Carleton Etherington plays
the Grove and Milton organs of Tewkesbury Abbey
plays the Grove and Milton organs of Tewkesbury Abbey
Played on the Grove organ
1 Grand Chœur Triomphal, Op. 47, No. 2 [5:58]
(from L’Organiste Pratique)
Alexandre Guilmant (1837 - 1911)
2 Intermezzo in D flat [6:46]
Alfred Hollins (1865 - 1942)
Played on the Milton organ
3 Toccata [5:22]
(No. 3 from Suite, Op. 70)
Paul Creston (1906 - 1985)
4 Valse mignonne [5:57]
(No. 2 from Drei Stücke: Three New Impressions, Op. 142)
Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877 - 1933)
Recorded on 26 May, 2010 in Tewkesbury Abbey, Gloucestershire
Registration Asst: James Atherton
Producer & Engineer: Paul Baxter
24-bit digital editing: Adam Binks
24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter
Photograph editing: Dr Raymond Parks
Design: Drew Padrutt
Booklet editor: Andrew Caskie Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK www.delphianrecords.co.uk
Recorded in Tewkesbury Abbey and images used by kind permission of the Vicar and Churchwardens
5 Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 23 [18:31]
August Gottfried Ritter (1811 - 1885)
I Rasch
II Nicht Schleppend
III Rasch
IV Entschlossen
Played on the Grove organ
6 Concert Fantasia on a Welsh March [11:20]
William Thomas Best (1826 - 1897)
7 Cantilène [3:41] (No. 9 from Dix Pièces, Op. 48)
Théodore Salomé (1834 - 1896)
Played on the Milton organ
8 Variations on an Original Theme, Op. 58 [10:44] Flor Peeters (1903 - 1986)
Played on the Grove organ
9 Toccata de la Libération, Op. 37 [7:47] Léonce de Saint-Martin (1886 - 1954)
Total playing time [76:13]
Few ecclesiastical buildings in the United Kingdom can boast possessing two pipe organs; of those that can, fewer still can rival the quality of the Grove and Milton organs in Tewkesbury’s magnificent Norman abbey. The fact that Tewkesbury has two instruments at all is down to a mixture of nineteenth century oneupmanship and historical curiosity. (A detailed history of both organs can be found later in this booklet.) This recording demonstrates the unique qualities of each instrument in a programme of concert organ works by some of the finest organists and composers of the past two centuries.
In France the existence of two organs in even the most modest of churches is de rigueur. Nineteenth century liturgical practice in Catholic France dictated that the choir – at the east end of the building – would be accompanied by its own instrument (a small orgue de chœur), whilst the congregation in the main body of the building would be accompanied by the grand orgue – a larger, more powerful, and certainly more visually dominant instrument sited on the west gallery. By the second half of the nineteenth century these grandes orgues were to become bigger and more tonally flexible, largely due to the genius of the organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll: he responded to the demands of greatest organist-composers of the day – including Franck, Widor and Vierne – and as a result, his great instruments were to become ideal vehicles for the technical and
musical challenges demanded by their new French symphonic school.
Alexandre Guilmant was one of the founding fathers of this new school of organ composition. He was organist at the church of La Trinitè in Paris from 1871 to 1901 and was one of the most travelled concert organists of his day, making frequent recital tours to the USA and the UK. Whilst it can legitimately be argued that much of what he wrote for the organ is rather insipid, a significant proportion of his output remains in the repertoire, including eight sonatas, and the collections Pièces dans différents styles and L’Organiste Pratique; the former consists mostly of recital pieces, whilst the latter contains music for the liturgical organist and has pieces based on plainchant as well as movements designed to accompany all aspects of the liturgy. Included in L’Organiste Pratique is the Grand Chœur Triomphal of 1876 – a splendid march in A major complete with fanfares for the solo reeds: this type of music was designed to be the ideal concluding voluntary (or ‘sortie’) – played on the grand orgue of course – to send the faithful home after the Sunday mass. During Guilmant’s tenure as organist at La Trinitè, he had a number of assistants who presided at the orgue de chœur: one of these was Théodore Salomé; he was professor at the Paris Conservatoire and a distinguished player and composer in his own right whose talents were somewhat overshadowed by his more
famous colleague. His charming Cantilène was published in his first set of Dix pièces of 1875, and is characterised by a gentle melody played on an oboe register accompanied by off-beat chords on the flutes.
Relationships between organists and their colleagues can often be fraught: this was certainly the case whilst the celebrated blind organist Louis Vierne was organiste titulaire at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris; he held the post from 1900 until his untimely death mid-recital in 1937. His assistant from 1930 was the Vicompte Léonce de Saint-Martin, a flamboyant amateur organist with an aristocratic pedigree. Such were the difficulties between the two men that they were alleged to communicate only by means of leaving messages for each other! After Vierne’s death, Saint-Martin stayed on as organist – an appointment that caused much scandal within the Parisian organ world: many felt that there were more worthy applicants to fill this prestigious post.
To his credit, Saint-Martin was a fine organist and improviser, and his organ compositions are often forward-looking and well-constructed, if a little overlooked by most organists. His best-known work is the Toccata de la Libération – a fiery piece in the classic French toccata mould composed to celebrate the liberation of occupied Paris in 1944. Cascades of fortissimo arpeggios in the manuals accompany a thundering pedal tune whose first six notes bear an uncanny resemblance to the Scottish song Charlie is my Darling!
It must have been something of a coup for the organ builders Michell & Thynne to hear the legendary organist William Thomas Best proclaim their latest instrument (on show at the Liverpool Exhibition of 1886) to be ‘the finest organ of its kind that I have ever played upon.’ Their ‘model organ’ was designed to be as flexible as possible within the confines of the smallest number of stops, and the result was an immediate success: its first appearance at the 1885 Inventions Exhibition in London caused something of a sensation amongst the organ cognoscenti. The blind organist Alfred Hollins, not long out of college, was one of a number of players who gave regular recitals on the instrument both at the London exhibition, and subsequently the following year in Liverpool. Hollins and Best became good friends and the young Hollins was hotly tipped to succeed Best as organist at St George’s Hall in Liverpool; in the end he was pipped to the post by a (then) more distinguished, but musically inferior, organist.
Like Cavaillé-Coll’s revolutionary organs, Michell & Thynne’s instrument was equipped with the latest ‘mod cons’ to allow the player to control more precisely rapid changes of colour and texture; the compositions of organists such as Best and Hollins therefore fit it like a glove. Best was one of the first of a great line of British concert organists that dominated the Victorian and Edwardian eras, and presided over the magnificent ‘Father’ Willis organ in St
George’s Hall, Liverpool from 1855 to 1895. His recitals attracted capacity audiences and his programmes included ‘everything worth playing that had ever been written for the organ, and everything in classical music that could be arranged for it.’ Whilst his reputation rests chiefly on his transcriptions, he composed a substantial number of original works, most of them designed for concert performance. The Fantasia on a Welsh March is the second of four concert fantasias, and comprises a colourful set of variations on the tune Men of Harlech. After a grand introduction, the theme is slowly exposed, before a full statement appears in the style of a stately march: ingenious treatments of the theme follow, including a virtuosic scherzo, in which the tune in the left hand is accompanied by a quicksilver flurry of semiquavers in the right hand. This style of flamboyant writing not only showed off the prodigious technique of the player, but also demonstrated the tonal and technical capabilities of these organs. By way of contrast, Hollins’ delightful Intermezzo allows the listener to hear some of the softer and more subtle registers of the Grove organ. Its lilting melody is given to the Swell oboe stop, accompanied by somewhat pianistic arpeggios (Hollins’ first study was piano); a central section on the string stops offers a calm interlude, but as with much of Hollins’ music, this ends up as a counterpoint to the initial material – a characteristic musical device of his.
Unlike virtually any other musical instruments, pipe organs can be altered, restored or rebuilt at various times in their long lives. Opinions about how organs sound or how they are constructed depend very much on the fashions of any given period of time: many a fine instrument has been ruined thought thoughtless tampering or ill-judged ‘improvements.’ Michell & Thynne’s Grove organ has happily survived the ravages of such vogues and remains in its original condition, sounding now as it did at the end of the nineteenth century. Tewkesbury Abbey’s other organ – known as the Milton – is a fine example of enlargement and rebuilding over the decades, resulting in its current incarnation as a flexible and thoroughly contemporary instrument capable of interpreting a wide spectrum of the repertoire; the other four items on this recording demonstrate this versatility to the full.
The German composer August Gottfried Ritter was very much the musical polymath. He held organists’ posts at Erfurt, Merseburg and at Magdeburg Cathedral; in addition he was an influential teacher, musicologist and editor. His music has, until recently, been neglected, partly due to its technical demands and often forbidding character; his four organ sonatas were composed between 1847 and 1856 and demonstrate a wide variety of compositional techniques and structures. By the middle of the nineteenth century, the notion of what
constituted a sonata was open to interpretation. The classical models of Mozart and Haydn were by then in the past, but the enduring idea of a sonata ‘form’ – with elements of recurring musical ideas, development and recapitulation – were still very much in place: one has only to listen to Liszt’s Piano Sonata in B minor to experience this. (Ritter was contemporary with Liszt – both born in 1811 - and would have known the organ at Merseburg Cathedral where many of Liszt’s organ works were premiered.) Ritter’s third sonata in A minor dates from the mid-1850s, and is a large-scale work, which, although cast in a single movement, has five distinct sections. Various elements characterise the musical arguments: an opening toccata with florid keyboard figuration; elements of recitative; intimate trio textures; a solemn chorale; and a majestic march. What seems rather disparate on the printed page becomes a unified whole as all the musical ideas work together, leading to a concluding fugue. Ultimately this music is a fascinating amalgam of formal Classical rhetoric and heady Romantic emotion.
Like Alexandre Guilmant, the Belgian organist Flor Peeters was a highly respected teacher and influenced many generations of organists after him; like his French predecessor, he was a well-travelled recitalist, completing ten tours of the United States. Whilst his music often has francophile tendencies, there is a distinct neo-classical air in many of his compositions
too: this was probably a result of his extensive research into – and editing of – early keyboard music from composers as diverse as John Bull, Byrd, Josquin and Sweelinck. It was through his editions that many of these composers’ works became available in the years after World War II. The Variations on an original theme were published in 1945 and display a variety of compositional treatments of his modal theme: these include a two-part invention in the manuals; a whimsical trio; a luscious canon; a scintillating toccata à la française; a chorale prelude in the style of J.S. Bach; and a final statement on full organ.
Sigfrid Karg-Elert was one of the organ world’s more colourful and eccentric characters: contemporary accounts from his friends reveal him to be fond of practical jokes and having a very short temper. He admitted himself that he was filled with ‘nervous restlessness, mystical and fantastic visions and burning passions...’ His output for the organ is as varied and colourful as the man himself: this includes a large-scale symphony, a staggering set of 54 variations on a theme of Handel, chorale improvisations and a whole host of character pieces – all revealing an inventive and forwardlooking musical mind. Many of his larger pieces were conceived with German romantic organs in mind, with their endless array of symphonic tone-colours, and his scores are often full of very precise directions to the player as to the musical effects or textures he wishes to be
employed. His music has always been popular in Britain, thanks in no small part to the efforts of a few friends and colleagues who encouraged some of the London publishing houses to print some of his work. His collection of Three New Impressions date from 1930 and were originally part of a set of five pieces inspired by having spent a day playing a cinema organ in Germany. In a letter to the English organist Godfrey Sceats, Karg-Elert wrote:
I have written Five Pastels for the Cinema-Organ [sic] … No 3 [originally entitled Valse languende] is rather schmaltzy and downright sugary. I don’t have much of an affinity with such things otherwise, and they will remain exceptions... May Saint Cecilia forgive me my sins!
This waltz was later renamed Valse mignonne, and reveals the composer to be a master of the grotesque: indeed its saccharine harmonies and often outrageous registrations conjure up images more redolent of the hedonistic jazz bars of the Weimar Republic than the concert hall!
American composer Paul Creston studied the organ with the Italian virtuoso Pietro Yon, but is primarily known for his instrumental and orchestral works, including a famous concerto for marimba. Although entirely self-taught as a composer, he cited the music of Debussy and Ravel as strong influences, and this is evident in the Suite composed in 1959. The Toccata that concludes the set of three pieces is as virtuosic and colourful as any of the great French essays in the genre. The music is characterised by a
constant semiquaver figuration: a whole-tone infused melody emerges from this torrent of sextuplets, which later returns at the climax, this time with the devilish semiquavers played in the pedals. Because of its wholetone elements, the harmony throughout is in constant flux, but hints all the time at the key of B major: the triumphant coda eventually affirms this tonality in no uncertain terms.
© Jeremy Cull 2011
Dr Jeremy Cull is Organist at the Reid Memorial Church, Edinburgh, and maintains a busy schedule as recitalist, accompanist and arranger. He is a keen advocate of organ transcriptions and his arrangements are published by Animus.
The Grove Organ
Tewkesbury Abbey is fortunate to have two substantial pipe organs, both with fascinating histories.
The Grove organ holds a place in the history of British organ building far beyond its long-forgotten builders. Carlton Michell and William Thyne were employees of the London organ builder Thomas Lewis, who set up independently to build an organ for the 1885 Inventions Exhibition. Their aim was to ‘attempt to place in the hands of the player a grand and complete organ reduced to the smallest possible dimensions as regards the number of [stops]’. The organ was exhibited again at the Liverpool Exhibition the following year, where the celebrated city organist W.T. Best pronounced it ‘the finest organ of its kind that I have ever played upon’.
In 1887, the Reverend C.W. Grove, a great benefactor to Tewkesbury Abbey, purchased the organ and presented it to the Abbey to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. It was placed in the north transept where it has remained ever since.
Plans for drastic enlargement in the context of the 1948 Walker rebuild of the Milton organ came to nought and the Grove organ survived unscathed until a conservative restoration in 1980-81 by Bishop & Son, the only modification being the insertion of the five largest pedal pipes acquired from the then recently redundant organ in Christ Church, Oxford. The re-opening recital was given by Dr Francis Jackson of York Minster. The organ features bold choruses that show a development upon Lewis’ Schulze-inspired style. The brassy reed stops must have sounded thrillingly fierce in an age when ultra-smooth tone was increasingly desired. The result is an outstanding instrument that has a magisterial presence and clarity, all the more astonishing given the modest number of stops.
The short-lived partnership of Michell and Thyne separated when Michel emigrated to America in the late 1880s. Thyne continued organ building on his own but never reached the spectacular heights of the Grove instrument – a most unlikely but very precious Victorian ‘onehit wonder’.
In 1631, the English organ builder Robert Dallam built a new instrument for Magdalen College, Oxford. It was then appropriated in 1654 by Oliver Cromwell for his personal use in Hampton Court Palace, where the poet John Milton is reputed to have played it. The instrument was re-erected in Magdalen College in 1661 and remodelled in 1690 by Dallam’s grandson, Renatus Harris.
The organ was sold to Tewkesbury Abbey in 1736 and later placed on a special stone screen constructed on the site of the medieval pulpitum. The Dallam organ case remains in Tewkesbury to this day and is among the oldest organ cases in Britain. The organ was enlarged by John Holland in 1796 and rebuilt in 1848 by ‘Father’ Henry Willis.
Andrew Caskie is Director of Music at Palmerston Place Church, Edinburgh, acts as Delphian’s booklet editor and is active around Scotland as a writer, accompanist, consultant and recitalist. The Milton Organ
In 1948, a rebuilding scheme on a grand scale was started by the firm of J.W. Walker under the direction of the then Abbey organist Huskisson Stubington. A new five-manual console with over 200 stop-keys was fitted, the never-realised intention being that by electrical
means both the Grove and considerably extended Milton organs could be played together from the Milton console.
The Milton organ was reconstructed in 1997 by Kenneth Jones and Associates of Bray as a discrete four-manual 68-stop instrument. The lower three keyboards have mechanical action, whilst the Solo and Apse divisions have electropneumatic action.
The inaugural recital was given in May 1997 by Nicolas Kynaston, who also acted as organ consultant. Although there are clear Willis influences, the organ now speaks as a modern cathedral instrument of refined and eclectic style.
© Andrew Caskie 2011
Carleton Etherington
Carleton Etherington is Organist and Director of Music of Tewkesbury Abbey, in which capacity he directs the Abbey Choir and accompanies the Schola Cantorum. He is also conductor of Pershore and Cirencester Choral Societies and a member of the music staff at the Dean Close Schools. Educated at Chetham’s School of Music, Manchester and The Royal Academy of Music, London, he is a former winner of the Paisley International Organ Competition and a former Royal College of Organists Performer of the Year. As a recitalist, he has performed at most of the major British venues and has toured abroad in the USA, Australia and Europe. He has broadcast many times on BBC Radio and has several recordings to his credit, both as a soloist and accompanist, all of which have been warmly received by the critics.
Also available on Delphian
Stanford Choral Music
Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum
Carleton Etherington organ / Benjamin Nicholas director (DCD34087)
The boys and men of Tewkesbury Abbey Schola Cantorum turn their attentions to that doyen of Anglican church music, Charles Villiers Stanford.
Sung with characteristic vigour and freshness, the programme includes the six little-known Bible Songs, each followed by its associated hymn.
‘Under Benjamin Nicholas, director of the Abbey’s Schola Cantorum, the choir has developed a strong style, remarkable for its sense of commitment as for the sonority of its tone and the assurance of its delivery. The trebles splendidly vindicate the tradition that places them at the heart of English cathedral music.’
– Gramophone, April 2009
The Kelvingrove Organ
Timothy Byram-Wigfield (DCD34004)
Timothy Byram-Wigfield, currently Master of Music at St George’s Chapel, Windsor, plays a variety of Edwardian transcriptions on one of the world’s finest concert organs, the Lewis organ in Glasgow’s Kelvingrove Art Gallery & Museum.
‘Exhilarating … Never daunted by the fearsome difficulties of many of Lemare’s and Best’s arrangements, Byram-Wigfield delights in finding just the right sounds, textures and tempi to make these works sound like real organ music. There is delicacy, humour, drive, vigour, lightness of touch and heroic utterance here, to which these fine compositions respond by revealing their all. I love it!’ – Organists’ Review, 2004
