Elgar Organ works
EDWARD ELGAR (1857 –1934): ORGAN WORKS
THE DOBSON ORGAN OF MERTON COLLEGE, OXFORD
Benjamin Nicholas
Recorded on 25-26 June 2015 in the Chapel of Merton College, Oxford
Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter
24-bit digital editing: Adam Binks
24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter
Cover & booklet photography © Dobson
Pipe Organ Builders Ltd
Cover design: John Christ
Booklet design: Drew Padrutt
Benjamin Nicholas photo: John Cairns
Booklet editor: John Fallas
Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk
Sonata for Organ in G major, Op. 28
I. Allegro maestoso
II. Allegretto
III. Andante espressivo
IV. Presto (comodo)
5 ‘Nimrod’ from ‘Enigma’ Variations, Op. 36 transcr. by W. H. Harris
6 Prelude to The Kingdom, Op. 51 transcr. by A. Herbert Brewer*
Gavotte transcr. by Edwin H. Lemare
Vesper Voluntaries, Op. 14
Introduction: Adagio –
I. Andante
II. Allegro
III. Andantino
IV. Allegretto piacevole
Intermezzo
V. Poco lento
VI. Moderato
VII. Allegretto pensoso
VIII. Poco allegro – Coda
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With thanks to the Warden and Fellows of the House of Scholars of Merton College, Oxford *premiere recording of this arrangement
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The first recording of Merton’s new organ –The Merton Organ (Delphian DCD34142), a mixed recital spanning repertoire from Bach and Stanley to Dupré and Messiaen – was designed to demonstrate the instrument’s considerable versatility. But behind the contemporary sophistication of its construction and design, this is essentially an English Romantic organ with a big, warm-hearted personality, securely grounded in the aesthetic traditions of the late nineteenth century, and this second recording highlights those qualities in music by the composer who pre-eminently shares them: Edward Elgar.
Curiously, Elgar was one of the few major composers who were not especially attracted by the keyboard. During his early years in Worcester his first instrument was the violin, and he also played the bassoon in an informal wind quintet with his brother and some friends. The piano was an essential requirement for a music teacher and composer, and Elgar played it well enough for his own purposes, but it was no more than a useful tool, and not a genuine source of inspiration. Another useful keyboard instrument was the organ – Elgar’s father William was organist of St George’s Catholic Church in Worcester for nearly forty years, and he encouraged his son to learn the organ too. Edward was only fifteen when he began to deputise for his father at St George’s; he continued as assistant for ten years until William’s retirement, and in 1885 accepted the
post of Organist and Choirmaster in his own right. The church offered a small salary, but little in the way of artistic stimulation: ‘I am a fullfledged organist now,’ he said, ‘& hate it!’ The main problem seems to have been the choir (‘awful’), but Elgar stayed the course for over three years until his marriage in the spring of 1889, when he moved to London. This was the end of his career as an organist. Unsurprisingly perhaps, there is no surviving organ music from those days. But within the next few years he had composed two substantial organ works in vividly contrasting styles: one looking backwards to his past life as a parish organist, the other forward to his maturity as a great symphonist and master of the orchestra.
The move to London had its compensations – the happiness of married life, the birth of a daughter, and unlimited opportunities to hear and absorb a wealth of new music in the concert hall and the opera house. But on the whole this was a difficult time: Elgar was hoping to establish himself in the capital, but he failed. His health began to suffer and in 1891 he retreated back to Worcestershire. Here, his native soil provided a more fruitful foundation for his development during the next ten years into a composer of real stature. But in London he advertised for teaching work (‘Mr Edward Elgar begs to announce that he receives PUPILS for VIOLIN, ACCOMPANIMENT, ORCHESTRATION etc’) and received no replies. And he trawled round the music publishers,
offering music and seeking commissions with similar lack of success. However, there were a few glimmers of encouragement, and one of them came from the (now long-defunct) firm of Orsborn and Tuckwood, who accepted a song and commissioned a book of short organ pieces. The title was not Elgar’s: like their other ‘popular shilling publication’, The Minster Echoes, The Vesper Voluntaries was a longrunning series of ‘Short melodies for the Organ, Harmonium, or American organ, which by their variety will be useful for Church purposes as Offertory Music, Interludes, or Voluntaries, and will certainly be welcome for their effective grace and simplicity, demanding no special executive skill in their performance’. The regular contributors were third-rate jobbing composers who churned out sentimental ‘religious’ music by the yard, often under exotic-sounding French pseudonyms. This of course was something Elgar could never do, and his contribution (Volume 26) is a real curiosity. Attracting no attention at the time, it soon went out of print, and only resurfaced with the appearance of a modern edition in 1987.
The eight voluntaries fall into two groups of four, framed by an Introduction and Coda, with a brief Intermezzo in the middle. If the regular two- and four-bar phrases and repetitive sequences perhaps betray a self-taught composer who was still finding his way, the music rarely does exactly what one expects, and its superficial simplicity conceals an
attractively individual, quirky charm. The wistful lyricism of some of these ‘short melodies’ seems more suited to a Victorian drawingroom than a church, and their elegant textures often suggest the inspiration of strings or woodwind; we can certainly hear a pizzicato cello in the bass of the fifth voluntary, and the third was transcribed from an unfinished string quartet. And while the voluntaries can be played separately, Elgar conceived the work as a whole, carefully planning a contrasting but complementary sequence of mood and key. Cohesion is provided by the two themes of the Introduction, which return in the Intermezzo and Coda, and exercise a subtle influence on some of the other pieces too. When played as it is here, with a full range of power and colour, Book 26 of The Vesper Voluntaries makes a lasting impression that belies its modest appearance on the printed page.
In the early 1890s one of Elgar’s closest friends and most loyal supporters was Hugh Blair, the acting organist of Worcester Cathedral. It was Blair who conducted the premiere of Elgar’s first major choral work, The Black Knight, in 1893, and in 1894 he commissioned a ceremonial piece, Sursum Corda, for a royal visit to the cathedral. In April 1895 Blair heard that a party of American church musicians was visiting the UK in the summer; they were coming to Worcester on 8 July, hoping to hear the fine four-manual organ which William Hill had installed in the south transept in 1874, and
Blair once again asked his old friend to write something for the occasion. Elgar clearly relished this rare opportunity to compose a substantial non-liturgical concert work, and he began to make plans for a four-movement Organ Sonata. In an initial fit of enthusiasm he found a suitable ‘intermezzo’ (Allegretto) in an existing instrumental piece, and copied and re-arranged it straight away; the transparent four-part texture with pizzicato bass and cantabile tenor melody, and the salon style of the central section, suggest that the original may have been a string quartet. But as the end of June approached, no further progress had been made. As so often with Elgar, the stimulation of an imminent deadline inspired a fever of creativity, and the other three movements were written in one week, as he proudly noted on the score, finally giving it to Blair on 3 July, five days before the recital.
At this stage in Elgar’s career things were beginning to look up. Success brought new self-belief, and the Sonata is the work of an assured and confident composer. We can only imagine Blair’s reaction when he saw it for the first time, but he was surely not expecting anything quite on this scale – a work of symphonic proportions, whose technical and registrational demands require weeks of detailed study. Lacking a truly idiomatic keyboard style, what Elgar had instinctively done was to write an orchestral work on three staves. His contemporaries in
France were claiming to write ‘symphonic’ organ music, but the surging ebb and flow of theme, texture and tone-colour in this Sonata comes far closer to a truly orchestral style of organ writing; this was conclusively proved fifty years later, when Gordon Jacob made a wonderfully effective orchestration.
With its wealth of memorable melody and tight motivic construction, the sonata-form Allegro maestoso is the work of a real symphonic composer; Elgar had never written anything like this before. The delicate Allegretto (an interlude of relaxation, an intermezzo rather than a true scherzo) leads straight into the slow movement, whose noble elegiac theme will also play a key role in the finale. Here in the Andante it is joined by, and finally combined with, a tranquillo second subject of exquisite serenity. The sonata-form finale begins with two new tunes; the lively rhythm of the first is underpinned by soft drumbeats on the pedals, while the second has a distinctly jaunty, whimsical air. In the central development section, the mood becomes darker and more pensive; the theme of the Andante returns, with other expressive motifs that are craftily derived from fragments of the jaunty tune. The recapitulation is crowned by a final appearance of the Andante theme, ending in a triumphant coda that resounds with a ‘Beethovenian energy of trumpets and drums’ (Percy Young).
Predictably, after only five days’ preparation, the premiere of the Sonata was not a success. Elgar’s devoted admirer Rosa Burley thought Blair was to blame: ‘He made a terrible mess of poor Elgar’s work. I was present at the débâcle and commiserated with the Genius’. But the composer was more generous: ‘With a splendid flash of loyalty he refused to blame the murderer, who, he said, had not had time thoroughly to study the victim.’ Novello in London refused to publish it, fearing its scale and difficulty would deter prospective buyers, but it was accepted by Breitkopf & Härtel in Germany (resulting in a foreign typeface that remains slightly disconcerting even today, being more associated with German composers). Writing more than thirty years later, an early purchaser, who bought his copy in 1896, recalled that ‘Elgar was a new name then’, and ‘no excessive enthusiasm was shown’. The conservative organ establishment was dismissive: ‘This young man certainly doesn’t know how to write for the organ!’ The Sonata was taken up by some younger players (including Ivor Atkins, the new cathedral organist, who played it at Worcester at one of his first recitals in 1898), but as late as 1930 we are told that ‘One fairly often hears single movements from it, but the opportunity to hear the whole comes more seldom.’ It was only after Elgar’s death that the Sonata gradually gained universal acceptance, and was fully recognised for what it is – a unique landmark in the literature, from the pen of one of England’s very greatest composers.
Discouraged by the negative reception, Elgar never wrote another big organ piece, though the instrument plays a significant part in many of his orchestral and choral works. As his fame increased, Novello (and other publishers too) – no doubt somewhat regretting their hasty decision over the Sonata – filled their catalogue with organ transcriptions of instrumental works, and three of these complete this programme. The earliest is the Gavotte, a pretty salon piece for violin and piano from 1885, written in a fashionable mock eighteenth-century style that recalls the work of Georgian composers like William Boyce. The ninth of the ‘Enigma’ Variations (1899) needs no introduction, but it is worth repeating that the funereal associations of Nimrod are entirely posthumous. For Elgar this was the record of a long summer evening talk with his publisher Augustus Jaeger, ‘when my friend discoursed eloquently on the slow movements of Beethoven’ – hence the tune’s subtle reference to the slow movement of the Pathétique Sonata.
The organists of the Three Choirs cathedrals were all devoted Elgarians. At Worcester, Atkins used to play the Variations and excerpts from the symphonies and concertos, while Herbert Brewer at Gloucester specialised in excerpts from the oratorios, as we can hear in his superb arrangement of the Prelude to ‘The Kingdom’. This second of Elgar’s New Testament oratorios was not completed
until 1906, three years after The Apostles, but initially he conceived them as a single work, and they are united by countless crossreferences and shared symbolic motifs. The Prelude sets the scene in Jerusalem as the disciples meet after the Ascension of Christ and begin their work to establish the church on earth. The first few pages are retrospective, with echoes of scenes from The Apostles; the ardent, aspirational music of the opening bars recalls Christ’s command, ‘Go ye therefore and teach all nations’, and then the mood darkens as Peter reflects on his own denial of Christ before the Crucifixion. The second part of the Prelude looks forward: dominated by the noble tune that Elgar called ‘New Faith’, it finally merges into a foretaste of The Kingdom’s concluding prayer, a rapturous sequence of descending chords above an ascending bass: ‘Thou, O Lord, art our Father, our Redeemer, and we are Thine.’
© 2016 David Gammie
David Gammie studied the organ with H.A. Bate and Peter Hurford, and regularly gives recitals in London and elsewhere. In 2001 he was appointed Organist and Assistant Director of Music at the Church of the Sacred Heart, Wimbledon.
Organ of Merton College, Oxford: Dobson Pipe Organ Builders, Lake City, Iowa, 2013
Great Organ (II)
Bourdon 16
Open Diapason I 8
Open Diapason II 8
Harmonic Flute 8
Chimney Flute 8
Principal 4
Spire Flute 4
Nazard 2 ⅔
Fifteenth 2
Recorder 2 Tierce 1 ³⁄₅
Mixture 19.22.26.29 IV
Trumpet 8
Tremulant
Swell to Great Choir to Great
Swell Organ (III, enclosed)
Open Diapason 8
Lieblich Gedeckt 8
Salicional 8
Voix Celeste FF 8
Principal 4
Nason Flute 4
Fifteenth 2
Mixture 15.19.22.26 IV
Double Trumpet 16
Trumpet 8
Hautboy 8
Vox Humana 8
Clarion 4
Tremulant
Choir Organ (I, enclosed)
Geigen Diapason 8
Geigen Celeste FF 8
Gedeckt 8
Gemshorn 4
Open Flute 4
Doublet 2
Sesquialtera 12.17 II
Mixture 26.29.33 III
Corno di Bassetto 8
Tremulant
Major Trumpet 8
Swell to Choir
Pedal Organ
Open Diapason 16
Subbass 16
Bourdon (Great) 16
Principal 8
Bass Flute 8
Fifteenth 4
Trombone 16
Trumpet 8
Great to Pedal
Swell to Pedal
Choir to Pedal
Zimbelstern
Mechanical key action
Electric stop & combination actions
61/32
Benjamin Nicholas is a former pupil of David Sanger for organ and Denise Ham for conducting. He held the organ scholarships at Chichester Cathedral, Lincoln College, Oxford and St Paul’s Cathedral before moving to Tewkesbury Abbey, where he directed the Abbey School Choir and oversaw its transformation into Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum of Dean Close Preparatory School. He has directed the Choir at Merton College, Oxford since 2008, and in 2012 became the first full-time Reed Rubin Organist and Director of Music at Merton.
During Benjamin’s time at Merton, the College has established the annual ‘Passiontide at Merton’ festival, and in 2013 the new Dobson organ was installed, a project with which he was closely involved. He made the instrument’s first solo recording (The Merton Organ, DCD34142) in 2014. With Merton College Choir, Benjamin has toured internationally, given concerts in the Cadogan Hall and the
Temple Church, and broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and BBC Television, as well as recording five CDs to date. He also recorded extensively for Delphian as the founding director of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum, including discs of Weelkes, Mozart, Stanford and Rutter. Other recent performances as a conductor have included Holst’s Sāvitri in the Cheltenham Music Festival, Mozart’s Requiem in SaintGermain-des-Prés, and Elgar’s The Dream of Gerontius with Oxford Philomusica.
Benjamin Nicholas has collaborated with numerous composers, and is a significant force in the creation of new choral repertoire. He is partly responsible for the Merton Choirbook, upward of fifty-five pieces commissioned to celebrate the 750th anniversary of the College in 2014, and has conducted the premieres of – among other works – Gabriel Jackson’s The Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ in Oxford and New York, and of new choral works by Birtwistle, Dove, MacMillan, Saxton and Weir.
The Merton Organ: the new Dobson organ of Merton College, Oxford
Benjamin Nicholas DCD34142
In a golden age of organ-building, Merton College’s new Dobson instrument stands out as exceptional. It is only the third American-built organ sent to the UK since the Second World War, a bold commissioning choice by Benjamin Nicholas, Reed Rubin Organist and Director of Music, and his colleagues in Merton’s recently established choral foundation. From the pre-pedalboard sophistication of native Stanley, to the mesmerising hues of Messiaen – and encompassing snapshots from the instrument’s vast literature in between – Nicholas combines flair and intelligence as he presents the stunning instrument he helped mastermind.
‘lithe, supple and pleasingly nuanced performances … Delphian’s characteristically clear, focused and framed recording’ — Choir & Organ, May/June 2014
In the Beginning Choir of Merton College, Oxford / Benjamin Nicholas & Peter Phillips
DCD34072
Established in 2008, Merton College’s new choral foundation is rapidly emerging as a major force in collegiate choral music. Its debut recording – bookended by Gabriel Jackson’s ravishing version of the rarely set Johannine Prologue and Copland’s glowing account of the first seven days of creation – makes inventive play with the theme of beginnings and endings, in a sequence of Renaissance and modern works that reflects the range and reach of the choir’s daily repertoire.
‘… will undoubtedly establish them as one of the UK’s finest choral ensembles. Listening to their superb performances and seamless blending of voices, it’s hard to believe that the choir is only four years old’ — Gramophone, December 2011, EDITOR’S CHOICE
Advent at Merton Choir of Merton College, Oxford / Benjamin Nicholas & Peter Phillips
DCD34122
The beginning of Advent is celebrated with a particular solemnity at Merton. For its second recording, the choir explores the musical riches that adorn this most special time in the church’s year, centring on a newly commissioned sequence of Magnificat antiphons from seven leading composers including Howard Skempton, Eˉriks Ešenvalds and Sir John Tavener. The mingled hopes, fears and expectations of the season are beautifully articulated by this fervent body of young singers.
‘an immensely accomplished and responsive mixed-voice choir … Delphian’s recorded sound is beautiful’
— International Record Review, December 2012
The Merton Collection: Merton College at 750 Choir of Merton College, Oxford / Benjamin Nicholas & Peter Phillips DCD34134
In 2014, the University of Oxford’s Merton College celebrates its 750th year. Benjamin Nicholas and Peter Phillips’ specially conceived journey through seven centuries of choral repertoire provides a bird’s-eye view of some important moments in musical history, and features two composers personally associated with the College – John Dunstaple and Lennox Berkeley – as well as three new works commissioned for the anniversary celebrations. The choir, a relatively recent addition to this illustrious college’s complement of treasures, gives stylish and committed performances in the famous acoustic of Merton’s thirteenth-century chapel.
‘fine musicianship, commitment and versatility … emotion untarnished by world-weariness’ — Choir & Organ, January/February 2014
The Marian Collection
Choir of Merton College, Oxford / Benjamin Nicholas & Peter Phillips
DCD34144
A new work by Judith Weir (newly appointed Master of the Queen’s Music) heads a set of the four Marian antiphons, all specially commissioned from female composers, while two further premiere recordings represent the work of regular Merton collaborators Gabriel Jackson and Matthew Martin. At the other end of the chronological spectrum, Peter Phillips’ expert direction of Byrd’s rarely performed Salve Regina, a bold statement of Catholic faith from Reformation England, and of John Nesbett’s Eton
Choirbook Magnificat, a piece whose neglect on disc is astonishing, completes this portrait in sound of a woman who is at once virgin and mother, human and God-bearer, suppliant and Queen of Heaven.
‘astonishing versatility’ — Gramophone, December 2014
Viri Galilaei: Favourite Anthems from Merton
Choir of Merton College, Oxford / Benjamin Nicholas & Peter Phillips
DCD34174
Now firmly established amongst Oxbridge’s finest choral foundations and at the same time certainly its youngest, the Choir of Merton College can be relied upon to present a selection of favourite anthems which similarly combines fresh inspiration with timeless musical values. The choir’s fifth Delphian recording in five years again showcases the talents of its joint directors Benjamin Nicholas and Peter Phillips, with Phillips’ love of polyphony complemented by Nicholas’s flair and commitment in some of the twentieth century’s major choral works. Bookending these ‘favourites’ are Patrick Gowers’ now iconic Ascension Day anthem Viri Galilaei and Jonathan Dove’s newly minted Te Deum, commissioned by Merton College as part of the Merton Choirbook – the largest series of commissions of its kind in modern times, created in celebration of the College’s 750th anniversary.
New in March 2016
The Organ of Rochdale Town Hall (Overture Transcriptions Vol II)
Timothy Byram-Wigfield
DCD34143
Built in an extravagant Gothic style, Rochdale Town Hall is one of the most impressive examples of the civic pride of the Victorian and Edwardian eras. Positioned within is J.J. Binns’ fine organ, proudly displayed in three beautifully crafted wooden cases. At its high point, the British town hall organ tradition represented something entirely new and extraordinary, in social, mechanical, aesthetic and commercial terms; and the transcriptions made for these colossal instruments demonstrate remarkable syntheses of ingenuity, skill and ambition on the part of both organ-builders and musical arrangers. Timothy Byram-Wigfield here follows up on his celebrated 2004 exploration of orchestral overtures at the organ of the Kelvingrove Gallery in Glasgow.
New in February 2016
The Usher Hall Organ Vol II
John Kitchen
DCD34132
The Usher Hall’s monumental organ celebrated its 100th birthday in 2014. Delphian artist and Edinburgh City Organist John Kitchen has established a hugely popular series of concerts at the Hall, and draws on its repertoire to follow up his 2004 recording of the then newly restored instrument with a programme that further represents the vast variety of music that draws in the Edinburgh crowds. Opening with an evocative new work by Cecilia McDowall, the first part of the programme resounds with the theme of bells (including the instrument’s extraordinary carillon). Jeremy Cull contributes a compelling transcription of Hamish MacCunn’s The Land of the Mountain and the Flood, while a recital of this nature wouldn’t be complete without a major piece of Bach, here dispatched with appropriately Edwardian swagger.
‘performances that blend aesthetic nuance with bravura showmanship … Delphian’s vivid recorded sound adds to the considerable pleasure’
— Choir & Organ, May/June 2015, *****
