, Ben! Masterfully done! Bravo, Sir!
Beautiful so Beautiful Thank you Ben
Beautiful!
I used to hear this type of voluntries,played by my late Dad,who was a church organist ,played before the Sunday service.n after the service. While the parishers fileout of the church.thankyou,somuch sir.
What a brilliant organ! I have rung the bells at this lovely church but it would be nice give the organ a whirl too! I found an arrangement of BWV 731 for piano on IMSLP, which I have played at home; it could also be useful for playing on an organ which only has a single manual. For organ, there are a few small variations in the "twiddly bits" between Novello and Bärenreiter editions. For a more recent take on the same tune, Paul Fey has written a Prelude on "Liebster Jesu" II, which is quite pleasant.
Awesome
Beautifully played, and what a fine organ !
Beautiful playing and wonderful organ tone. Thank you.
Beautiful ! Thank you.
Thanks for this Ben
1 Insure your fingers! 2 I love it when the music score goes by as you play...can do more of that ?
Well done.
Thank you
Nice organ, beautiful tone!
You are a man of my heart Ben
I love that chorale prelude
Bravo 🎉❤💚🎄
The student and his master. Did you know that Bach walked almost 300 miles to Lübeck to hear Buxtehude? Haendel was also there (2 years earlier). Both of them could have become Buxtehude's successors... but to do so, according to old custom, they would have had to marry his daughter. (I assume she wasn't particularly pretty).
IF the organ were turned, would the pipes of the mighty trombone be facing the wall?! It would probably not be as powerful anymore... more like when a woman presses a pillow on her snoring husband's face at night.
Looking at the pictures, it appears that this was the only way that the organ case could fit on the raised platform. . .unless perhaps you had a ladder to access the console! (sure itis not the first or last time that an architect didn't take into consideration the actual size of a pipe organ!)
Would love to know what stops you used. Very interesting and individual.
I've played the aria version (first played at 1:20) of Liebster Jesu countless times. Liturgically speaking it is perfect for a Baptism.
The text of the German chorale, from which this prelude by Bach borrows its motifs, is clearly intended for the direct introduction of a church service.
I see the manuals in the organ stop at G and don't go to C. Is that common in England? I'm in the states and they go to C here. Or is it the age of the organ that makes it stop on G?
wir sind HIER !
I would like the stop list for this organ
Organ Specification:
GREAT
Bourdon 16 (1875)
Open Diapason 8 (1869)
Stopped Diapason 8 (1869)
Dulciana 8 (1869)
Principal 4 (1869)
Wald Flute 4 (1869)
Twelfth 2⅔ (1869)
Fifteenth 2 (1869)
Mixture III (1869)
Trumpet (1875)
SWELL
Bourdon 16 (1875)
Open Diapason 8 (1869)
Stopped Diapason 8 (1869)
Salicional 8 (1897)
Voix Celeste 8 (1897)
Principal 4 (1869)
Flautina 2 (1897)
Oboe 8 (1869)
Cornopean 8 (1897)
PEDAL
Open Diapason 16 (1869)
Bourdon 16 (1875)
Principal 8 (2002)
Flute 8 (2002)
Trombone 16 (2002)
I can't find the video from March 2nd, unfortunately. Does it exist? I hoped to find out who was that famous recitalist, and I hoped to read Albert Schweitzer.
Olivier Latry :)
@@SalisburyOrganistThank you very much!
Dios ❤❤❤JESUS 😅😅
I think it is dangerous to impose certain pieces and composers onto other organists and churches or cathedrals. With so many different denominations and the various demographics of congregations, there is not a one size fits all. A cookie-cutter approach to church music is not the way to go in my opinion. Getting a sense of the character and style of a given parish takes years of experience. I have been doing this for just over a quarter of a century this year.
No “imposition “ is involved. These are suggestions from an experienced and gifted musician.
There are hundreds of videos right here on YT to serve as overt and implied *suggestions* (not orders from the Führer) for music in Christian worship. Vive la différence!
But. I have a humble, bc humbled often enough!, opinion about the very pieces in this video. I hold the selfsame opinion about the instrument and the religious edifice you see here. No one is forced to share or adopt this opinion. One might say "duh" to this cliché bandied about so unthinkingly today in 2024. However, it is just this kind of music, these musical instruments, these cathedrals and churches that have come under brutal, total-destruction attack time and time again. Let's not recount or try to count the specific instances! It becomes almost humdrum and boring after stuff like "the Nazis" and, of late, a certain minority of Russians who carry on the ravages of demigod Stalin with no end in sight.
The various attacks on this specific body of work during the last 2000 years is tale-tell. As plain as the nose on a regular Sapiens's face. Basically this message is that it takes thousands of person-hours to conceive and build an instrument like one sees here. The result was and is no less of a complex "computer" than our modern contraptions; and yet for some 600 years this machine called an "organ" qby definition had no electrity to power it. Only precise and careful crafting of woods, metals, animal skins for the bellows and wind, keys, pipes, mechanisms, cases, initial "look" when one enters the building, etc. Also needed are two or more highly trained humans to operate the thing. What am I getting at?
At thousands of "man hours" making civilization, that could and have been laid waste to. And did! One glaring irony as an example will have to suffice heŕe. It's the fairly common story of how materials from pipe organs got "requisitioned" at several junctures of the continuous wars between German and French people. "Requisition" is a nice, burocratic word for seizing and taking said materials to the 2 sides's munition factories for repurposing. In this case to kill "the opposing side." German and/or French Soldiers appeared one fine day at one of their sides's own churches. or at a church of the enemy. At first came the polite decree. But. Any resistance got a pastor or concerned citizen shot on the spot. ...with a few heroic exceptions. His name was Albert Schweitzer! Look him up.
My point, to repeat it, is how the destruction of loving, expert, humanizing, sheltering, inspiring just plain W-O-R-K can be variously "nuked" out of existence as fast as the bat of an eyelash. Or the rant of some "Führer."
Maybe pipe organs, its (his/her) tried and true music, and sacred-curated spaces for such musuc were cookie-cutter pre-Vatican II, or pre-1970. They are not now in 2024. They are at-risk.
I'm an organist in America, still crazy after all these years--to misappropriate the Paul Simon song lyrics.
Ben, yep! By common agreement, we have here the "small catechism" of works for organ that hold up against the test of time. These old manuscripts along with the buildings and the intact instruments themselves. Take the two opening selections from Bach. These are shining examples of the minimum for good taste/aesthetics, spirit, depth, dignity, intelligent design, reverence. multiple layers of meaning or put another way: potential for sacred (ie, not profane or vulgar) emotions on the part of the visitor to a church.
Ya done good m'man. ❤