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November 2018

Walter Henry “Chick” Holtkamp, Jr., of Cleveland, Ohio, died August 27, aged 89. He was a graduate of Western Reserve Academy (1947) and University of Chicago (1951), and served in the United States Navy for four years. He then joined the…
Shifty and puffy It is mid-September in mid-coast Maine, and the days are getting shorter. Sunset here is about sixteen minutes earlier than in New York City, as we are as far east as we are north of the Big Apple. There are four windows…
Further thoughts on counterpoint Recently, a student asked me during a lesson to remind him about voices: what they were and how to approach them while working on a piece. This surprised me, since we had already dealt with this fundamental…
Recent recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations Now universally known as the Goldberg Variations, Johann Sebastian Bach’s self-financed 1741 publication of his most extensive set of diverse variants on a simple theme bears this title on…
The English-Canadian composer Healey Willan had a lifelong love of sacred music. Gregorian chant, sacred polyphony, and organ music were his lifeblood. The “Dean of Canadian Composers” wrote over 850 works, including operas, symphonies,…
Editor’s note: Part 1 of this article was published in the August 2018 issue of The Diapason, pages 16–19. Part 2 was published in the September 2018 issue, pages 20–25. See the October 2018 issue, pages 26–28 for Part 3.   A graphical…
Fratelli Ruffatti, Padua, Italy Buckfast Abbey,  Devon, United Kingdom The sound Designing an organ presents many challenges, many of which are related to making the instrument fit tonally and visually into the building which will be its…