Prodigy Organists of the Past

by James B. Hartman

James B. Hartman is Senior Academic Editor for publications of the Distance Education Program, Continuing Education Division, The University of Manitoba. His recent publications include articles on the early histories of music and theater in Manitoba. He is a frequent contributor of book reviews and articles to The Diapason.

                  All excellent things are as difficult as they are rare.

--Baruch Spinoza, Ethics (1677)

 

The organ has been a prominent feature of the musical life of Canada since the earliest days of the first European settlement. The first organs were brought from France to Québec City around 1600 and organbuilding flourished mainly in Québec and Ontario from the mid-nineteenth century onward.1 Growth in organbuilding accelerated in the years 1880-1950 following the establishment of Casavant Frères in 1879 in Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec. Therefore it is not surprising that organists became prominent around the same time.

As soon as trained musicians began arriving in Canada, usually from England, many of them opened music studios to offer private instruction in piano, voice, organ, and violin. Some were also active in community orchestras or served as church organists and choirmasters. A few took employment in local music stores to supplement their meagre income from professional duties. With the advent of silent films in the early 1900s some organists obtained positions at theaters that had installed pipe organs where they played improvised or specially arranged accompaniments to the events unfolding on the silver screen.

Although the great majority of organists were known only in their local communities, some gifted individuals achieved wider recognition by making exceptional contributions to the musical culture of the country. This article will chronicle the careers and accomplishments of seven such outstanding organists who were active in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Frederick H. Torrington (1837- 1917) was born in Dudley, near Birmingham, England, where he received his early musical training. Later studies in piano, organ, theory, and choral music led to his position as organist at St. Ann's Church in Bewdley at the age of sixteen.

Torrington moved to Canada in 1856, first working as a piano tuner in Montréal then as organist-choirmaster at St. James Street Methodist Church. He taught privately and at several schools, and conducted instrumental and choral groups, including the Montréal Amateur Musical Union. For three years he was bandmaster of the 25th Regiment, Queen's Own Borderers. In 1869 he organized the Canadian section of an orchestra that performed in the First Peace Jubilee in Boston. In the same year he settled in Boston to become organist at King's Chapel and to join the New England Conservatory of Music as teacher of piano and organ; he also conducted various choral groups and was violinist in the Harvard (later Boston) Symphony Orchestra. He gave organ recitals in Boston, New York, and other eastern cities.

In 1873 Torrington returned to Canada to become organist-choirmaster at Metropolitan Methodist Church in Toronto and conductor of the Toronto Philharmonic Society 1873-94. His influence on the musical life of Toronto included conducting choral-orchestral works and organizing musical festivals. Other activities included director of music at the Ontario Ladies' College in Whitby, conductor of the Hamilton Philharmonic Society in the 1880s, and founder of the Toronto Conservatory of Music in 1888, serving as its director until his death.

In the late 1880s Torrington became president of a group modelled on the Royal College of Organists, founded in England in 1864, dedicated to uniting organists and raising the standards of the profession. Although his group did not last for long, it was a predecessor of the Canadian College of Organists, founded in 1909. Torrington's work with various amateur orchestras led to the formal establishment of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1906. He left his organist post at Metropolitan Church in 1907 for a similar position at High Park Methodist Church.

It should be recalled that in these times the organ was regarded as a substitute for the orchestra; consequently, organ recital programs usually included a number of transcriptions. For example, one of Torrington's recitals in 1869 included Rossini's William Tell Overture and the Andante from Beethoven's Septet on the same program with Mendelssohn's Organ Sonata No. 1. Nevertheless, Torrington championed the music of Bach, and his performances of the master's works were enthusiastically received by his audiences. He composed several patriotic songs, a choral work, and some organ music.

Herbert A. Fricker (1868-1943) was born in Canterbury, England, where he received his early musical training as a chorister, and later as assistant organist, at Canterbury Cathedral. In London he studied with Frederick Bridge and Edwin Lemare. His subsequent career in Leeds included city organist, symphony orchestra founder and conductor, and festival choirmaster, along with other positions as organist in various churches and schools, and as a choral society conductor.

Fricker came to Canada in 1917 to become conductor of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir, a position he held until 1942. His cross-border musical activities began immediately with his choir's program with the Philadelphia Symphony Orchestra under Leopold Stokowski in 1918; this reciprocal association continued for seven years. Under Fricker's leadership the choir gave Canadian premieres of several major choral works by such composers as Beethoven, Berlioz, and Walton. Fricker served as organist at Metropolitan United Church, Toronto 1917-43, organ instructor at the Toronto Conservatory of Music 1918-32, staff member at the University of Toronto, and conductor of the Canadian National Exhibition chorus 1922-34. He was an active organ recitalist and adjudicated many competition festivals. He was president of the Canadian College of Organists 1925-6.

Fricker composed several organ works and made arrangements for organ, all published by various London firms. His choral pieces included both sacred and secular works. Over his lifetime Fricker accumulated an extensive library of books and musical scores that were given to Toronto libraries after his death.

William Hewlett (1873-1940) was born in Batheaston, England, where he was a choirboy at Bath Abbey before moving to Canada with his family in 1884.

In his new country he enrolled at the Toronto Conservatory of Music where he studied organ, piano, theory, and orchestration, graduating in 1893 with a gold medal for organ playing and extemporization. While in Toronto he served as organist-choirmaster at Carlton Street Methodist Church at the age of seventeen. In 1895 he moved to London, Ontario, to become organist-choirmaster at Dundas Centre Methodist Church and conductor of the London Vocal Society 1896-1902. Later he moved to Hamilton, Ontario, to become musical director at Centenary Methodist Church 1902-38; his Twilight Recitals on Saturday afternoons were a significant aspect of the Hamilton music scene for about twenty-five years. He was one of the founders of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir and served as its first accompanist 1895-7, and he accompanied the celebrated singers Ernestine Schumann-Heink and Dame Clara Butt when they visited Canada. He was one of the co-directors of the Hamilton Conservatory of Music and served as its sole principal 1918-39; during this time he travelled widely in Canada as adjudicator and examiner. He conducted the Elgar Choir, which was frequently joined by the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra. In 1927 he conducted a 1000-voice choir in a celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the Confederation of Canada.

Hewlett was a prolific composer in the smaller forms; he contributed to the Methodist Hymn and Tune Book (1917) and was one of the compilers of the United Church Hymnary (1930). He was one of the most respected Canadian organists of his generation and an expert on church organ installations. He served as national president of the Canadian College of Organists 1928-9.

Healey Willan (1880-1968) was born in Balham (later part of London), England, and was taught music at the age of four by his mother and his governess. At the age of eight he entered St. Saviour's Choir School, Eastbourne, where he studied piano and organ. By the age of eleven he directed the choir and alternated with the incumbent organist in playing evensong services. After private organ study in London he served as organist-choirmaster at three churches in various parts of England in succession 1898-1913. During this time he developed a reputation as an authority on plainchant in the vernacular (i.e., English, not Latin).

Willan came to Canada in 1913 to head the theory department of the Toronto Conservatory of Music and to become organist-choirmaster at St. Paul's Anglican Church, Toronto. His recital programs around this time exhibited his comprehensive repertoire, including much English music. In 1914 he was appointed lecturer and examiner for the University of Toronto and served as director of the university's Hart House Theatre, writing and conducting music for plays. He was vice-principal of the Toronto Conservatory of Music 1919-25 but his position was terminated as an economy measure and possibly on account of internal politicking involving Ernest MacMillan (see below). In 1921 he became organist-choirmaster at the Anglican Church of St. Mary Magdalene, an association that continued until his death; while there he introduced an Anglo-Catholic style of service music.

Apparently Willan possessed a facetious brand of wit: he was heard to say that the organ was a dull instrument, that organ recitals bored him, and that he was unable to play his own major compositions. On being elected president of the Arts and Letters Club of Toronto in 1923 he promptly set its constitution to music.

Willan held many influential appointments: member of the Arts and Letters Club for fifty years, president 1923; president of the Canadian College of Organists 1922-3, 1933-5; honorary president and life member of the Royal Canadian College of Organists; university organist at the University of Toronto 1932-64 and teacher of counterpoint and composition 1937-50; president of the Authors and Composers Association of Canada 1933; chairman of the board of examiners of Bishop's University; summer guest lecturer at the University of Michigan 1937, 1938; chairman of the British Organ Restoration Fund to help finance the rebuilding of the organ at Coventry Cathedral 1943; summer guest lecturer at the University of California at Los Angeles 1949; co-founder and musical director of the Gregorian Association of Toronto, 1950; founder and musical director of the Toronto Diocesan Choir School; and fellow of the Ancient Monuments Society of England. He was commissioned to compose an anthem for the coronation of Elizabeth II in 1953, the first nonresident of Britain to be so honored.

Willan's public honors included the Canada Council Medal 1961, Companion of the Order of Canada 1967, and a diploma from the Province of Ontario in recognition of his role in Canadian musical life. A group of his admirers formed the Healey Willan Centennial Celebration Committee to encourage activities marking the centenary of his birth in 1980, and the Canada Post Office issued a commemorative stamp bearing his portrait.2

Willan was a prolific composer. His works encompassed dramatic music, vocal music with instrumental ensemble, works for orchestra and band, chamber music, piano works, organ works,3 and choral works; many of the latter have been recorded by groups in Canada, the USA, and England. He also wrote twenty-four articles on church music and organ playing.4

Lynwood Farnam (1885-1930), who became a legend in the organ world, was born in Sutton, Québec, a small town southeast of Montréal. Following basic musical training he continued his studies for three years as a scholarship student at the Royal College of Music in London, England, beginning in 1900. He held several church positions in Montréal and taught at the McGill Conservatorium until accepting a post at Emmanuel Church, Boston, in 1913. The story is that he impressed the audition committee by presenting a list of 200 pieces that he had committed to memory, stating that he was willing to perform any of them; he was hired immediately.

After overseas service during the war Farnam became organist-choirmaster at Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, in 1919. By the time he played his last recital there in 1920 he had given 500 organ recitals. As a concert organist his performances were noted for their flawless technique, infallible memory, and profound musicianship. His reputation was consolidated among his colleagues by a dazzling performance for the American Guild of Organists in 1920. In 1925 he made organ rolls for two companies that manufactured player organs. 

Farnam's New York fame gained him an appointment in 1927 as head of the organ department at the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, where he taught weekly until his death at the age of forty-five. His pupils included a number of prominent Canadian and American organists. At the climax of his career in 1928-9 he played the complete organ works of Bach in twenty recitals in New York, repeating each program at least once in response to public demand.

Although Farnam did no improvising and composed only one piece for organ, he was one of the great interpreters of his time, introducing North American and European audiences to contemporary organ music, particularly that of French and American composers, as well as to the forerunners of Bach. Louis Vierne dedicated his Organ Symphony No. 6 (1931) to Farnam's memory.

Ernest MacMillan (1893-1973) was born in Mimico (Metropolitan Toronto), the son of a Scottish Presbyterian minister who became an internationally recognized hymnologist. He began his organ study at the age of eight with the organist of Sherbourne Street Methodist Church in Toronto and performed in public shortly thereafter. He accompanied his father to Edinburgh, Scotland 1905-8, where he had the opportunity to take lessons from Alfred Hollins, the noted blind organist, occasionally substituting for him at St. George's West Church, Edinburgh. Around the same time he enrolled in music classes at the University of Edinburgh in preparation for his first diploma. Upon returning to Toronto, now at the age of fifteen, he took an appointment as organist at Knox Presbyterian Church, where he remained for two years. He then returned to Edinburgh and London to complete his work for the Fellow, Royal College of Organists diploma and extramural Bachelor of Music degree at Oxford University, both awarded in 1911 before his eighteenth birthday. Back in Toronto he served as organist-choirmaster at St. Paul's Presbyterian Church in Hamilton, commuting on weekends.

Thinking that his piano training had been neglected on account of his concentration on the organ, he went to Paris in 1914 for private study. While visiting Germany at the outbreak of war he was detained as a prisoner of war; there he befriended other English composers (including Quentin Maclean, see below), organized a camp orchestra for musicals, and concentrated on composition, including a work later submitted as part of the requirements for his Doctor of Music degree from Oxford University.

Back in Canada in 1919 he embarked on a lecture-recital tour of the west in which he played organ pieces and described his experiences as a war prisoner. In 1920 he began teaching organ and piano at the Canadian Academy of Music, and in 1926 became principal of the amalgamated Toronto Conservatory of Music. As an examiner and festival adjudicator, he travelled extensively throughout Canada offering stimulation and encouragement for musical development in small centers. In the following year he became dean of the Faculty of Music at the University of Toronto, initially a titular position.

By this time MacMillan had moved away from the organ as an exclusive preoccupation; his new interests included education, administration, and developing systems and policies, although he continued to conduct and to compose new music and arrange old music as required. One of his unusual projects, in collaboration with an ethnologist in 1927, was recording and notating music of native peoples in northern British Columbia. In 1931 MacMillan became conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, a position that enabled him to develop an unused potential. In 1935 King George V knighted him for his services to music in Canada. In the late 1930s he gained fame as a conductor in the USA, appearing in such prominent series as the Hollywood Bowl concerts and with the symphony orchestras of Chicago, Philadelphia, and Washington, DC.

1942 was a banner year for MacMillan: first, he was offered, but did not accept, an invitation to succeed Donald Francis Tovey in the Reid Chair of Music at the University of Edinburgh; second, he succeeded Herbert Fricker as conductor of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir (see above). In 1945 he filled conducting engagements in Australia, and in Rio de Janeiro in the following year. Also in 1946 he was instrumental in establishing the Canadian Music Council and served as president of the Composers, Authors, and Publishers Association of Canada until 1969; one of his first projects was the organization of a concert of Canadian music for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. As part of his renewed interest in the piano he performed piano concertos with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, gave recitals, and made radio broadcasts. In 1950, during a weeklong festival to celebrate the Bach bicentenary, he offered a lecture-recital on the Clavierübung, playing all of Book 3 from memory. Although he resigned as conductor of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra in 1956, and of the Toronto Mendelssohn Choir in 1957, he still accepted conducting engagements with other musical organizations, travelled throughout Canada to initiate new projects to encourage young musicians, and acted as a classical disc jockey for a Toronto radio station.

MacMillan was a productive composer of musical works for the stage, orchestra, orchestra and choir, band, chamber groups, keyboard, and choir and voice. His writings included works on music instruction, articles in music journals, and other publications. He has been the subject of numerous articles by other writers.

Recognized as Canada's musical elder statesman, in later years MacMillan served as a member of the first Canada Council 1957-63 on account of his extensive participation in the musical arts. He participated in the formation of the Canadian Music Centre, serving as its president 1959-70, and of the Jeunesses musicales of Canada, serving as its president 1961-3. He received the Canada Council Medal in 1964. He was recognized by many public tributes on his seventieth and seventy-fifth birthdays, and these events were marked by special publications and revivals of his works. In 1970 he was made a Companion of the Order of Canada.

Quentin Maclean (1896-1962) was born in London, England, and studied organ there in the early 1900s and with Karl Straube (organ) and Max Reger (composition) in Leipzig 1912-14. During World War I he was interned in Germany where he met Ernest MacMillan (see above). In 1919 he served as assistant organist at Westminster Cathedral, then toured British theaters with newsman Lowell Thomas, providing background music for a lecture-film on Palestine. He was theater organist at many English cinemas 1921-1939 and began to broadcast regularly on BBC radio in 1925.

Maclean moved to Canada in 1939 where he continued his theater organ career in Toronto for ten years. He became one of the best-known organists of his time for his frequent radio broadcasts of background organ music for plays, poetry readings, and music for children's programs. He was organist-choirmaster at Holy Rosary Church 1940-62 and taught at the Toronto Conservatory of Music and at St. Michael's College, University of Toronto.

Maclean composed concertos for organ (two), harpsichord, piano, electric organ (two), harp, and violin; works for solo organ (eight), pieces for orchestra and other solo orchestral instruments, a string quartet, piano pieces, a cantata, and other choral works, among others. He was noted for his diverse musical interests, technical skills, musical memory, and high standards in the composition and performance of serious music, secular and liturgical.

*

Two features are noteworthy with respect to the individuals surveyed here. With the exceptions of Farnam and MacMillan they were born in England and received their early musical training there, which undoubtedly influenced their later musical orientation. Two of them lived for some time in the USA: Torrington 1869-73 and Farnam 1919-30, periods in which their careers flourished. The wide range of the experience and achievements of the seven organists is impressive. Taken collectively, they exhibited exceptional competence in a broad variety of activities: church musician, concert recitalist, teacher, lecturer, composer, arranger, conductor, festival organizer and adjudicator, examiner, writer, academic administrator, academic staff member, president of a professional organization, and expert on organ installation. At least one became a recognized authority in a specialized field (Willan, plainchant). All of them can be counted among those who have contributed significantly, in their specialized fields, to the musical life of Canada. 

 

Notes

                  1.              For a brief history of organbuilding and the major manufacturers, see James B. Hartman, “Canadian Organbuilding,” The Diapason 90, no. 5 (May 1999): 16-18; no. 6, (June 1999): 14-15.                 

                  2.              With Canadian soprano Emma Albani (1847-1930), who was commemorated in the same way at the same time, Willan was the first Canadian musician to be honored in this fashion.

                  3.              Willan made significant contributions to music for the organ. His monumental Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue (1916) was described by Joseph Bonnet as the greatest of its genre since Bach. Other works combine Englishness and European chromaticism reminiscent of Reger and Karg-Elert. After 1950 his works became more contrapuntal, and chorale preludes became his most frequent form of expression.

                  4.             See, for example, “Organ Playing in its Proper Relation to Music of the Church.” The Diapason 29, no. 10 (October 1937): 22-23. He discusses the different--but sometimes overlapping--functions of concert organists (excelling in technique) and church organists (beautifying the liturgies or verbal forms, supporting the congregation, accompanying the choir, and welding the entire service into an appropriate whole). “As a general rule, I do not like large organs, large choirs or large noises of any sort, but there are occasions when grandeur is not only appropriate, but positively necessary . . .” (23). 

 

The biographical information in this article is derived from the Encyclopedia of Music in Canada, Second Edition, and is used by permission from the University of Toronto Press.

James B. Hartman

James B. Hartman is Associate Professor, Continuing Education Division, The University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada, where he is Senior Academic Editor for publications of the Distance Education Program. He is a frequent contributor of book reviews and articles to The Diapason.

Across the centuries many outstanding musicians--from Johann Sebastian Bach to Charles-Marie Widor--are recognized for their outstanding achievements in composition, performance, and other notable contributions to organ culture. At the same time, many of these individuals contributed to other musical fields--instrumental and choral--not directly related to the organ. On the other hand, in the wider musical world sometimes this focus has been reversed, when outstanding practitioners in the instrumental and choral fields exhibited significant capabilities with respect to the organ.

This article will chronicle the activities of six selected outstanding figures of the broader musical society whose connections with the organ are perhaps not so widely known. The criteria for their selection include their prominence in music history within their chosen areas of activity, along with the availability of significant information about their involvement with the organ to make interesting stories. While their status in the world of the organ does not match those of the "giants" mentioned above, they worked industriously and successfully within the context of their other major activities as "alternative" organists.

Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) was the son of an innkeeper in the tiny village of Le Roncole, near Parma, Italy. His first music lessons were at age 3 with the village schoolmaster-organist, succeeding him at his death six years later. His father bought his promising 8-year-old son a battered spinet; Verdi's love for the instrument was such that he kept it for eighty years. In 1823 he was sent to a grammar school in the nearby town of Busseto, where he lodged with a cobbler; he walked three miles back to Le Roncole every Sunday and on other feast days to play the organ, often carrying his boots so as not to wear them out. In Busseto the young Verdi studied for four years with Ferdinando Provesi, the choirmaster and organist of the collegiate church of San Bartolomeo and director of the Philharmonic Society. By age 12 Giuseppe had decided to pursue a serious musical career. He gave his first organ concert at age 13, replacing someone who was ill, when he played some of his own music on the chapel organ.

In 1829, at age 16, his application for the post of organist in nearby Soragna was rejected, perhaps because of his youth, so he continued to deputize for his ailing teacher at Busseto in composing for services, processions, and concerts, while also playing at Le Roncole. As an unpaid apprentice it was expected that he would take over both the salary and the position when Provesi died. Other musical activities included teaching younger pupils, copying parts for the Philharmonic Society, and playing the piano at musical gatherings. By the time he was 18 he had written an assortment of musical compositions, including marches for a brass band, various pieces of church music, and piano pieces.

In 1833 Verdi went to Milan to further his musical education, but he was refused enrollment at the Conservatory on the grounds that it was overcrowded, he was over the maximum age for entrance, he had problems with his hand position on the keyboard, and was a "foreigner." This rejection was a source of bitterness throughout Verdi's life. Nevertheless, he studied canons and fugues with the Conservatory's accompanist and director of music. Meanwhile, his former music teacher in Busseto, Provesi, died, leaving his post at the church vacant, and Verdi applied for it, unsuccessfully. Verdi's lifelong passion for theatergoing started about this time, and his habit of reading novels and plays unrelated to music prepared him for his later intense commitment to opera.

In 1834 musical "civil wars"--street brawls, church invasions, lampoons, arrests, and prosecutions--were waging between members of the Philharmonic Society, which supported Verdi, and opposing factions over the proposed appointment at Busseto. These events resulted in a royal decree banning the use of instrumental music (other than the organ) in church; this edict remained in effect for seventeen years until Verdi succeeded in having it removed in 1852.

Partly to avoid involvement in these uproars, Verdi applied for the position of cathedral organist at Monza, a larger town close to Milan; the Philharmonic Society threatened to restrain him with physical force if he tried to leave Busseto. On this occasion his examiner, the court organist, assured him that he had enough knowledge to be a maestro in Paris or London. In April 1836 he signed a nine-year contract as maestro di musica of Busseto; he took up his new position in 1838.

Now Verdi began work on an opera for Milan's Teatro Filodrammatico, which he continued until leaving Busseto in 1839. His first effort, Rocester, was never performed, but parts of it were reworked into Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio, which opened on 17 November 1839 with moderate success. At this point Verdi's interest in the organ had ceased with his increasing involvement with opera. By 1860 Verdi was the most successful opera composer of the age. In time, his works, such as Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Aida, and Otello, became among the world's best-known and most-loved musical dramas. On the other hand, he wrote no compositions for solo or accompanying organ, and none of his operas include the instrument in any way. The organ world's loss--not a significant deficit considering Verdi's many misfortunes and missed opportunities surrounding the organ--was the opera world's gain.

Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) was the first-born son of a family of eleven children of a village schoolmaster and organist in the town of Ansfelden, near the provincial capital of Linz, Austria. Young Anton ("Tonerl") received his first music lessons from his father, then from his cousin-godfather, who was a competent composer of church music. In 1837 he became a choirboy at the nearby Augustinian monastery, St. Florian, where he later served as a substitute organist. The organ there was a large four-manual instrument built by Krismann in 1771; it was one of the greatest on the continent at the time, and one from which the young player received inspirations of beauty and grandeur.

Until 1840 Tonerl led a secluded but thoroughly musical existence as a chorister who also studied piano, organ, and violin. In that year he enrolled in a one-year course of studies at Linz that would qualify him as an elementary school teacher, although for a while he had considered studying law and entering the civil service. Nevertheless, in 1845 he returned to St. Florian as a deputy organist and became chief organist in January 1855; this appointment lasted for ten years. Earlier, on a journey to Vienna in October 1854, he requested an examination by three outstanding Viennese organists who gave him enthusiastic testimonials; these were followed in 1855 by similar tributes from a well-known master organist from Prague. However, he was rejected for the post of cathedral organist at Olmütz in the summer of 1855.

Although Bruckner had intended to study organ with one of his examiners, he abandoned this plan when the post of organist at Linz cathedral became vacant. Bruckner, who was attending as a listener at the preliminary competition, joined in at the last moment and beat his competitors with his improvised performance of a fugue; he won again in the main competition in January 1856. This appointment freed him forever from the drudgery of teaching and the monastic seclusion at St. Florian, and introduced him to the livelier surroundings of the provincial capital.

In November 1861 Bruckner passed his final examination at the Vienna Conservatory. His improvised fugue on a given subject so overwhelmed the examiners that one of them stated, "He should have examined us! If I knew one-tenth of what he knows, I'd be happy." Another one thought that his improvisations closely resembled Mendelssohn's music.

Although Bruckner's earlier application for the position of organist-designate at the imperial court chapel in Vienna had been unsuccessful, he was finally given the post at the Hofkapelle in September 1868. It was an unpaid but prestigious position without much opportunity to assist on great occasions, apart from playing for the emperor and his family; eventually he achieved a paying position. In addition to playing the organ at services and coaching the choirboys, he directed performances of his own church music. His organ recitals at St. Epvre in Nancy and at Notre Dame in Paris in 1869 were warmly reported in the press, and were welcomed by the organ-building firms of Cavaillé-Coll and Merklin-Schütze, on whose new instruments Bruckner had improvised. Encouraged by these successes, Bruckner briefly considered a career as a concert organist. He apparently made strong impressions on such knowledgeable musicians as Franck, Saint-Saëns, Gounod, Auber, and Thomas.

On a journey to England in August 1871 as an official delegate of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and participant in an international organ competition on a new instrument in Royal Albert Hall, Bruckner's performances received mixed reviews, but his improvisation on God Save the Queen was a highlight of his program of works by Bach and Handel. In July 1886 he was honored with the Franz Josef order and he was also received by the emperor personally, who enjoyed listening to his organ playing. In 1886 Liszt had just died, and Cosima Wag-ner invited him to perform at her father's funeral; Bruckner marked the occasion with improvisations on themes from Parsifal.

Reports on Bruckner's performing style as an organist vary greatly. Although he never composed seriously for the instrument, his powers of free improvisation were generally admired. One of his obituaries suggests that the professional critics had a poor opinion of him. Nevertheless, his early experiences at St. Florian undoubtedly left indelible imprints on his creative imagination, since some aspects of his orchestral style reveal influences of the dynamism of the organ.

His compositions for organ include: Four Preludes (ca. 1836); Prelude in E-flat major (ca. 1837); Prelude and Fugue in C minor (1847), strongly reminiscent of Mendelssohn; Two pieces in D minor (ca. 1852); Fugue in D minor (1861), which has been described as "academic and uninspired"; and Prelude in C major (1884). In the broader musical field his international recognition rests on his nine symphonies, choral church music, chamber works, piano pieces, and a few solo songs.

Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) was born in Nelahozeves, near Kralupy, Czechoslovakia; his parents ran a village inn and his father was a butcher. He had violin lessons and played for village occasions as a child. When he was a butcher's apprentice, while living with his childless aunt and uncle in Zlonice in 1853, he had music lessons with the town cantor who filled the post of organist and choirmaster, as was the custom with village schoolteachers in those days. At this time Dvorák began to learn harmony and keyboard instruments.

Eventually his father allowed his son to become a musician and to qualify as an organist, so in 1857 the youth entered the Prague Organ School, where he remained for two years, studying theory and singing, as well as organ with the director of the choir at the Cathedral of St. Vitus. Young Dvorák was poor, shy, and sensitive, and not particularly fluent in German, so his talent was not immediately recognized at the school. Nevertheless, in 1859 he graduated with a second prize; his leaving certificate testified that he was "admirably fitted to fulfill the duties of organist and choirmaster." At the graduation concert Dvorák played some of his academic-style preludes and fugues. Around this time he supported himself as a violist in a small orchestra that played in restaurants and at dances. He also worked as an organist and teacher, and eventually married the sister of one of his pupils.

After his marriage he left the National Theater orchestra, in which he had played the viola for eleven years, to become organist at St. Adalbert's Church in 1874; this post left more time for composition, besides raising his status in the eyes of his mother-in-law. While there, Dvorák was appointed to a committee that judged the competing bids for the reconstruction of the church organ and supervised the completion of the project.

In the course of his career Dvorák served on numerous committees and administrative bodies dealing with musical matters, such as theater and arts societies, music competitions, and editorial boards; more specifically, a jury for government stipends to artists, and a member of the board of directors of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1890.

A purely private matter was his donation of a new organ, on the occasion of his fifty-third birthday, 8 September 1894, to the church at Vysoká, near a mining town about forty miles south of Prague, where his brother-in-law had his estate.

Concerning Dvorák's ability as a performing musician, little attention has been paid to his achievements on the organ, but his abilities undoubtedly were much above average. Although he held a regular organist's position only from 1874 to 1877, he was appointed as organist for the inauguration of the renewed Czech University in Prague in 1882.

Although Dvorák produced no works specifically for solo organ, a number of his compositions--several songs and vocal duets--specify organ accompaniment. His total creative output includes eleven operas, choral and vocal works, nine symphonies and other symphonic works, various instrumental concertos, chamber music, and piano pieces. His "New World" Symphony (op. 95 in E minor, 1893) and the "Dumky" Trio (op. 90, 1890-91) are frequently heard on recorded radio programs.

Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was born at Pamiers, a little town in the Ariège region in the south of France. The youngest of six children, Gabriel's father was a teacher and his mother was the daughter of a retired captain. His earliest introduction to music was when he lived with foster parents in another town, where he would listen to a harmonium being played in an old convent chapel, which inspired him to improvise on the instrument on his own. One day the 4-year-old child was overheard by an elderly blind lady, an excellent musician, who suggested to his parents that his evident talent should be developed.

Eventually, in 1854, he secured a scholarship at Louis Niedermeyer's École de Musique Classique et Religieuse in Paris, a newly established boarding school for training organists and choirmasters. He remained there for eleven years, studying organ (the school had a 12-stop instrument and a pedal piano), piano (one classroom contained fifteen pianos), singing, plainsong, and theoretical subjects. His acquaintance with contemporary music came from Saint-Saëns, who became his piano teacher in 1861 after the death of Niedermeyer, and who remained a close friend and furthered his academic career. While at school Fauré and his friend, Eugène Gigout, planned their future careers as eminent church musicians.

Fauré was not particularly inspired by the organ, perhaps thinking that the mechanical instrument lacked the sensual subtleties of the piano. Even so, the organ's special feature, its powerful bass pedals, left a lasting impression as indicated by the strong bass lines in some of his piano pieces. According to Saint-Saëns, Fauré was a "first-class organist when he wanted to be," but he never kept up his technique and preferred to improvise. He left the school in January 1866 with the first prize in piano performance, organ, harmony, and composition. During this period he composed his first songs, piano pieces, and one choral work.

Fauré's first position was as organist at St. Sauveur in Rennes, which he held from January 1866 to March 1870. He was in trouble with the clergy from the outset, when he used the sermon time for a smoking break. He was dismissed after appearing at a morning service dressed in white tie and tails worn at a municipal ball the night before. His next appointment, at Notre-Dame de Clignancourt in Paris, also ended abruptly with his dismissal for missing a service to hear a Meyerbeer opera.

Following military service in 1871 Fauré was employed briefly as organist at St.-Honoré d'Eylau, a rich parish church in Paris. A more important appointment was as second organist at St. Sulpice in Paris, assisting Charles-Marie Widor; the church had a magnificent 100-stop Cavaillé-Coll instrument. The two musicians amused each other by improvising competitively in tandem during services; their subtle modulations probably were not understood by the clergy or other listeners, however.

A high point in Fauré's career was his appointment in 1877 as choirmaster, a prestigious but low-paying position, at Ste. Madeleine, Paris's most distinguished and fashionable church, where he succeeded Saint-Saëns, who had resigned; he held this position until 1896. Although Fauré's duties did not specifically involve organ playing, the church's impressive Cavaillé-Coll instrument was available for practice purposes when he was not teaching or working on his compositions.

Fauré's renown strengthened during the 1920s, and societies devoted to giving concerts of his music and publishing his works were formed in France in the 1930s and in succeeding years. He was not a widely popular composer, and his music had more appeal to connoisseurs than to the wider musical public. Even so, he cannot be counted among the "giants" of musical history.

Fauré's creative works include one opera, sacred choral works, nearly 100 songs, chamber music, piano pieces, and works for piano and orchestra. His Thème et variations, op. 73, Dolly Suite, 4-hands, is frequently heard on recorded radio programs, and performances of his Requiem still attract good audiences. Although Fauré respected the organ as an instrument having a classical repertoire, his compositions did not include any works for solo organ, but several of his choral and vocal works specify organ accompaniment. Consistent with his respect for Bach, he wrote the preface for an edition of Bach's "48" and revised the whole of Bach's organ works with unofficial help from Joseph Bonnet and his friend Gigout.

Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) was born in Lucca, a small city in northern Italy, which had enjoyed a considerable reputation for its church music up to the end of the eighteenth century. The Puccini family had an impressive musical lineage of five generations of musicians in two centuries (eighteenth and nineteenth). Giacomo, the fifth of seven children, was expected to follow the family tradition and become organist at San Martino Cathedral. Giacomo's father encouraged his lazy son's mastery of the organ--the child was 5 years old at the time--by placing coins on the organ keyboard so that the boy, trying to grasp them, would have to push down the keys and produce sounds.

Following his father's premature death in 1891, Giacomo's uncle on his mother's side assumed the position at San Martino and continued instructing Giacomo until the child reached the appropriate age of succession. In time, Giacomo's organ playing improved to the level of assisting his uncle at San Martino, as well as performing in other smaller churches. He also played the piano at weddings, in taverns, and in houses of prostitution, as well as at a local convent, where he was rewarded with cups of hot chocolate in addition to his small fee of a few lire that was to be sent directly to his mother.

As a member of a fun-loving gang of youths, when he was playing the organ at a small village church where his brother acted as organ-blower, they decided to get extra money by stealing some organ pipes and selling them to a scrap dealer. In order to avoid detection of the crime, Puccini adjusted his playing of harmonies by avoiding notes of the missing pipes, which delayed discovery of the theft for a long time. Another source of income was from his only pupil, a young tailor--both were 16 years old at the time--and the lessons continued for four years, 1874-8. Puccini wrote his earliest compositions, consisting of short organ pieces, for him; the young man later became a composer of organ pieces himself.

Around this time, Puccini began composing in earnest, chiefly organ music for the church service. Many of these pieces were improvisations that Puccini later transcribed; some of them were derived from folk songs and popular operas, which startled both the priests and congregations. Puccini also introduced lively marches as postludes to play the congregation out of the church; for this he was reprimanded by his elder sister who was preparing to become a nun.

Puccini's first contact with opera was through his teacher, who introduced him to the scores of Verdi's Rigoletto, Traviata, and Trovatore. This experience probably had a decisive influence on Puccini's subsequent career, because he and several friends made a thirty-mile round trip to Pisa to hear Verdi's masterpiece, Aida. At this time Puccini abandoned the family tradition of becoming a full-time church organist and decided to pursue operatic craft at the Milan Conservatory, which he entered in 1880 with the aid of a scholarship from Queen Margherita. His scholarly record was consistently brilliant in counterpoint, his main subject, although he had yet to discover the secrets of the stage.

Puccini's fame rests chiefly on his twelve operas, particularly Manon Lescaut (1893), La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1893), Madama Butterfly (1904), and Turandot (1926); two of his operas, Edgar (1889) and Tosca (1893), contain parts for organ. He also composed various pieces of church music, several choral works, two orchestral works, chamber music (chiefly string quartets), two pieces for piano, and seven songs with piano. His catalogue of works also contains several pieces for organ (before 1880).

Charles Ives (1874-1954) was born in Danbury, Connecticut, where his father, George Ives (1845-1894), was a music teacher who directed bands, choirs, and orchestras. The father had an intense interest in musical innovation and experimentation, such as microtones, bitonality, and acoustics, which he shared with his two sons, Charles and Moss. For example, independence of mind was developed by practicing ear-training exercises such as singing in one key and being accompanied in another. Charles recollected playing drums in one of his father's bands that marched past another group, generating a discordant clash of conflicting keys and rhythms; this phenomenon is reflected in some of his later unconventional compositions.

While at home, young Charles studied drums, piano, and organ with various teachers, becoming a competent pianist by age 12. In 1889 he took his first salaried post as organist at the Second Congregational Church, then at the Baptist Church, in Danbury. At the same time, he composed songs and choral works, along with occasional organ solos that may have been used as interludes in church services or in church-sponsored recitals.

In 1893 Ives moved to New Haven to attend Hopkins Grammar School in preparation for entry into Yale University. While at Hopkins he took a job as organist at St. Thomas's Episcopal Church to help his father pay his expenses. In March 1894 he tried out for an organist position at the Baptist Church, but his application failed.

When Ives began full-time study at Yale in September 1894--he went there primarily for the athletics and as part of the family heritage--he was already an accomplished organist, a skilled composer of band music, and songwriter in the popular style. For his entire four years at Yale he played the organ at Center Church in New Haven--the oldest and most prestigious church there--where he was allowed to play his own compositions. Prior to, and during this appointment he commuted to New York to take organ lessons from Dudley Buck, one of the leading organists of the country. At Yale he took composition lessons from Horatio W. Parker, an established young composer of church music. Under Parker's direction Ives composed his First String Quartet, over forty songs, and several marches, overtures, anthems, part songs, and organ pieces.

Following his time at Yale, Ives moved to New York in September 1898 to take a position as a clerk with the Mutual Life Insurance Company; later he founded his own insurance company, Ives and Myrick. Even before the end of the Yale term, he had secured a position as organist at Bloomfield Presbyterian Church, New Jersey, to begin the following summer. He commuted to this position for two years before moving to Central Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, where he remained until June 1902. In these organist positions Ives remained a well-rounded musician, playing services and recitals, and composing practical pieces. His recital repertoire included works or arrangements by Bach, Mozart, Handel, and Brahms, and often music of his own. One of his works that received its premiere at Central Presbyterian Church was The Celestial Country, an ambitious work scored for two solo quartets and choir, string quartet, brass, tympani, and organ. Around this time Ives decided never to apply for another musical position in order to achieve his musical freedom from the demands of audiences. Although his ultimate decline in composition is sometimes attributed to health problems, he simply may have exhausted his ability to achieve his high artistic aims. Even so, he received the Pulitzer Prize for his Third Symphony in 1947.

Ives's music has its roots in the nineteenth-century Romantic conception of music as an embodiment of emotion and national feeling. The principal aim of his mature works was the personal representation in music of the range of human experience--particularly American experience--in all its drama, emotional power, and confusion. This aim is often revealed in the titles of some of his compositions that deal with specific events: for example, The Fourth of July, Decoration Day, Holiday Quickstep, Thanksgiving, and Washington's Birthday. His musical productions include choral music, vocal music, chamber music, orchestral music (including four symphonies), two piano sonatas, and the Variations on America for organ (written at age 17). Although the original scores of a number of his compositions for organ have been lost, they were incorporated into works for other instruments.

Ives's compositional style reflects his earlier experiences with his father's innovative experiments: explorations of tonality and serial procedures, polymetric and polyrhythmic constructions, experiments with quarter-tones, the use of space as a compositional element, and layered polyphony and multidimensionality. Ives's works were rarely performed during his lifetime, nor were they widely published. In recent years the Charles Ives Society has generated editions and playing materials of his music that are a challenge to all and a threat to some.

In addition to the six alternative organists discussed above, several other well-known names might be added to this group.

Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) learned to play many wind instruments from his father in London before embarking on an intense period of musical training, including the Leipzig Conservatory, 1858-60. Returning to London, he worked as a teacher and accompanist, as well as organist at St. Michael's, Chester Square, 1861-7, and at St. Peter's, Cranley Gardens, 1867-72. His musical collaboration with W. S. Gilbert produced some of the best-known pieces of popular musical theater, many of which still are traditional offerings of school and college musical groups.

Gustav Holst (1874-1934) first learned music from his father, an organist and pianist. He began conducting local orchestras while attending grammar school, and then played the organ at Wyck Rissington, Gloucestershire, in 1892, although the instrument never figured in subsequent professional appointments. Some of his orchestral compositions became enduring contributions to the musical world. His powerful Choral Fantasia (1930) for soprano, chorus, and orchestra, also includes the organ.

Hamilton Harty (1879-1941) learned piano and counterpoint from his organist father. From age 12 he held organ posts, first at Magheracoll Church in Antrim County, Ireland, then at Belfast and Bray (near Dublin). He played viola in a Dublin orchestra and became known as a piano accompanist in London. In 1920 he became the conductor of the Hallé Orchestra, which he formed into one of the country's finest orchestras.

Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977) entered the Royal College of Music, London, at age 13, where he studied piano, organ, and composition, receiving his diploma in 1900; he also studied at Oxford University (B.Mus., 1903). He was organist at St. James, Piccadilly, 1902-5. In 1905 he moved to New York as organist and choir director at St. Bartholomew's Church on Madison Avenue. Following his debut as a conductor in Paris, he was engaged by the Cincinnati Orchestra in 1909, then by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1912, an internationally famous organization that he led for twenty-four years.

Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) began to compose at age 8, even before any formal instruction. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1919, achieving prizes in counterpoint and fugue, accompaniment, organ, and improvisation (with Marcel Dupré), history of music, and composition. In 1931 he was appointed organist at l'Église de la Sainte Trinité in Paris, remaining in that position for over forty years. Many of his composed organ works reflect aspects of the theological creed of the Catholic faith. Although not a member of any particular school, Messiaen has had a major influence on contemporary music.

William Herschel (1738-1822), British musician and astronomer, is an unusual figure to conclude this section, considering his unique combination of occupations. He pursued an active career as violinist and conductor in the 1760s, and he played the organ at the Octagon Chapel in Bath from 1766 onwards. In 1780 he was accepted into the Bath Literary and Philosophical Society. In the following year, using a telescope he had partially designed and constructed himself, he discovered the planet Uranus.

There is a music wherever there is a harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far may we maintain the music of the spheres.

--Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)

Religio Medici [1642]

by James B. Hartman

Notes

                  1.              A General History of Music, From the Earliest Ages to the Present Period (1789), vol. 2. (New York: Dover Publications, 1957), 380. Selections from Burney's essay on Purcell, pages 375-416, are reprinted in Michael Burden, Purcell Remembered, 139-141.

                  2.              See "Purcell manuscript acquired by British Library," describing the only known keyboard manuscript of 20 pieces in Purcell's own hand, and the recording of the entire manuscript of Purcell's keyboard works on three period instruments by harpsichordist Davitt Moroney, The Diapason, June 1995, 6.

                  3.              See also The Purcell Companion, edited by Michael Burden (Amadeus Press, 1995), reviewed by Enrique Alberto Arias in The Diapason, November 1995, 8-9. The book contains 11 essays in five sections: Introduction, Background, A Composer for Church and Chamber, Purcell and the Theatre, and Purcell in Performance.

                  4.              The are some inconsistencies in the end date of chapter 2 and the start date of chapter 3, and between the contents outline and the chapter headings in the text, as well as an inaccuracy in the start date of chapter 5.   

                  5.              The date and location of the first performance of Dido and Aeneas has been a matter of speculation. Recent research supporting the title-date connection is cited in King, 173; the problem is acknowledged but not resolved in Burden's introduction to the contemporary reference (Purcell Remembered, 79); Holman concludes "I suspect, however, that the last word has not been said on the matter" (Henry Purcell, 195).

                  6.              (Richard Goodson, the elder?), Orpheus Britannicus, ii (1702, 1711), cited in Holman, 21.

Henry Purcell, by Robert King. London and New York: Thames and Hudson, 1994. 256 pages, 103 illustrations, 13 in color. $34.95.

Purcell Remembered, by Michael Burden. Portland, OR: Amadeus Press, 1995. xxv + 188 pages, 17 b/w illustrations. $29.95 hardcover plus $5.50 s&h, $17.95 papercover plus $4.50 s&h. Available from the publisher, 133 S.W. Second Ave., Portland, OR 97204-3527.

Henry Purcell, by Peter Holman. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. xvii + 250 pages, 42 musical examples. $17.95, paper.

Dr. Charles Burney (1726-1814), one of England's earliest and most notable music historians, wrote: "Unluckily for Purcell! he built his fame with such perishable materials, that his worth and works are daily diminishing, while the reputation of our poets and philosophers is increasing by the constant study and use of their productions. And so much is our great musician's celebrity already consigned to tradition, that it will soon be as difficult to find his songs, or, at least to hear them, as those of his predecessors, Orpheus and Amphion. . . ." Burney attributed the disregard of the work of this superior genius, "equal to that of the greatest masters on the continent," to the changeability of taste in music and to "an inferior band to the Italian opera composers, as well as inferior singers, and an inferior audience, to write for."1 Fortunately for Western musical culture, these impediments to the appreciation of Purcell's music no longer exist.

The level of awareness of Purcell's music in recent years has been increased by the discovery of new manuscripts,2 recordings, progress towards the completion of the comprehensive edition of his works, the publication of books, exhibitions, and other special media events connected with the 1995 tercentenary year. The number and diversity of Purcell's creative output--anthems, domestic sacred music, services, catches, odes, secular vocal music, theater works, keyboard works, consort music--present a challenge to complete comprehension.

In recognition of the tercentenary year, eight books have been published between 1994 and 1996; seven of these will be discussed in these pages in two installments.3 The books in the first group, general in outlook, present the historical background of Purcell's time, provide a picture of his life from scattered sources, and establish a credible context for his compositional genres; those in the second group, more closely focussed and which include two edited collections of essays, deal with specific aspects of the development of Purcell's musical style and performance practices, then and now. All of these works contribute much to deepening our appreciation of this 17th-century master from these diverse viewpoints, ranging from the social and musical setting in which he worked to the opinions of critics and musicians across the centuries.

Robert King is one of Britain's leading baroque conductors. While at Cambridge University he founded The King's Consort, a period-instrument orchestra. He has made over 50 recordings; about one-half of these feature the music of Purcell, for which he researched and prepared his own performing editions. His current project is the recording of all of Purcell's odes, welcome songs, secular solo songs, and sacred music. His historically oriented book, Henry Purcell, provides a fitting introduction to this group of tercentenary publications.

The brief Prologue of the book touches upon several themes identified in other books: Purcell's acknowledged genius; the diversity of his compositions for the church, the opera house, the theater, small domestic instrumental forces, and his royal patrons. It also comments on the lack of information about Purcell himself, who left few letters and no personal diaries. Our present picture of Purcell, therefore, is a composite sketch compiled from scanty references in official records set against the wider historical background, which King treats in considerable detail throughout five chapters, each dealing with a politically defined chronological period.

Chapter 1, "A Restoration Childhood, 1659-1668," covers the period from the dissolution of Cromwell's Protectorate parliament to the "Triple Alliance," the diplomatic triumph of King Charles II. In this period Henry Purcell senior was appointed Master of the Choristers at Westminster Abbey, where he worked with his counterpart at the Chapel Royal on the choral and instrumental music for the royal coronation. Also, Thomas Purcell, young Henry's uncle, received an appointment as composer at the royal court. The catastrophic plague of 1665--the cause of the death of Henry's father in 1664 might have been due to an earlier isolated outbreak--and the great fire of London in 1666 undoubtedly left lasting impressions on the young Purcell. Whether "the wistfulness that is so prevalent in Purcell's music could therefore be seen as a manifestation of a little boy still crying for his lost father" (p. 42) is perhaps an excessive psycho-biographical speculation, however.

Chapter 2, "Learning the Trade, 1668-1677,"4 reconstructs the musical scene at the Chapel Royal from the time when young Henry became a chorister there at the age of eight or nine to the death of the eminent musician Matthew Locke, court composer and also a friend of Henry's father and uncle. As a chorister, the young Purcell's musical education included lessons from John Blow and Christopher Gibbons, son of Orlando. Although the Chapel boys were encouraged to compose, no composition by Purcell has survived. Along with other boys, he might have acted in London theatrical performances--a formative experience for his later influential years in that context. When his treble singing days were over, Purcell became assistant-apprentice to the supervisor of the royal instruments ("regals, organs, virginals, flutes and recorders and all other kind of wind instruments whatsoever"), a position that ensured contact with court musicians. Whether or not Purcell ever was a pupil of Matthew Locke, the latter's influence on the youth must have been great, partly through the composer's association with the Purcell family, but more directly through the court performances of Locke's music, whose style is reflected in the ode Purcell composed on the death of Locke.

Chapter 3, "Rising Star: Purcell at the Court of Charles II, 1677-1685," chronicles the period from the time when the teenage Purcell was appointed court composer, succeeding Locke, to the death of the royal patron. Commencing with this chapter, the author's discussions of Purcell's compositions include comments on their editions, scoring, musical textures, harmonic language, structural devices, expressive features, and general aesthetic characteristics, all of which provide condensed program notes for the works described. Purcell's compositions in this period included church anthems, the first small-scale songs to go into print, odes and welcome songs for royal occasions, verse anthems, and various instrumental pieces, including the Sonnata's of III Parts, published in 1683. His first commissioned work for the celebration of St. Cecilia's Day appeared in the same year. Only a year before, Purcell had received an appointment as one of the three organists of the Chapel Royal, and a year later he assumed the position of full supervisor and keeper of the royal instruments, following the death of his mentor. The infamous "battle of the organs," an acrimonious contest in 1684 between the builders Bernard Smith and Renatus Harris over the contract for a new organ for the Temple Church was resolved in Smith's favor, after much hostility and a mischievous act of sabotage; the players on Smith's instrument at the trials were Purcell and Blow.

Chapter 4, "Changing Fortunes: Purcell and King James, 1685-1688," covers the short period from the coronation of King James II, for which Purcell set up an organ in Westminster Abbey and contributed a grand, large-scale anthem, to the King's flight from England following political upheavals. During this uncertain time Purcell maintained his position as one of the three organists in the Chapel Royal, but the position of official court composer went to Blow; accordingly, Purcell turned his attention from writing anthems to developing the devotional song--his solo vocal writing at its best--and to his first royal ode. As Purcell wrote less music for the church and more secular vocal music, his compositions began to appear increasingly in printed editions. Even so, his financial affairs suffered on account of the King's decision to open a new Roman Catholic chapel at Whitehall, staffed by highly paid musicians imported from abroad. Purcell was among the royal employees who had to battle for payment for their services, but eventually he was paid "for repairing ye Organs and furnishing Harpsichords."

Chapter 5, "Maturity Cut Short: Purcell under William and Mary, 1688 [sic]-1695," opens at a critical point in English constitutional history, the declaration in 1689 of William and Mary as king and queen. Purcell had control of the organ loft for their coronation, and he produced the first of six birthday odes for the new queen in the same year. Although royal patronage in music was diminishing, Purcell maintained a busy schedule at court (still as supervisor of the royal instruments) and the Chapel Royal, in addition to his responsibilities at Westminster Abbey. The production in 1689 at a girl's boarding school of an opera, presumed to have been Dido and Aeneas,5 marked the beginning of his career as the leading composer for the London theater. The sources, production, and musical features of his various works for the genre are supplied in appropriate detail throughout this chapter. About a month after the annual celebrations of St. Cecilia's Day in November 1694, Queen Mary died in the smallpox epidemic that was sweeping London; Purcell composed a march and some vocal music for her funeral service in Westminster Abbey, and later, the music for two elegies. Purcell's own premature death at the age of 36, attributed to tuberculosis, was also marked by a ceremony in Westminster Abbey, when some of the music he had composed for Queen Mary's funeral was again played. A brief Epilogue to the book mentions various persons who paid tribute to England's greatest musical figure and to some significant 20th-century performances of his work.

This elegantly produced and thoroughly researched book successfully interweaves highlights of social and political events with the state of music in late 17th-century England. The numerous graphic illustrations of persons, places, and important events of the period that accompany the text, including a double-page, full-color painting of London in flames, bring a sense of immediacy that transcends the verbal accounts. For these reasons this book provides a stimulating introduction to the study of Purcell for the general reader. A useful supplement is a performer's catalogue of Purcell's works intended to aid performers and scholars as a general reference or for concert programming; pieces in the various genres contain information on titles, authors, occasions, composition dates, first performance dates, soloists, choruses, instruments, timing, and Zimmerman classification numbers. A selected discography and a selected reading list of 48 titles, chiefly historical (only six directly on Purcell), complete the volume.

*   *   *   *   *

Michael Burden is Lecturer in Music at New College, Oxford, and directs the New Chamber Opera. He has written widely on 17th- and 18th-century music and 20th-century musical theater. His book, Purcell Remembered, is a unique assembly of selections from various official publications, notices, public documents, letters, diaries, reminiscences, prefaces and dedications to Purcell's published works, and other sources relating to the composer and his times, spanning three centuries. Much of the material derived from these scattered sources is tangential to Purcell's music as such, but taken as a whole it provides an engrossing and instructive account of life in Purcell's day, and therefore it is a useful supplement to Robert King's historical narrative.

An introductory chronology of Purcell's life and works mentions other musical, political, social, and cultural events, some of which may have impressed Purcell. The selections are presented within discrete sections focussing on Purcell's early life and the Chapel Royal, singers and singing, his Sonnata's of III Parts and a battle for an organ, two coronations and a revolution, publishing and pedagogy, the stage, Purcell's death, the Restoration musical scene, recollections and assessments of Purcell's works by commentators, and similar opinions by musicians through the years.

The selections cover Purcell's life span and beyond. For example, several excerpts from the diaries of Samuel Pepys, England's observant and music-loving writer who wrote during the period 1660-1669, include a reference to a meeting in 1660 with Henry Purcell's father or uncle and the composer Matthew Locke, followed by an account of the activities at the Chapel Royal and vivid descriptions of the plague of 1665 and the Great Fire of 1666. Pepys also remarked on Purcell's first composition, a song included in a collection published in 1667. As for Purcell's death in 1695, his will is reproduced, along with a description of his interment in Westminster Abbey, some letters by his wife Frances and the publisher Henry Playford relating to the posthumous printing of some sonatas, and several odes, including Dryden's praiseful lament for "The God-like Man, Alas! too soon retir'd." The nature of Purcell the man remains obscure, apart from passing references to his "mirth and good humour, which seem to have been habitual to him"; his contemporaries and successors confined their descriptions to his musical abilities as a composer. His adult singing abilities were extolled in 1685 as "wondrous skill" in an adoring ode by Aphra Behn, the first professional writer in England. As an accomplished organist, Purcell often adjudicated the appointments of other organists and advised on the building or maintenance of church organs. Relevant passages are reproduced from church vestry minutes and from the writings of the music critic Roger North (1653-1734) concerning the great battle for the organs between the rival builders Renatus Harris and Bernard Smith, in which Purcell and Blow successfully demonstrated the Smith organ, and Giovanni Battista Draghi played the Harris instrument.

References to Purcell's small-scale vocal works highlight two contrasting subgenres; the high-minded and the down-to-earth. One example of the former was the performance of Purcell's ode for the St. Cecilia's Day celebrations in 1692; his songs, on the other hand, some of the ribald variety with their bawdy allusions, provided communal entertainment in public taverns, alehouses, and coffeehouses. An explanation of the musical structure of catches and glees, and instructions for singing them, appeared in an advertisement to John Playford's 1673 edition and later editions, along with some examples. One entertaining rebus referred to the composer:

His surname begins with the grace of a cat,

And concludes with the house of a hermit, note that;

His skill at performance each auditor wins, But the poet deserves a good kick on the shins.

Glimpses into significant historical events of Purcell's time are provided in eyewitness descriptions of the coronation of King James II in Westminster Abbey in 1685, when Purcell was organist there, and of the joint coronation of King William and Queen Mary in 1689, when Purcell attended to his usual duties at the Abbey, including the provision of a second organ. The last days and funeral rites for Queen Mary, for which Purcell contributed some of the music, are chronicled in several documents relating to the event.

Public awareness of Purcell in his own time and after his death was due in large part to the publishers John and Henry Playford, father and son, who brought out the composer's works. Their artful prefaces and self-effacing dedications--short on content, strong on flattery for royalty and the anticipated subscribers among the public--sometimes featured encomiastic verses on the collections or offered biblical justification for the learning of music. On the other hand, Purcell's opening remarks to his Choice Lessons for the Harpsichord or Spinet, published in 1696, were pedagogical in nature, consisting of directions to the performer and "Rules for Graces," a table of ornaments and embellishments. Almost a century later, Charles Burney speculated that Purcell adopted this practice to meet the needs of ignorant and clumsy performers, and that it contributed to the obsolescence of his music.

Today's readers may vicariously visit the productions of some of Purcell's theatrical works over the centuries through the descriptions by witnesses to actual performances, beginning with an account of Dido and Aeneas (?) in 1689; George Bernard Shaw's quirky review of a 1889 production of the same work provides contrast, as do the critical commentaries on later revivals by Gustav Holst and Thomas Beecham. Appropriate selections from advertisements, prologues, reviews, and recollections relating to performances of Dioclesian, King Arthur, and The Fairy Queen are included here, along with several assessments of the state of opera in England through the years. A summing-up by Sir George Dyson in 1932 acknowledged the freshness and beauty of Purcell's music for his stage productions, but attributed their lack of consistent plots and unified design to the entertainment-driven desires of the public.

The assessments of Purcell by musicians, historians, journalists, and other writers over the years consisted mainly of flattering tributes; insightful critical evaluations did not appear until recent times. For example, an unsigned contribution to the Universal Journal in 1734 described Purcell as "a Shakespear in Musick," possessed of "a most happy enterprizing Genius, join'd with a boundless Invention, and noble Design [who] made Musick answer its Ends (i.e.) move the Passions"; William Boyce, writing in 1768, praised him as "a Genius superior to any of his Predecessors . . . . equally excellent in every thing he attempted." Nevertheless, in 1893 C. Hubert H. Parry, while admitting that Purcell was the greatest genius of his age, criticized his excesses in realistic expression and his faulty judgment in matters of choral style that involved occasional lapses into innocent bathos and childishness. Peter Warlock, writing in 1927 about Purcell's fantasias, found their advanced perfection of form and content sufficient to include them in England's most significant contributions to the world's great music. A wide-ranging and perceptive review of Purcell's place in English music, written by Donald Francis Tovey in 1941, opined that Purcell was born either 50 years too soon (to gain access to the resources of Bach and Handel) or 50 years too late (to be master of the Golden Age). Sir Jack Westrup, formerly chairman of the Purcell Society for almost 20 years, writing in 1959, deplored the repetition of the limited amount of Purcell's music performed in inappropriate "realizations" from erroneous copies. Quotations by contemporary British composers Benjamin Britten, Michael Tippett, and Peter Maxwell Davies reveal their attraction to Purcell that initiated performances of his works--Davies deplores note-perfect but emotionally insensitive "authentic" performances--that contributed to the renewal of interest in the master in England and elsewhere.

Michael Burden's three-century harvest of written fragments about Purcell and his times provides in words the same sense of immediacy that Roger King's illustrated historical narrative does in pictures. Purcell Remembered includes a center section of 17 small monochrome illustrations, some of which duplicate the more opulent chromatic pictures in King's volume. A multidimensional understanding of the Purcell could therefore be achieved by reading both volumes in parallel.

*   *   *   *   *

Peter Holman is now Senior Associate Lecturer at Colchester Institute of Music, following a teaching career at the Royal Academy of Music, London, and elsewhere. In addition to writing for scholarly journals, he maintains an active performing career as a harpsichordist, organist, and director of The Parley of Instruments and musical director of Opera Restor'd. His book, Henry Purcell, provides the context for understanding the various genres within which Purcell worked: his small-scale domestic works, both vocal and instrumental, and his large-scale public works in church music, the odes, and theater music.

An opening chapter on Purcell's musical world covers the salient events of his life span: the re-establishment of musical life in the Restoration period, the role of secular musicians and performing groups, Purcell's service as a choir boy at the Chapel Royal and his early musical instruction, his duties as a music copyist, his first post as custodian and repairman of musical instruments, his activities as court composer, his succession to the position of organist at Westminster Abbey, the decline of royal patronage of music, the political accommodations of musicians, and life in the theater. Again, we are reminded that little is known about Purcell the man from direct evidence, but attempts have been made to draw character implications from the handwriting of the person described in a later poetic reference as one whose "Pride was the sole aversion of his Eye, Himself as Humble as his Art was High."6

Nearly all Restoration songs dealt with some aspect of love (usually from the male viewpoint), and Purcell's contributions to the genre--dance songs, declamatory songs, and dialogues--have always been greatly admired. The humble catch, too, was mostly preoccupied with wine and women, although Purcell provided untrained amateurs and off-duty musicians with settings of various topics: politics, loyal toasts, newsworthy events, bell-ringing, and others. The Italian influence in England was felt in both performance practice and repertory, and several ground-bass songs by Italian composers were models for Purcell and his contemporaries. Holman gives some detailed consideration to Purcell's musical language in the songs, such as the affective associations of certain keys, the colors obtained through different keys in unequal temperament, and other melodic and harmonic devices relating words, music, and emotion. Other forms treated in the same chapter include symphony songs (inappropriately called "cantatas") performed in the royal apartments, verse anthems and theater songs, some of which became models for succeeding generations of song writers.

Genre distinctions prevail in the discussion of instrumental music, such as fantasias and pavans in the contrapuntal tradition, and overtures and chaconnes as orchestral forms. Holman draws comparisons with earlier forms by Purcell's predecessors and similar works by his contemporaries, and speculates on Purcell's intentions for them as composition exercises or performance pieces. At the same time, notwithstanding the admiration of English musicians for Italianate sonatas, the relationship between Purcell's sonatas and those by Italian masters remains unresolved, as does the rationale for their sequential order in collections. As for Purcell's keyboard music, recent discoveries of Purcell manuscripts have helped to resolve some questions of Purcell as author or arranger of harpsichord works. Several organ voluntaries are now known to have been falsely attributed to him, and many others undoubtedly never were written down, due their improvisational nature.

Insofar as the tradition of cathedral music was unfamiliar to the generation that had lived through the period of the proscription of singing in church services and the destruction or dismantling of organs, Purcell and his contemporaries had much to do to rescue earlier practices and develop new repertory. Holman's discussion of church music follows Purcell's development from his youthful preoccupation with contrapuntal forms to his later absorption of the melodic, harmonic, and structural features of the Italian style. As a writer of anthems, however, Purcell perhaps owed less to Italian music than to Matthew Locke, whose compositions provided the model for works that synthesized formal counterpoint with expressive, soloistic, vocal writing and daring harmonies, but without Locke's polychoral style. The distinguishing features of Purcell's symphony anthems are discussed in some detail, including the Italian harmonic influences and sense of drama. Some useful background information accompanies the account of Purcell's last church music written for Queen Mary's funeral and performed again at Purcell's own funeral.

Apart from Purcell's three famous odes, Welcome to All the Pleasures; Hail, Bright Cecilia; and Come, Ye Sons of Art, Away, the remainder have been neglected partly on account of the toadying texts of these celebratory or welcoming compositions; besides, little is known about their origins or the circumstances of their performance. Purcell's experimentation in this genre involved contrapuntal and ground-bass writing, along with new ways--including the sophisticated Italian influences--of combining voices and instruments. The superb writing style, controlled structure, and grand scale of the ode on St. Cecilia's Day, Purcell's most popular choral work, inspired Handel to produce a birthday ode; this marked the beginning of the English secular choral tradition, according to Holman.

The reopening of the London theaters around 1660 and the presence of instrumental groups to accompany the plays also offered creative opportunities to Purcell. His first music for the theater was performed in the early 1680s, but he dropped out of the scene for almost a decade for reasons unknown. Equally obscure are the inspiration, circumstances, dating, première, foreign musical influences, and political and allegorical meanings of Dido and Aeneas. The resumption of Purcell's career in the commercial theater in 1690 was marked by the production of more than 40 works in the remaining five years of his life, including the landmark Dioclesian, the first semi-opera, followed by King Arthur and The Fairy Queen of the same genre. Holman's discussion of these and other later stage works touches upon the integration of music and action, in addition to other more purely musical issues.

The discussion of each facet of Purcell's output contains assessments of both its glories and shortcomings, with respectful consideration of unresolved and controversial issues surrounding dating, style, and other historical circumstances. The reader's assimilation of this material, however, could have been aided by a system of subheadings to identify the subtle shifts in focus and subject imbedded in the seamless flow of information within each section. Moreover, the book lacks a concluding chapter that would provide a general assessment of Purcell's accomplishments within his own time and his influence on future generations. Nevertheless, the author's enthusiasm for Purcell's music and his comprehensive treatment of its distinct genres undoubtedly will contribute to the renewal of both scholarly and practical interest in the composer and his music far beyond the heightened exposure both received during the tercentenary year. A bibliography of 204 books, articles, and general reference works; a list of 108 edited music collections; and an index of Purcell's works by genre provide the necessary documentation.      

by James B. Hartman

James B. Hartman is Senior Academic Editor for publications of the Distance Education Program, Continuing Education Division, The University of Manitoba. His recent publications include articles on the early histories of music and theater in Manitoba. He is a frequent contributor of book reviews and articles to The Diapason.

Like the members of any other profession--usually defined as an occupation requiring special education and training--organists possess skills that set them apart from other people. Their teachers certify their competence either through private instruction or in an institutional context such as a university or academy. They may also receive public acknowledgment of their status through specialized professional designations relating to organists' "guilds"--A.G.O., R.C.O., and R.C.C.O.--and by membership in their professional organizations. All of these connections serve to establish and reinforce the mastery of a unique musical tradition. In the performance of their work they exercise a fairly high degree of autonomy, even taking into account the kind of cooperative decision making that organists normally make with clergy, choirmasters, and concert managers. Unlike profit-oriented occupations, such as those related to business, organists are members of an altruistic profession that embodies cultural values supported by considerable public recognition, whether localized in the case of church organists or internationally in the case of widely known concert organists.

The role of family influence and associations in the
training of organists is seldom known for at least two reasons: (1) the
relative isolation and invisibility of the training of organists generally, and
(2) the historical time lag before the accomplishments of successive
generations of organists can be documented and evaluated. This article will
chronicle the highlights of the lives and accomplishments of several Canadian
families of organists, chiefly of the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries.1

Ambrose

Charles (1791-1856) was born in England where he served as
organist at Chelmsford Cathedral before coming to Canada in 1837. After
spending several years as a farmer, in 1845 he became organist-choirmaster at Christ Church Cathedral in Hamilton, Ontario, where he taught piano and organ. He composed Three Grand Sonatas for piano.

Robert (1824-1908), the son of Charles, was also born in
England. After accompanying his family to Canada he also worked on the farm, and
then in 1847 he joined a brother who was a music teacher in Kingston, where he
became organist-choirmaster at St. George's Church. In 1863-83 he was
organist-choirmaster at the Church of the Ascension in Hamilton and also taught
at a women's college. In 1891 he was president of the Canadian Society of
Musicians, which had been founded in 1885 to encourage musical art in all its
forms and to promote the interests of the profession. He was a prolific
composer of songs and instrumental pieces. One of his songs, "One Sweetly
Solemn Thought," was recorded many times by various performers, including
singers Ernestine Schumann-Heinck and Alma Gluck. It was arranged for organ
solo and for other instruments; it was also a popular piano roll.

Paul (1868-1941), the son of Robert, studied piano with his
father and also in New York, where he studied composition with Bruno Oscar
Klein and orchestration with Dudley Buck. He served as organist-choirmaster at
Madison Avenue Methodist Episcopal Church 1886-90 and at several other churches
in the New York area before retiring to Hamilton in 1934, where he was guest
organist at Christ Church Cathedral. He served as president of the National
Association of Organists in the USA for four terms and was elected president of
the Canadian College of Organists in 1939. He composed many songs, choral
works, and pieces for both piano and organ. His anthems, in particular, were
performed throughout North America.

Carter

The four brothers of the Carter family were born in London,
sons of the English organist John Carter. The details of their lives are rather
sketchy and the respective death dates of three brothers are unknown.

John (1832-1916) came to Canada in 1853 and served as
organist at the Anglican Church of the Holy Trinity in Québec City
1853-6. In 1856 he moved to Toronto where he founded and conducted the Sacred
Harmonic Choir, whose performance of Handel's Messiah on 17 December 1857 was
probably the first complete oratorio performance in Upper Canada (Ontario). He
was organist at St. James Cathedral, Toronto 1856-78, and in 1861 he
established the Musical Union, a Toronto choral and orchestral society that
performed large-scale works intermittently from 1861 to 1867. He gave piano
recitals in Toronto and conducted a Verdi opera in 1866 as well as a cantata by
his brother William (see below) in the early 1870s. The extent of his
professional activities after 1878 is unknown.

George (1835-?) was a pupil of Sir John Goss in London. He
gave recitals in England, Europe, and the USA before coming to Canada in 1861,
where he served as organist at Christ Church Cathedral, Montréal, for
about ten years. While there he organized a series of five chamber music
concerts. In 1870 he returned to England where he was organist at Royal Albert
Hall for several years. His compositions included songs, operas, cantatas,
organ works, and miscellaneous pieces.

Henry (1837-?) also studied with Sir John Goss and other
organists while still in London, and with Karl August Haupt and others in
Germany. After his arrival in Canada he was organist at the Anglican Cathedral
of the Holy Trinity in Québec City 1857-61. He founded one of the
earliest oratorio societies in Québec and was the English choirmaster of
the Québec Harmonic Society, a group of amateur singers and orchestral
performers that existed intermittently between 1819 and 1857. In 1861 he moved
to the USA where he was a church organist and taught at the College of Music,
Cincinnati 1880-3. In addition to giving recitals he composed songs, two string
quartets, and a large-scale anthem.

William (1838-?) studied organ with his father and Ernst
Pauer before serving as organist at several churches in England. In 1859 he
exchanged positions with his brother Henry at the Anglican Cathedral in
Québec City. While there he conducted what probably was the largest
Handel festival in Canada up to that time, on 13 April 1859, to coincide with
the centennial of Handel's death on the following day. His compositions
included songs, part-songs, anthems, choral arrangements, and a cantata,
Placida, the Christian Martyr.

Gagnon

Three members of this family successively occupied the
position of organist at the Québec Basilica; their total service
altogether amounted to almost a hundred years between 1864 and 1961.

Ernest (1834-1915) received piano instruction from his older
sister in his early years in Rivière-du-Loup-en-haut, a Québec
provincial town, and later at Joliette College 1846-50 where he won first prize
in a music competition. He moved to Québec City in 1853 where became
organist at St-Jean-Baptiste Church. He was one of the founding members and the
first music instructor at the École normale Laval in 1857. In the same
year he travelled to Paris to study piano, harmony, and composition; while
there he met several major musical figures of the day, including Rossini and
Verdi. On his return to Québec City and the École he served as
organist at the Québec Basilica 1864-76. As an organist he was reported
to be a virtuoso performer and fluent improviser. He was one of the founders
and the first director of the Union musicale de Québec, a choral
society, in 1866. He was also one of the founders of the Académie de
musique du Québec in 1868 and served as its president for four terms to
1890. Later he abandoned his musical activities for a career as a provincial
civil servant, then published several historical works and essays on musical
life in seventeenth-century France and in Québec. His compilation of
folk songs was reprinted many times, making it one of the most widely published
books in Canada. In 1902 he became a member of the Royal Society of Canada.

Gustave (1842-1930) was also born in Rivière-du-Loup-en-haut and studied piano in Montréal with his brother-in-law Paul Letondal (see below) 1860-4. He succeeded his brother Ernest as organist at St-Jean-Baptiste Church in Québec City 1864-76. Like his brother he also went to Europe where he studied organ and harmony with different teachers and met several famous musicians, including Saint-Saëns. On his return to Québec City he succeeded his brother as organist at the Québec Basilica in 1876, where he remained until 1915. He, too, taught at the École normale Laval 1877-1917 and also at the Petit Séminaire de Québec, a teaching establishment for training clergy. With his brother Ernst he was one of the founders of the Union musicale de Québec in 1866, and he was also one of the founders of the Académie de musique du Québec in 1868, serving as president for nine terms between 1878 and 1902. He participated in the founding of the Dominion College of Music in Québec City and was the first director of the school of music at Laval University 1922-5 and taught there 1922-30.

Henri (1887-1961), the son of Gustave, was born in
Québec City where he studied piano with his father and organ with
William Reed, a noted Québec organist. At the age of 13, with his
mentor, he played an organ concert before a huge audience at the Pan-American
Exposition in Buffalo. He continued his organ and piano studies in
Montréal before going to Paris in 1907 where he studied with various
noted musicians, such as pianist Isidor Philipp and organists Eugène
Gigout and Charles-Marie Widor. In the summers of 1911, 1912, 1914, and 1924 he
studied in Paris with Joseph Bonnet and Widor. Like his brothers he served as
organist at the Québec Basilica 1910-61. He, too, also taught at the
École normale Laval and at the Petit Séminaire de Québec
1917-33.  In addition to teaching
piano and organ at Laval University, he was one of the first teachers at the
Conservatoire de musique du Québec and served as director 1946-61.

Letondal

Paul (1831-1874) was born in France and lost his sight in
early childhood, so he received his musical training at the Institut des jeunes
aveugles in Paris. Upon moving to Montréal in 1852 he taught at the
Collège Ste-Marie and was organist at Gesù Chapel 1852-69. He
performed frequently and was involved in a business of importing French pianos.
He had many noteworthy pupils and was a founding member of the Académie
de musique du Québec, serving as its president 1882-3 and 1888-9. He was
also a founding member and director of La Revue canadienne. He is considered to
be one of the pioneers of the music profession in Canada. In 1860 he married
Élisabeth Gagnon, sister of Ernest and Gustave Gagnon (see above), thus
reinforcing an interfamilial musical connection.

Arthur (1869-1956), son of Paul, was born in Montréal
where he studied music with his father before obtaining his diploma at the
Académie de musique du Québec in 1886. He taught briefly at the Collège Ste-Marie. Like other gifted pupils of his father, he studied in Europe 1890-4, first at the Paris Conservatory, then at the Brussels Conservatory where he studied organ with Alphonse Mailly and theoretical subjects with other tutors. Upon his return to Montréal he served as organist at Pères du St-Sacrament Church 1894-1900, at Gesù Church 1900-23, and at St-Jacques-le-Majeur Cathedral. He taught at the Canadian Artistic Society Conservatory 1895-1900, the Institut Nazareth after 1901, the McGill Conservatorium 1904-10, and at the Conservatoire de musique du Québec, where he trained several winners of the Prix d'Europe. He was a member of the Société des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs (Paris) and served as president of the Académie de musique du Québec for four terms between 1898 and 1923. He was also honorary president of the Schola cantorum, Montréal. His compositions included works for organ, piano, and religious songs. He lectured extensively and wrote articles for several publications. His son Henri apparently was not interested in the organ but developed his career as a cellist, critic, administrator, playwright, and actor. 

Piché

This family of organists--Joseph and his sons Eudore and
Bernard--were all born in Montréal.

Joseph (1877-1939) studied organ, piano, and harmony with
several instructors in Montréal. He first served as organist in the
churches of Notre-Dame-du-St-Rosaire in 1898, St-Denis in 1900, and
Sacré-Coeur in 1908-26, before becoming the regular organist at St-Victor
Church in 1930. He also taught at the Collège Ste-Marie 1905-37 and then
at the Collège Jean-de-Brébeuf. His wife, Yvonne Corbin, formerly
a pianist, conducted choirs and served as deputy organist at two
Montréal churches after her marriage.  

Eudore (1906-1967) entered the priesthood for a short time
before working as an administrator for an encyclopedia publisher and as a radio
producer. He was organist at Ste-Madeleine Church in Outremont, Québec
1950-65 and at St-Joseph Church in the Town of Mount Royal 1965-7.

Bernard (1908-1989) became organist at St-Nicholas Church in
Ahuntsic in 1926 and then moved to Notre-Dame-de-la-Défense. After
winning the Prix de Europe in 1932 he studied organ, piano, fugue, and
counterpoint with Paul de Maleingrau at the Brussels Conservatory and then went
to Paris to work with Charles Tournemire. He was the regular organist at the
Trois-Rivières Cathedral where he gave daily recitals consisting mainly
of Bach organ works for six weeks in 1934. In 1945 he recorded the music for
The Singing Pipes, a National Film Board production about Casavant
Frères, on the instrument in the Québec Basilica. In the same
year he began a series of several tours in Canada and the USA (covering about
twenty states) and served as organist at St. Peter and St. Paul Church in
Lewiston, Maine 1945-6. He taught at the Conservatoire de Trois-Rivières
from 1966 until his retirement in 1973. His compositions included several
pieces for organ and a mass for four mixed voices and organ.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

Warren

The large family related to or descended from the prominent
Canadian organbuilder Samuel Russell Warren (1809-1882)--born in Tiverton,
Rhode Island; worked in Boston; emigrated to Montréal in 1836; produced
more than 350 notable pipe organs for use in Canada and the USA--included two
organists who developed their own independent careers.

William Henry (18??-1856), one of the brothers of Samuel
Russell, was born in the USA and eventually settled in Toronto where he became
organist at St. James Cathedral in 1834. Several years later he moved to
Montréal where he was appointed organist at Christ Church Cathedral in
1838; he remained there until his death. His parallel occupations included
those of music teacher at a boarding school for girls and piano tuner.

Samuel Prowse (1841-1915),2 the eldest son of Samuel
Russell, was born in Montréal and began studying organ at the age of 11.
He was organist at American Presbyterian Church in that city until 1858. In
1861 he went to Germany where he studied organ with Karl August Haupt. He
returned to Montréal in 1864 and moved to New York in 1865 to become
organist at All Souls Unitarian Church. He also served at Grace Episcopal
Church 1868-74 and 1876-94. While there he inaugurated a series of over 230
weekly recitals covering a wide range of organ literature, which created for
him a reputation as one of the foremost concert organists in the USA. Other
appointments included Holy Trinity Episcopalian Church, New York 1874-6 and
First Presbyterian Church, East Orange, New Jersey, from 1895 until his death.
He was a founding member of the American Guild of Organists in 1896, becoming
honorary president in 1902. His collection of rare books and musical
manuscripts was one of the most complete in America. He was a close friend of
the French organ virtuoso Alexandre Guilmant. His professional activities
included conductor of the New York Vocal Union, examiner for the Toronto
College of Music, administrator of the American College of Musicians, and
member of the Boston Conservatory. Few of his numerous compositions--piano and
organ pieces, anthems, and songs--were published during his lifetime.
Nevertheless, he prepared an edition of Mendelssohn's organ works for Schirmer
music publishers, edited a church hymnal, and transcribed some of the works of
Beethoven, Schumann, Wagner, and Weber for organ. He was widely recognized as a
teacher, and many of his students went on to distinguished careers.

Organist families

The family, a basic unit of social organization in which the
members live, at least initially, in close proximity, is one in which musical
education and development can flourish, provided that other favourable
circumstances exist, such as social, economic, and emotional security. It can
be assumed that all these were present in the foregoing cases, where the
symbiotic and supportive relations between members--fathers, sons, and
brothers--supplied the motivation and encouragement for the development of
musical abilities relating to the organ. While the inheritance of musical
ability was likely an important factor, the superior advantages of a nurturing
family environment, along with the outside associations and inspiring social
contacts that they brought, were crucial factors in the development of these
talents to a high level. Recognition and status was achieved not only locally
but also internationally in some cases. A distinguishing feature of many of
their careers was their versatility; professional occupations represented
included organist, choirmaster, composer, teacher, examiner, conductor, editor,
arranger, founder and officer of musical societies, and institution
administrator.

The fact that this activity flourished in eastern Canada is
related to two historical factors: (1) the first appearance of organs from
France in Québec in the late seventeenth century, and (2) the
development of organbuilding in Québec and Ontario from the
mid-nineteenth century onward. The early careers of most of the organists
considered here all began in the later years of the nineteenth century and
developed further in the early years of the twentieth century. The
opportunities for the emergence of latent organist talent were clearly
connected to the heightened activity in organbuilding and organ performance
around this time, and to the general public acceptance of, and enthusiasm for,
the organ and its music.  

Godwin Sadoh

Godwin Sadoh is currently writing his doctoral dissertation on the organ works of Fela Sowande at Louisiana State University.
An earlier version of this article was originally published in the February issue of "The Organ."

Nigeria has been blessed with very few, but seasoned organist-composers
since the arrival of Christianity around 1842. The schools and churches built
by the missionaries had a great impact on the emergence of the Nigerian
"organ school." The incentive to become professional organists and
composers was further propelled and inspired through the private lessons given
to talented Nigerian church musicians at an early age. All the musicians in
question had their formative periods at the mission schools, in church choirs,
and under organ playing apprenticeships.

The genealogy of Nigerian organist-composers is confined to
four generations from around the 1880s to the present. These are professional
organists trained at various schools of music in Great Britain and America.
Interestingly, each generation has produced only one musician: Thomas Ekundayo
Phillips (1884-1969), Fela Sowande (1905-1987), Ayo Bankole (1935-1976), and
Godwin Sadoh (1965-).

First Generation

Thomas Ekundayo Phillips is the pioneer and grandfather of the Nigerian school of
organist-composers, and he paved the way for the younger generations that were
to come after him. Born in 1884, he attended the Church Missionary Society
(CMS) Grammar School in Lagos. He received his first organ lessons from his
uncle, the Reverend Johnson, and at the age of eighteen he was appointed
organist of St. Paul's Anglican Church, Breadfruit, Lagos. Phillips served at
St. Paul's for nine years. In 1911, he proceeded to the Trinity College of
Music, London, to study piano, organ and violin. Thus, he became the second Nigerian
(after Rev. Robert Coker who studied in Germany in 1871) to study music at a
professional level. After returning from England in 1914, he was appointed
Organist and Master of the Music at Christ Church, now Cathedral Church of
Christ, Lagos (the headquarters of the Nigerian Anglican Communion). Phillips
held this position until his retirement in 1962--a total time span of
forty-eight years of outstanding accomplishments.

In 1964, Phillips was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Music
degree by the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, for his contribution to the
development of church music in Nigeria. One of Phillips' most important
achievements was his training of many prominent modern Nigerian composers such
as Fela Sowande and Ayo Bankole. These were some of the leading and prolific
composers in Africa, and they constitute the next generation of professionally
trained organists.1

Ekundayo Phillips wrote only two major works for organ solo:
Passacaglia on an African Folksong, and Variations on an African Folksong.
These pieces are based on his postulations in his book, Yoruba Music, a
treatise on the compositional style of early Nigerian church music. In the
book, Phillips demonstrated various techniques in traditional Nigerian musical
processes that could be utilized to create new forms of church music which
indigenes could easily assimilate.2 His compositional style is simple and
conservative.

Second Generation

Fela Sowande
represents the second generation of Nigerian organist-composers. He can be
regarded as the father of the Nigerian "organ school." It was he who
propelled the musical genre to an unprecedented height through his extensive
compositions and publications for the King of Instruments. Up to the time of
writing this essay, no one else has written such a great number of works for
organ in Nigeria. Interestingly, Sowande composed for other media such as
orchestra and voice, but his works for organ outnumbered the rest.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

Sowande was born at Lagos, in 1905, into a musical family.
His father, Emmanuel Sowande, was a minister of the Gospel and one of the
pioneers of church music in Nigeria. Sowande received his first lessons in
music from his father. Another influence on his early musical training was
Thomas Ekundayo Phillips. Under the tutelage of Phillips, as a chorister at the
Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, Sowande was exposed to European sacred music
and indigenous church music. He received private lessons in organ from Phillips
while singing in the Cathedral Choir. Sowande asserts that Phillips' organ
playing, the choir training, and the organ lessons he received had a major
impact on his aspiration of becoming an organist-composer.

At age 27, Sowande decided to become a civil engineer and
went to London to study in 1935. After six months, he changed his mind and
decided to study music. He played jazz in London nightclubs to support himself.
Sowande enrolled as an external candidate at the University of London and
received private lessons in organ from George Oldroyd and George Cunningham. He
became a Fellow of the Royal College of Organists with credit in 1943--the
highest British qualification for organ playing. He happens to be the first
Nigerian and perhaps the first African to receive the prestigious British FRCO
diploma. Sowande was awarded the Harding Prize for organ playing, the Limpus
Prize for theoretical work and the Read Prize for the highest aggregate marks
in the fellowship examination. Sowande also obtained the Bachelor of Music
degree from the University of London and became a Fellow of the Trinity College
of Music.

Sowande had a rounded musical experience in England. He was
a solo pianist in a performance of Gershwin's Rhapsody in Blue in 1936, and was
appointed organist and choir director at the West London Mission of the
Methodist Church (1945 to 1952). It was during this period that he began
composing for organ. The influence of his participation in and exposure to
church music during his formative years could be seen in the abundance of works
written for organ. His organ compositions at this time included Kyrie,
Obangiji, K'a Mura, Jesu Olugbala, Go Down Moses, Joshua Fit the Battle of
Jericho, and Yoruba Lament.3 

These pieces are based on borrowed themes from Nigeria's
Yoruba culture and African-American spirituals. Indig-enous songs are employed
in Sowande's music for three reasons: 1) as a symbol and mark of national
identity; 2) to classify the works under the umbrella of modern Nigerian art
music; and 3) to arouse the interest of Nigerian/African audiences in
performing, studying and analyzing the music. Apart from rhythm, the indigenous
songs are the elements of Nigerian culture most audible to the audiences and
performers. Hearing those songs enabled them to categorize the works as
Nigerian musical heritage.

During the war, Sowande enlisted with the Royal Air Force,
but was released at the request of the Ministry of Information to go to the
Colonial Film Unit as a Musical Adviser of the British Ministry of Information
in London. He was designated to provide background music for a series of
educational films geared towards Africa. Sowande also presented several
lectures titled West African Music and the Possibilities of its Development for
the BBC's Africa Service. He collected a substantial amount of indigenous
folksongs during this period. The songs were later to be employed in creating
large works such as African Suite and the Folk Symphony. The Folk Symphony was
commissioned by the Nigerian government in 1960 to mark the nation's
independence. Although the work was not accepted, the New York Philharmonic
Orchestra in Carnegie Hall eventually premiered it in 1962.

In 1944, Sowande was invited to conduct the BBC Symphony
Orchestra in the performance of his tone poem Africana, a work for orchestra
based on a Nigerian melody. In 1952, his African Suite for strings and a
selection of his original compositions for organ were recorded by the Decca
Records Company (London Records, U.S.) under the title "The Negro in
Sacred Idiom." Sowande received two outstanding positions on his return to
Nigeria in 1953. He was appointed as the Musical Director to the Nigerian
Broadcasting Corporation in Lagos and as honorary organist at the Cathedral
Church of Christ, Lagos.

Among his numerous awards are Member of the British Empire
(MBE) from Queen Elizabeth II for distinguished services in the cause of music
(1956); the Member of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (MFN) in 1956; the
Traditional Chieftaincy award, the "Bagbile of Lagos" in recognition
of his research in Yoruba folklore (1968); and an honorary doctorate from the
University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) in 1972. Sowande also
received partial grants from the Ford and Rockefeller Foundations.4

Sowande first came to the United States in 1957, playing
organ recitals sponsored by the U. S. Department of State. He also toured as a
guest conductor of symphony orchestras and as a guest lecturer. He later came
back to take up permanent residency in 1968. His teaching career included
tenures at the University of Ibadan in Nigeria, Howard University in
Washington, D.C., the University of Pittsburgh, and Kent State University,
Ohio. Sowande died on Friday, March 13, 1987, at a nursing home in Ravenna,
Ohio.

Sowande composed sixteen major works for organ:

K'a Mura, 1945 (Chappell, London)

Obangiji, 1955 (Chappell, London)

Kyrie, 1955 (Chappell, London)

Yoruba Lament, 1955 (Chappell,

London)

Jesu Olugbala, 1955 (Chappell,

London)

Joshua Fit de Battle of Jericho, 1955 (Chappell, London)

Go Down Moses, 1955 (Chappell,

London)

Oyigiyigi, 1958 (Ricordi, New York)

Gloria, 1958 (Ricordi, New York)

Prayer (Oba A Ba Ke), 1958 (Ricordi, New York)

Sacred Idioms of the Negro

Pastourelle

K'a mo Rokoso

Plainsong

Fantasia in D

Festival March

Sowande's sixteen pieces for organ are all based on Yoruba
Christian or folksongs from Nigeria, with the exception of Joshua Fit de Battle
of Jericho, Go Down Moses and Bury Me Eas' or Wis' (from the Sacred Idioms of
the Negro) which are based on African-American spirituals. The structures of
these pieces range from simple three-part forms to continuous development
types, fugues, and theme and variations. To create contrast in the music he
uses bicinium, tricinium, homophony, and contrapuntal textures between the
pedal and manuals. Sowande has a predilection for a continuous tonal shifting
within a work. He sometimes begins a piece in one key and ends in another, such
as Go Down Moses which begins in F and closes in D major. He uses a wide
variety of tonal resources ranging from diatonicism, pentatonality and
chromaticism. The pedal part is generally simple and sparse, but explores
extremes of range. Pedalpoints are used to tonicize specific tonal centers and
to create climax.

Third Generation

Ayo Bankole alone
represents the third generation of Nigerian organist-composers. A prolific
composer, Bankole had the makings of a genius. He had a special skill for
composition and a talent for presenting his material in an eclectic and
personal way that made him stand as a master composer and performer in his own
right. Bankole continued from where Fela Sowande left off, a generation before
him.

Ayo Bankole was born on May 17, 1935, at Jos, in the plateau
State of Nigeria. He belongs to the Yoruba ethnic group. Bankole spent the
first five years of his life with his father, the late Mr. Theophilus Abiodun
Bankole (M.B.E.), who was then organist and choirmaster at St. Luke's Church,
Jos. During those early years in Jos, Bankole began to show great promise for
music, since he was from a musical family. The composer's biography was
exclusively obtained from Afolabi Alaja-Browne's M.A. thesis.5

In 1941, Bankole came down to Lagos with his father and
began living with his grandfather, the late Mr. Akinje George, who exposed him
to various types of musical styles. In 1945, at the age of 10, Bankole went to
school at the Baptist Academy, Lagos. He played piano and through his activity
in organizing small groups to perform, he began one aspect of his life-long
contributions to music--choral conducting. Bankole was appointed as a clerical
officer at the Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation in 1954. During this period,
he came in contact with notable Nigerian musicians such as Dr. Thomas Ekundayo
Phillips and Professor Fela Sowande. Bankole had great admiration for Fela
Sowande, and a few years later he was to come under his influence both as
organist and composer.

Between 1954 and 1957, Bankole was already very active as
organist in Lagos churches. For instance, he was assistant organist at the
Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, under the leadership of late Ekundayo
Phillips. It was about 1956 when he began composing his first major work,
Sonata No. 2 (The Passion), for piano.

In August 1957, Bankole left Lagos on a Federal Government
Scholarship to study music at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in
London. He was enrolled in the graduate program (GGSM), a three-year teacher's
diploma, and studied piano, composition, organ, harmony, and counterpoint. Some
of his teachers included Alan Brown (organ), Harold Dexter (organ), and Guy
Eldridge (composition). During his time at the Guildhall School of Music,
Bankole was exposed to a variety of musical styles. His works from this period
show the influence of these various styles. He experimented, progressing from
works that were tonally simple, to works in which he explored diverse
twentieth-century compositional devices as exemplified in the Three Yoruba
Songs for voice and piano (1959) and the Toccata and Fugue for organ (1960). In
spite of the intensity of the program at Guildhall, Bankole found time to sit
for and obtain a series of professional diplomas: Associate of the Royal
College of Music (piano), Licentiate of the Trinity College (piano), Licentiate
of the Royal Academy of Music (Teacher's Diploma), Associate of the Royal College
of Organists, and the Graduate of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama
(GGSM).

In addition to his activities as organist-composer, Bankole
was able to organize and train a special mixed choir, comprising fellow
students, which gave performances of his compositions, many of them in the
Yoruba language and musical idiom. Members of his choir and the audiences were
captivated by the Nigerian melodies and rhythms. This type of creative
procedure led to the synthesis of Yoruba and Western musical elements in his
works. Some of the works in this category are Sonata No. 1, Christmas (1958),
Cantata No. 1 in Yoruba, Baba Se wa l'Omo Rere (Father, make us good children)
(1959), Sonata No. 2, Passion (1959), and the variations Op. 10, No. 1 (1959),
based on a Yoruba folktune, Ise Oluwa. 

After spending four years at the Guildhall School of Music,
Bankole moved to Claire College, Cambridge University, London, where he
obtained his first degree, the Bachelor of Arts in Music, at the end of 1964.
While at Cambridge as an organ scholar (1961-64), Bankole obtained the
prestigious Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists (FRCO), thus becoming
the second and the last Nigerian to receive this British highest diploma in
organ playing.

During Bankole's stay in England, he wrote music that he
himself could perform. A tremendous amount of music was composed for piano and
organ. He also wrote some choral and orchestral works that are technically
oriented towards European performers. The works of this period include Sonata
No. 4, English Winter Birds for piano, Variations Liturgical (theme and nine
variations for piano), Three Toccatas for organ, Fugal Dance for piano, Second
Organ Symphonia (with drums, trumpets and trombones), and a number of choral
works such as Art Thou Come (1964), Little Jesus, Gentle Jesus (1964), Canon
for Christmas (1964), and Four Yoruba Songs (1964). 

After completing his bachelor's degree at Cambridge
University in 1964, Bankole received a Rockefeller Foundation Fellowship to
study ethnomusicology at the University of California, Los Angeles. Works
produced at UCLA include Ethnophony and Jona. Jona is a cantata in Yoruba for
mixed media comprising a narrator, singers, a dancer and an unusual combination
of musical instruments, including the Indian tambura.

In 1966, Ayo Bankole returned to Nigeria, and was appointed
to the post of Senior Producer in Music at the Nigerian Broadcasting
Corporation (N.B.C.). He remained in this position until 1969, when he was appointed
Lecturer in Music, School of African and Asian Studies, University of Lagos.
His job as a senior producer at the N.B.C. brought him into contact with
various Nigerian musical genres. This contact was to become useful to him both
creatively as well as in his development as a scholar. Two works were written
as a result of his experiences at this time--Fun mi Ni'beji (Give me twins),
parts 1 and 2 for unaccompanied chorus (1967), and the opera Night of Miracles
for chorus, soloists, and Nigerian instruments (1969).

While at the radio station, Bankole had a series of
programs, which he designed to educate the Nigerian public and to present
indigenous African music to the world at large. Some of his works were
performed and recorded under a project initiated by Fela Sowande and jointly
sponsored by the Federal Ministry of Information, Lagos, and the Nigerian
Broadcasting Corporation. Some of the works from this period are Ore Ofe (The
Grace) for unaccompanied chorus (1967) and Adura fun Alafia (Prayer for Peace)
for voice and piano (1969).

In 1969, he was appointed  Lecturer in Music at the University of Lagos, where he
continued his research into Nigerian indigenous music and presented scholarly
papers. From 1970 onwards, as a result of his research efforts, Bankole began
to employ more traditional materials in his compositions. A work which marks
the beginning of this phase is the Cantata No. 4, Festac, completed in 1974 and
scored for soloists, chorus, organ and orchestral accompaniment consisting of woodwinds,
brass, and some Nigerian traditional instruments. Ona Ara is scored for
soloists, chorus, organ, and Yoruba musical instruments.

Between 1971 and 1974, Bankole spent a lot of time on
special assignments, both within and outside Nigeria. For instance, he was
External Examiner to the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, in 1971. Between 1971
and 1972, he was Visiting Lecturer at Ohio State University. In 1973, he
received a Federal Government Commission to compose the anthem for the Second
All-African Games. Between July and August 1974, he was director of a music
seminar, organized by the Rivers State Center for Arts and Culture, and in
April 1974, he was Nigerian Composer-Elect to the Fifth Congress of Soviet
Composers, held in Moscow.

From 1974, Bankole began studying diverse musical practices
of the various ethnic groups in Nigeria. The result of these studies gave birth
to three major projects: 1) Dictionary of Musical Instruments of Nigeria; 2)
The Music of the Rivers' People of Nigeria; and 3) a special study of the Edo
musical instruments.

At the University of Lagos, Bankole combined the roles of
music educator, composer, performer and musicologist. As a music educator, he
was especially concerned with promoting the cause of music at the grassroots. He
achieved this by training young talents, teaching them to read music and also
giving voice and piano lessons. Furthermore, he organized and trained several
choral groups. He composed regularly for these groups and exposed them to
various indigenous and foreign musical works. Among the groups he founded and
trained were The Choir of Angels, comprising students from three secondary
schools in the Lagos area; The Lagos University Musical Society; The Nigerian
National Musico-Cultural Society; and The Choir of the Healing Cross.

Although Bankole contributed immensely to the development of
modern art music in Nigeria, he did not live long to witness the fruits of his
efforts. For on November 6, 1976, at the age of forty-one, Ayo Bankole and his
wife, Toro Bankole, were killed in very tragic circumstances. Today he is still
greatly admired by Nigerian musicians for his magnificent contributions to
Nigerian music as a composer, music teacher, musicologist, organist, pianist,
conductor, and choral director--an extremely gifted man who was not able to
develop his God-given gifts to full potential. Bankole composed five major
works for organ solo:

Toccata and Fugue (1960), published by the University of Ife
Press, Ile-Ife, 1978

Three Toccatas, published under Operation Music One, 1967

Fugue, published under Operation Music One, 1967

Organ Symphonia Nos. 1 & 2, for organ, drums, trumpet
and trombone, unpublished, 1961-64

Fantasia (1961-64), unpublished.

Fourth Generation

Godwin Sadoh
represents the fourth and present generation of Nigerian organist-composers.
Interestingly, like his predecessors, he is the only one in this category, and
his musical training, contribution, experience and expertise are eclectic and
extremely diverse. He is a Nigerian ethnomusicologist, African musicologist,
teacher, composer, pianist, scholar, organist/choir director and an ordained
minister of the Gospel.

Sadoh was born on March 28, 1965, at Lagos, Nigeria, to a
middle-class family. Unlike his predecessors, he was not fortunate to have musicians
in his family. The only musical exposure he had during childhood was the
rendition of folksongs by his late mother and older sisters. His mother
enrolled him in one of the local church choirs, St. Paul's Anglican Church,
Idi-Oro, Lagos, in 1979. It was at this choir that Sadoh was first introduced
to European church music. 

Sadoh attended Eko Boys' High School, Lagos, from 1977 to
1982, where he received private lessons in music theory and piano from Mr.
Ebenezer Omole, the school's music teacher. Omole quickly noticed Sadoh's
talents and interests in music and got him appointed as one of his assistants
in conducting and accompanying the school's choir at the piano. It was Omole
who prepared him for the theory examinations of the Associated Board of the
Royal Schools of Music, London. When Omole was transferred to another
institution, the school's principal and the teaching staff unanimously
appointed Sadoh to the position of organist and choir director of Eko Boys'
High School in 1981 at the age of sixteen. During his tenure, he coordinated
musical activities for the school and directed a Festival of Nine Lessons and
Carols in December, 1981.

In 1980, Sadoh joined the renowned Cathedral Church of
Christ Choir, Lagos, to sing tenor under the leadership of Mr. Obayomi Phillips
(son and successor of Thomas Ekundayo Phillips), who was then the organist and
master of the music. Worthy of mention is the fact that all the Nigerian
organist-composers passed through the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos, and
were directly or indirectly trained by Ekundayo Phillips. Obayomi Phillips, who
gave Sadoh private organ lessons, was trained by his father, Ekundayo Phillips.
Obayomi Phillips took keen interest in Sadoh's talents and dedication to
advance his skills and aptitudes in music. Phillips soon appointed Sadoh as the
assisting organist to accompany the choir practices on Tuesdays and Thursdays
and to play for the 7:15 am communion services on Sundays. Phillips also gave
Sadoh private lessons in piano, organ and general musicianship (aural skills),
and he prepared Sadoh for all the piano examinations of the Associated Board of
the Royal Schools of Music, London, from grade 3 through grade 7.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

During his fourteen years at the Cathedral Church, Sadoh was
privileged to meet prominent Nigerian trained musicians such as Yinka Sowande,
substitute organist at Cathedral Church and brother of Fela Sowande; Mrs. Tolu
Obajimi, a graduate of the Guildhall School of Music, London, and music
teacher; Kehinde Okusanya, a concert pianist and Director of the Music
Department of Nigerian Broadcasting Corporation, Lagos; Professor Lazarus
Ekwueme, a Nigerian musicologist, singer, choral conductor, and Professor of
Music at the Department of Music, University of Lagos; Kayode Oni, a graduate
of Trinity College of Music, London, and one of the notable concert organists
in Lagos; and Christopher Oyesiku, a bass singer and choral conductor. Obayomi
Phillips gave Sadoh a personal scholarship from his own purse to study music at
the University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University) from 1984 to 1988.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

Between 1982 and 1984, Sadoh founded and directed several
choral groups in Lagos. He accompanied and directed most of the groups by
himself at rehearsals and concerts. It was during this period that Sadoh
discovered his gifts in composition. Among his creative works at this early
stage are Oluwa Gbo Adura Mi (Lord Hear My Prayer) for tenor and piano, Oluwa
mi (My Lord) for two voices and piano, Ale ti le (Night has Fallen) for
baritone and piano, Gbo Ohun Awon Angeli (Hear the Voices of Angels) for SATB
and piano, and several other works. He wrote mainly vocal music during this
period.

In 1984, Sadoh was accepted to the Obafemi Awolowo
University, Ile-Ife, to study piano performance and composition. Between 1985
and 1986, he was appointed as the director of the Unife Joint Christian Mission
Choir (over 250 voices). He was formally introduced to traditional African
music at the Obafemi Awolowo University. It was there that he became more
conscious of his existence as an African musician and the component elements of
the music. Sadoh's interest in African music was invigorated through his
exposure to diverse musical cultures of the world. He took courses such as
music in African culture, survey of world music, black music in the Americas,
music in the Middle East and India. As time went on he acquired deeper
theoretical knowledge of African music. Sadoh's musical studies at Ile-Ife
paved the way for his growing interest in incorporating indigenous Nigerian
elements and the creative procedures in his musical compositions. Hence, he
began to employ distinct Nigerian rhythmic patterns, harmony, tonal
organization, and scale systems in his works. Sadoh's creative output during
this period includes Memoirs of Childhood for piano, Moonlight Dances for
piano, Akoi Wata Geri for SATB and piano, and Akoi Wata Geri for tenor and
piano. Sadoh completed his Bachelor of Arts degree with a Second Class
Upper-Division in 1988. He was retained to teach in the same Department of
Music from 1988 to 1994 as a result of his diligence and academic excellence.
While teaching at the Obafemi Awolowo University, he founded and directed two
major choral groups, the Ile-Ife Choral Society and the Ile-Ife Junior Choral
Society. With these two groups, he directed several public concerts of choral,
vocal solos, and instrumental music within and outside Ile-Ife. Sadoh also
played piano solo recitals on the university campus and other regions in
Nigeria.

In 1994, Sadoh was accepted to the graduate program in
ethnomusicology and African music at the University of Pittsburgh where he
obtained an M.A. degree in 1998. As a teaching assistant at the institution, he
taught several courses including world music, class voice, and class piano. During
this period, he was apointed as a guest/visiting lecturer at GoldenWest
College, California, in 1995, and at Thiel College from 1995 to 1998. Sadoh
studied organ with Dr. Robert Sutherland Lord at the University of Pittsburgh
for three years. While in Pittsburgh, he also served as organist and choir
director at St.  Stephen's
Episcopal Church, Wilkinsburg, from 1996 to 1998.

Sadoh continued his musical training in organ performance
and church music at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln from 1998 to 2000. His
teachers were Dr. George Ritchie and Dr. Quentin Faulkner. Sadoh was often
called upon to present several guest lectures on African and world music at the
School of Music, University of Nebraska. In fact, he created the curriculum of
the African music program and taught the course from 1998 to 2000. During his
two-year sojourn in Nebraska, he served as organist at Christ Lutheran Church,
Grace Lutheran Church, and as associate director of music ministries at the
First United Methodist Church. Sadoh obtained the M.Mus. degree in May of 2000
after playing two Master's organ recitals in one academic year--November 1999
and April 2000. He published his first scholarly article "Music at the
Anglican Youth Fellowship: An Intercultural Experience" in the HYMN
journal, in January 2001. This was a paper he wrote for twentieth-century
church music class, and it was Dr. Faulkner, the instructor, who encouraged him
to get the paper published.

In 2000, Sadoh was accepted to the Doctor of Musical Arts
degree program in organ performance and composition at the Louisiana State
University, Baton Rouge. With this admission, he became the first African to
study organ at doctoral level. He has been studying with Dr. Herndon Spillman
(organ) and Dr. Dinos Constantinides (composition). At LSU, he wrote mostly
instrumental and chamber works at the instigation of his composition teacher.
His major works at this time include Three Dances for piano, Three Pieces for
flute solo, Illusion for violin and piano, Potpourri for trombone, flute, oboe,
clarinet in B-flat, and string quartet, A Folk Dance for percussion ensemble of
four players, Yoruba Wedding Dance for brass quintet, Badagry for woodwind
quartet, A Suite of Nigerian Folksongs for string quartet, Tribute to Homeland
for chamber orchestra, Harmattan Overture for symphony orchestra and Nigerian
instruments, Summer Evening at Ile-Ife for wind quintet, and Three Wedding
Songs for soprano and piano. Sadoh wrote his first major works for organ in the
summer of 2002: 1) Folk Dance, 2) Ore Ofe Jesu, and 3) Nigerian Toccata.
style="mso-spacerun: yes"> 

The Folk Dance was composed on August 13, 2002. The thematic
material was derived from a Nigerian folksong "Owo o, Omo o, ma m'omo se
ire" (money and children are both desired and I will embrace both and revere
them). It is divided into three sections. The first introduces the main theme
on the Great with an ostinato in the Pedal. The second section is the
development of the theme in D-flat, while the third section returns back to the
home key (F) and ushers in the principal theme triumphantly in the Pedal with
full organ. Nigerian Toccata was influenced by nineteenth and twentieth-century
French toccatas. Composed on August 14, 2002, it is a virtuoso piece that calls
for all the resources of the organ from the smallest pianissimo to the loudest
fortissimo. The four thematic materials are original. Structurally, it is in a
quasi-sonata allegro form without a development. The harmonic framework and
sonority are purely modern. The work is characterized by diatonicism,
chromaticism, pentatonicism and sequences. Ore Ofe Jesu (The grace of Jesus)
was composed on August 15, 2002. It is a quiet and meditative piece most
suitable for offertory, communion or any other contemplative aspect of a divine
service, and is in three sections. It opens with a prelude in duple meter and
moves into the second section in triple meter. This section is based on a
Yoruba church hymn "Idahun re l'a nreti" (We are waiting to receive
your answer). It closes quietly with the first four measures of the prelude.
These three pieces were published by Wayne Leupold Editions in April 2003 as
one major work titled Nigerian Suite No. 1 for organ solo.

In 2002, Sadoh wrote and published two articles: "A
Centennial Epitome of the Organs at the Cathedral Church of Christ, Lagos,
Nigeria," published in The Organ (London), and "The Creative Process
in Nigerian Hymn-Based Compositions," published in The Diapason (August,
pp. 15-17). Several scholarly articles by him are to be published in 2003.
"Creativity and Dance in Joshua Uzoigwe's Music," will be published
in ComposerUSA, "Organ Building in Nigeria" and "A History of
South Africa's Organ Builders" will be published in the Organ
Encyclopedia. In May 2003, Sadoh was nominated by members of the faculty at LSU
for membership in the Beta Lambda Chapter of Pi Kappa Lambda, for his academic
and musical accomplishments.

It is interesting to note that an organist-composer is born
in Nigeria every thirty years. Sowande was born in 1905, Bankole in 1935 and
Sadoh in 1965. Hypothetically, the composer-organist for the fifth generation
must have been born in 1995 somewhere in Nigeria.

Others

The following are organists only.

Kayode Oni studied
organ at the Trinity College of Music in London. He came back to Nigeria in the
1970s and was subsequently appointed Honorary Organist at the Cathedral Church
of Christ, Lagos. He was also organist and choir director in several Anglican
churches in Ogun and Lagos States. He taught several budding organists in
Lagos, including Deji Osun.

Deji Osun studied
organ privately with Kayode Oni for several years in Lagos. He sat for the
theory, piano, and organ examinations of the Associated Board of the Royal
Schools of Music, London, while studying with Kayode Oni. He served as organist
in various churches in Lagos and Ogun States before leaving for the Trinity
College of Music, London, to continue his studies in organ in early 1980s. He
has completed his training and currently resides in England.

Merriman Johnson was
the organist at the Tinubu Methodist Church, Lagos, for several years. He went
to study organ in one of the British schools of music in the early 1980s. He
has finished his training and is currently residing in England.

by James B. Hartman

The Centennial Facsimile Edition of The Organ, Vols. I & II, May 1892-April 1894, Everett E. Truette, editor and publisher, Boston, was published in 1995 by The Boston Organ Club Chapter of the Organ Historical Society, P.O. Box 104, Harrisville, NH 03450-0104.  It was prepared from an original copy owned by the Spaulding Library, New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, under the direction of E.A. Boadway, Alan Miller Laufman, and Martin R. Walsh. (Available for $59.95 from The Boston Organ Club, P.O. Box 371, Brushton, NY 12916-0571.)

Everett Ellsworth Truette was among the leading figures on the musical scene in the United States around the turn of the century.1 Born in Rockland, Massachusetts, in 1861, at the age of seventeen he was already participating in recitals at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he was studying organ, piano, harmony, counterpoint, and theory. In 1883 he was among the earliest graduates to receive the Mus. Bac. degree from Boston University's College of Music, where he had served as organist at other graduation ceremonies. Subsequently he studied organ with Augustus Haupt in Germany, Alexandre Guilmant in France, and William T. Best in England, over a two-year period. In addition to teaching organ, piano, harmony, and theory at his large studio in Boston--it contained a three-manual, 19-stop, tracker pipe organ, in addition to a grand piano and a pedal piano--he was organist and choirmaster in a church in Newton, Massachusetts, and served as conductor of two large choral groups. He also maintained an active career as an organ recitalist, playing over 400 concerts and dedicatory programs throughout the country. His other accomplishments included the publication of over thirty organ compositions, collections of organ music, and anthems, issued by his own company, along with a successful book on organ registration, first launched in 1919. One of the founders of the American Guild of Organists in 1896, he was active in that association as its first Secretary and later as Dean. He was editor of the Organ Department of The Étude for seven years until 1907, and continued to write for that magazine until 1928. Seven months before his death in 1933 he played his last recital at the church where he had served as organist and choirmaster since 1897.

Early in the 1890s Truette conceived the idea that culminated in his most ambitious literary venture, the publication in May 1892 of the first issue of The Organ. In his inaugural editorial, Truette admitted the limited audience for such a publication, and described the magazine not as a partisan or trade journal, but as an educational enterprise for the discussion of topics of interest to music students, professional musicians, and lovers of organ music generally. His general aim was to broaden the familiarity of these people with the construction and uses of the organ through information about notable organs, technical and tonal matters, organ concerts, new organ music, and the sayings and doings of prominent persons associated with the instrument.

During its short existence only two volumes--twenty-four issues in all--of The Organ were published, and the categories of its contents varied hardly at all. There were biographical sketches of past and contemporary composers of organ music, contemporary recitalists, and organ builders; and descriptions of recent organ installations in the United States and historic organs in England and Europe. One article described the first organ in the United States, imported from England by a wealthy Boston merchant around 1700.2 Each issue included two or three organ pieces, some composed or arranged specially for the journal. Other recurrent contents included articles on organ construction and organ playing; specifications of new organs, programs of organ recitals, a question and answer column, correspondence in the form of reports and letters from near and far, a section of miscellaneous announcements about organists and their activities ("Mixtures"), and a column of humor ("Cipherings").

Although Truette's editorial at the end of the first year expressed satisfaction at the confidence shown by readers, subscribers, and advertisers, in the penultimate issue he announced that publication would be suspended. The reasons were primarily financial, related to a continued financial depression: many subscribers and advertisers were in arrears, and Truette was unable to meet payments to composers and writers for their published items. Reminding his readers that remittances for the balance of unexpired subscriptions would be forthcoming, and that back issues could be purchased at the regular rate of twenty-five cents each, Truette ended by saying, "we close the mucilage pot, hang up the scissors, and say au revoir."3

The highly informative and entertaining material contained in the twenty-four issues of The Organ is of great historical significance. Taken as a whole, its contents present a broad panorama of the state of the organ culture in the United States in the mid-1890s: organ building, organ playing, prominent recitalists, major events, and opinions on topics of interest to the musical community.

Organ Building

The organ builders of the Boston area--the focus of organ building in New England in the concluding decade of the nineteenth century--and in neighboring northeastern states were responsible for the installation of many large instruments in prestigious churches and other locations.4 Advertisements by the following organ builders ap-peared in almost every issue of The Organ.

The Roosevelt Organ works, managed by Frank Roosevelt (1865-1894) after the death in 1886 of his father who founded the company in 1872, was responsible for two of the largest organs in the world: a four-manual, 115-stop instrument in a Garden City cathedral in 1883, and a four-manual, 107-stop instrument in the Chicago Auditorium in 1889. When the company closed in 1893, various rights and patents relating to adjustable combination action, wind chests, and electro-pneumatic and tubular action were transferred to Farrand & Votey, a Detroit company.

The Farrand & Votey firm emerged from a buy-out of the Whitney Organ Company in the mid-1880s by the family of one of the partners, William Farrand (1854-1930). The company built a large four-manual instrument for the gigantic Chicago Exposition in 1893, and installed equally large instruments in the Carnegie Library in Pittsburgh, the Pabst Theater in Milwaukee, and in various churches. The other partner, Edwin Votey (1856-1931), invented the self-playing Pianola in 1895, shortly after the company began building organs for the Aeolian Company, with which it eventually merged.

Although the Hook factory of organ building was well established by 1860, and Francis Hastings (1836-1916) became a partner in 1871, Hook & Hastings of Boston acquired its name upon the death of one of the founders, George Hook (1807-1880). The factory operated at its peak level of activity at that time, producing an average of 46 instruments a year, including larger instruments of up to 81 speaking stops, along with several models of small, ready-made, moderately priced stock instruments, available on short notice.

Another prominent Massachusetts builder was George S. Hutchings (1835-1913), who entered the organ factory of Elias and George Hook at the age of twenty-two, leaving in 1869 to form a new association with several other Hook employees. In 1884 he began building organs under his own name, some of considerable size featuring patented changeable combination pistons. He constructed more than 600 instruments during his lifetime, including a three-manual tracker organ installed in Everette Truette's Boston studio in 1897.5

James E. Treat (1837-1915) had been working with various organ building firms for over twenty-five years before he connected with a wealthy interior decorator, Edward F. Searles, who commissioned Treat in 1886 to build an organ for his opulent mansion in Great Barrington, Massachusetts (Everett Truette was one of two organists who gave the opening program). Searles later subsidized the establishment of a factory for Treat, which became the Methuen Organ Company. In this enterprise cost was no object, the best materials were used, and the most competent workmen were hired. Treat's advertisements in The Organ warned "No specifications for competition--Prices not the lowest." For a time Treat was treasurer of the United States Tubular Bell Company, Methuen, Massachusetts, another Searles' business that advertised its products for churches, turret clocks, and public buildings in The Organ ("Ding-Dongs, 2 bells; Peals, 4 bells; Chimes, 8, 13 and 15 bells"). Among Treat's other installations was the Searles Memorial Organ in Grace Church, San Francisco, in 1894 (in memory of Searles' wife who died in 1891); Everett Truette played a demonstration program at Treat's factory before the organ was delivered. The organ and the church were destroyed in the disastrous earthquake and fire that devastated San Francisco in 1906. One of the pallbearers at Treat's funeral was Everett Truette.

George Jardine & Son, New York, was the concluding incarnation of a family enterprise that flourished in the last four decades of the nineteenth century. For most of that time, the firm was led by the son, Edward, who was a church organist and frequent recitalist in inaugural programs for Jardine organs. The firm's largest "Grand Organs" included several four-manual instruments in churches in and around New York, and one in a Pittsburgh cathedral; three-manual in-struments were placed in churches as far away as San Francisco and New Orleans.

Samuel Pierce (1819-1895) learned pipemaking in the Hook factory, but moved to Reading, Massachusetts, in 1847 to open his own shop, from which he supplied many organ builders in Boston and elsewhere with pipes, pipe organ materials, and other accessories. His advertisement in The Organ boasted, "Front Pipes Decorated in the Highest Style of the Art"; Pierce had a special department in a separate building re-served for this facet of his operations.

Although the Mason & Hamlin Organ & Piano Company built a few stock-model pipe organs in the 1890s, they were noted for their elaborate reed organs, with two manuals and pedals, and decorative dummy pipe facades; these instruments were powered by the strong arms of boys or young men who worked a handle on the side of the case. The company's advertisement in The Organ featured the "Liszt Church Organ," described as "the most perfect instrument of its class, superior to small pipe organs."  These claims were accompanied by a letter from Alexandre Guilmant, who testified that the organ "is of beautiful tone and will be very useful to persons wishing to learn to play the Great Organ."

Other organ builders whose advertisements appeared in The Organ included Carl Barkhoff, John H. Sole, Johnson & Son, William King & Son, Morey & Barnes, M.P. Möller, Cole & Woodberry, Woodberry & Harris, Geo. H. Ryder, Henry F. Miller, and J.G. Marklove. In addition, the Henry F. Miller & Sons Piano Company, Boston, offered "The Pedal Piano--Indispensable to Organists."

Organ Recital Repertoire

The content of organ recital programs in the mid-1890s was determined by a variety of factors: the performers' backgrounds, training, musical interests, and technical abilities; reverence for musical tradition and the attraction of the new; the perceived musical preferences of audiences; and the tonal resources of the organs.6 During the two years of its publication, The Organ printed the programs of 136 organ recitals, consisting of 956 selections in all. Of these, 264 (28 percent) were transcriptions of works by major composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, such as symphonic or instrumental movements, operatic overtures, and marches. The most frequently performed arrangements were from Wagner's operas Lohengrin and Tannhäuser, and pieces from Handel's Samson and Occasional Oratorio, along with his ever-popular Largo. Audiences heard interpretations of marches by Chopin (Funeral March), Gounod (Funeral March), Mendelssohn (Wedding March), Meyerbeer (Le Prophète, Schiller Festival March, and others), Schubert (Marche militaire); and operatic overtures by Flotow (Stradella, Martha), Rossini (William Tell), and Weber (Oberon). The frequency of performance of organ transcriptions of works by these and other composers is given in this table:

                  Number                Percent

Wagner                 36            14

Handel 27            10

Mendelssohn    19            7

Gounod                 14            5

Rossini 11            4

Schubert               10            4

Weber  9               3

Beethoven          8               3

Chopin 8               3

Meyerbeer          7               3

Haydn  7               3

Flotow 7               3              

The inclusion of transcriptions and arrangements in organ recitals was also widespread in Canada and England, and the practice attracted much criticism, even though it served the valuable function of providing the general public with opportunities to hear works that otherwise would remain unknown. In its second issue, The Organ reprinted a letter from a London magazine by the English organist William T. Best (1826-1897), perhaps the greatest concert organist of the nineteenth century, on the topic of organ arrangements.7 Best was responding to an article by Walter Parratt, Organist to the Queen, who was hostile to the practice of arrangements, calling them "examples of misapplied skill" that were having "a disastrous influence over organ music, as in the majority of such programmes two-thirds at least are arrangements of orchestral and choral works." Best retorted by pointing to "the father of all arrangers," Bach, and other musicians whose integrity would not allow them to select music unsuitable for the organ; even Guilmant, he pointed out, had recently engaged in the practice. Furthermore, he added, "in endeavoring to raise the musical taste of the humbler classes, the municipal authorities of our large towns did not intend their concert organs to be restricted to the performance of preludes, and fugues, and somewhat dry sonatas." Best argued that a well-arranged slow movement of an instrumental work was preferable to a dull specimen of original organ music. Even so, he thought that the higher forms of musical composition should only be introduced warily and gradually. Best had a very large repertoire, and his concert programs always included several arrangements. A sketch of his career included this assessment of his abilities:

Mr. Best's skill in handling the organ is something marvellous. When playing, his two hands perform feats of registration which would require three hands for most any other performer; and those who consider the organ a "cold instrument" have but to listen to his playing to become convinced that one who is so thoroughly skilled in manipulating the resources of the organ can produce effects of expression and tone-coloring which they never thought were possible.8

As for original works, Alexandre Guilmant's organ compositions were the most frequently performed, led by his Marche funèbre et chant séraphique and several of his Sonatas. Bach's Preludes and Fugues were played often, particularly the dramatic Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, but there was only a single performance of a Chorale Prelude. Handel was represented by his Organ Concertos, and Mendelssohn by his Sonatas, and Preludes and Fugues. Works by composers of the day included favorites by Batiste (Communion in G, Offertoires), Buck (Variations on The Last Rose of Summer), Dubois (March of the Magi Kings, Toccata in G), Lemmens (Storm Fantasia), Salomé (miscellaneous works), and Spinney (Harvest Home, Vesper Bells). Some short pieces by George E. Whiting, a member of the organ department of The New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, were played as frequently as Widor's Symphonies. Rheinberger's Sonatas also were played from time to time. The frequency of performance of original works for organ by these composers is given in this table:

                  Number                Percent

Guilmant              78            11

Bach      55            8

Salomé 38            6

Dubois 35            5

Handel 34            5

Batiste  31            5

Buck     28            4

Mendelssohn    24            3

Lemmens            21            3

Rheinberger       21            3

Spinney                 20            3

Whiting                 19            3

Widor   19            3

Frequent Performers

Of the 136 organ recitals reported in The Organ during its brief existence, many were played by organists who were unknown outside their own immediate neighborhoods; only two such recitals involved women organists. These concerts were not always stand-alone events, but were shared with assisting artists: violinists, instrumental ensembles, vocal soloists, and choirs. Nevertheless, about half of the recitals were played by only six performers, several of whom toured extensively. The most active players were Harrison M. Wild, Chicago (14 percent of reported recitals), whose 128th recital was reported in 1893; Clarence Eddy, Chicago (10 percent), J. Warren Andrews, Minneapolis (7 percent), and William C. Carl, New York (7 percent).

  Clarence Eddy was the subject of a biography that described him as the most widely-known organist in the country.9 Eddy, who showed musical ability at the age of five, studied organ with Dudley Buck before becoming a church organist at the age of seventeen. Later he received instruction in Germany from Augustus Haupt, who characterized him as "undoubtedly a peer of the greatest living organists." Soon after his appointment at the First Congregational Church in Chicago, Eddy began his recital career. After joining the Hershey School of Musical Art in 1876 as general director, he gave a remarkable series of one hundred weekly organ recitals without repeating a number; the concluding program in 1879 contained music composed specially for the occasion. Eddy dedicated more organs than any other organist of his day, including the great Auditorium organ in Chicago, and he gave recitals at the Paris Exposition, the Philadelphia Centennial Exposition, and the Vienna World's Fair, in addition to concert tours in the United States and visits to Canada. Eddy's other activities included his appointment as one of the judges for two organ music competitions sponsored by The Organ, his efforts in organizing the 1893 North American tour of Alexandre Guilmant, and his series of fifteen concluding recitals on the Festival Hall organ at the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, where a total of 62 recitals were played by various organists. A review of one of Eddy's dedication recitals testified to his gifts as a player, as well as exhibiting the laudatory style of music reviews typical of the time:

His programme of last evening was carefully arranged, and was carried out in the most masterly and artistic style. The most difficult subjects were brought out clearly and distinctly, while the intricate part of his work was interpreted with a sweet and sympathetic touch. There is an individuality about Mr. Eddy's playing that distinguishes him from the less skilful performer. With him the organ is not the noisy instrument it often appears when in the hands of unskilled players, but under his touch the great pipes breathe forth the most eloquent notes, and those who were strangers to the wonderful melody that can be obtained from so large an instrument were astonished at the ease with which he was able to control its wonderful resources. The hearers manifested the warmth of their appreciation by long and frequent applause. The programme was chosen with great care and embraced masterful compositions from Händel, Wagner, Flotow, Gounod, that were selected with the view of testing the instrument. . . . The Storm Fantasie of Lemmens, a descriptive piece, was superbly rendered. . . . 'The Old Folks at Home,' with variations, went to the hearts of the hearers, and elicited prolonged applause.10

Eddy also contributed letters to The Organ, including a long discourse on organ pedaling, in which he concluded that "an absolutely free and independent use of the heel in pedal playing . . . is as important as a skilful employment of the thumb upon the manuals,"11 and another on playing the organ from memory, in which he maintained (referring to the most noted organists of his time, such as W.T. Best, Alexandre Guilmant, Eugene Gigout, Charles Widor, and others) that "organists are heard at their best when they are unhampered by the mental strain attendant upon committing to memory the compositions they play."12   

The only visiting recitalist reported in The Organ was France's distinguished organist and composer, Alexandre Guilmant. He was the subject of a biographical article that commented on his youthful demonstrations of musical ability as an organist and composer, his period of study with Jacques Lemmens in Belgium, his frequent inauguration of or-gans and concert performances throughout Europe, and the compositional style of several of his organ pieces.13 The journal devoted considerable attention to Guilmant's North American tour in the fall of 1893, arranged by Clarence Eddy, in which the virtuoso played thirty concerts in less than eight weeks, including four at the Chicago World's Fair. The Chicago correspondent offered qualified praise for the master's performances:

At present everything with us is Guilmant. . . .

Though we cannot rave over this master's technique, we are carried away by the wonderfully clean and neat treatment of all his numbers. The breadth and truly marvellous conception of whatever he undertakes are indeed wonderful.

In his improvisations we expected more dash than was given; but a tone-poet, like a word-poet, is not always inspired. . . .

  In all his numbers Mr. Guilmant was encored and re-encored, and in some instances had to get off the organ bench twice, and even three times, before he was allowed to proceed.14

During his tour Guilmant played other recitals in various cities in the United States and Canada. In Boston, 5,000 people attempted to secure the 2,200 available tickets for Guilmant's two concerts. An enthusiastic reviewer stated:

Mons. Guilmant has raised organ playing to a point of virtuosity equal to the work of the celebrated pianists, and with him there is no chance to grumble at the "impossibilities of the organ." His playing of the above programme [works by Bach, Salomé, Lemmens, Schumann, Tombelle, Dubois, Best, Chauvet, Martini, Mendelssohn, and six of Guilmant's own compositions] was magnificent.

Guilmant's advent in this country is proving to sceptics that the organ is a concert instrument, and that organ recitals will draw as large and enthusiastic audiences as the best orchestras. . . .15

On his tour through Eastern Canada, Guilmant found a copy of Mendelssohn's Elijah on a hotel piano in Niagara Falls, and he impressed the guests with his playing of several selections and an extemporized fugue from the score, along with a few of his own compositions. He was met by a former Parisian organist in Hamilton, Ontario, visited the Mason & Risch piano factory in Toronto, and played for an audience of 5,000--many standing--at the inauguration of a new organ in a Montréal cathedral. Guilmant felt quite at home on the Casavant instrument because all the stop names were in French.16

Occasionally The Organ ventured onto the international scene by publishing the recital programs of several English organists; in particular, William T. Best, who performed not only in England but also in Australia, where he played a series of twelve inaugural recitals on the new organ in Centennial Hall, Sydney, in 1890.17 The programs of Auguste Wiegand, the Belgian organist who became City Organist in Sydney, Australia, were also reported, along with those of several other performers in that country.

Timely Topics: Organ Design and Construction

Of all the preoccupations of organists in the last decade of the nineteenth century, as reflected in the columns of The Organ, some were unique to that period, while others still are matters of interest today to experienced players and students of the organ alike. Most of the issues related to organ construction have long since been settled, but they were matters of intense interest at the time.

It should be recalled that organ building at the time was in a state of flux, and there was no universal agreement on many aspects of organ layout and construction. An article in the inaugural issue, "The Evolution of the Swell-box,"18 which touched upon both design aspects and their implications for performance, stimulated a debate that continued unabated for about six months. Responding to the author's claim that "the excess of Swell" was incompatible with the highest principles of organ construction, some writers advocated the "multiple swell" governing all divisions of the organ as a means of greater expression and control, while others opposed the idea as more mechanical gadgetry that smothered the organ's tone.19

The position on the console of the balanced swell pedal was also a matter of spirited debate. Truette himself initiated the topic and published the opinions of his fellow organists on various builders' practices that ranged from center to extreme right, high or low above the pedals. Some favored having the pedal sunk into the case directly over upper B or C of the pedal keyboard, while others (including William C. Carl) preferred it midway so that either foot could be used. Harrison M. Wild, the Chicago organist, facetiously suggested that "For many organists (?) the best position would be to the left of the pedal-board, just out of reach."20

In the concluding decades of the nineteenth century, organ builders in the United States and Europe were constructing instruments of enormous size for installation in large buildings world-wide. This issue was raised in an article on "Monster Organs,"21 which inquired whether organs having more than a hundred or more speaking stops were compatible with the highest grade of concert performances. On the issue of quality over quantity, William T. Best was quoted as stating that no organ needed more than fifty stops, and that "the varieties of organ tone are few, and the repetitions of the organ-builders are simply a nuisance to the player, though very useful to the builder from the white elephant point of view after erection." Although one correspondent demurred from Best's prescription, appending a specification of an ideal instrument of eighty registers, another agreed with Best in principle, but deplored the reckless distribution of colorless stops in many organs, and advocated a more scientific system of tonal design in organ construction. Later in the debate one correspondent despaired of defining the "ideal organ," while another submitted a specification for a three-manual, 54-stop, practical organ, claimed to be suitable in every way for any purpose. The journal later published a list of twenty of the world's largest organs that included these having 100 or more speaking stops:22

Town Hall, Sydney, Australia, 5/128 [126], Hill & Son, 1889;

Cathedral, Riga, Russia [Latvia], 4/124, Walcker, 1883;

Cathedral, Garden City, 4/115, Roosevelt, 1883;

Albert Hall, London, 4/111, Willis [1872];      

Auditorium, Chicago, 4/100, Roosevelt, 1889;

St. Sulpice, Paris, 5/100, Cavaillé-Coll, 1862 (reconstructed);

Cathedral, Ulm, Germany, 3/100, Walcker, 1856;

St. George's Hall, Liverpool, 4/100, Willis, 1867.

                 

At the other extreme, the W.W. Kimball Company, Chicago, developed a two-manual, eight-stop portable pipe organ, with pneumatic action throughout and a new system of feeders; the two pedal stops were vibrating free reeds exhausting into qualifying tubes. This space-saving instrument (all enclosed in a swell box), with its dimensions of six feet wide, three feet, six inches deep, and seven feet high, was designed with a detachable pedal board so that it could be taken down, boxed, and set up by anyone.23

An alleged decline in organ building generally was attributed to unhealthy competition among manufacturers committed to various "hurry-up" methods, low-grade materials, and "a maximum of claptrap mechanism, overblown stops, and cheap construction." At the same time, the author hoped that an "ebb of the swell-box flood, which . . . threatens the inundation of the entire instrument" would restore fine voicing and preserve the distinctive character of each manual.24

The business side of organ building was addressed in a discussion of organ builders' rights, common points of mutual interest, safeguards against delays in construction, redress for losses, and the negotiation of contracts with church organ committees. It was recommended that a convention of organ builders be held in Boston for the consideration of these matters.25

A series articles on "The Hope-Jones System of Electrical Organ Control,"26 described the technical details of the English inventor's new system of connecting a moveable console to the organ mechanism by a flexible cable, the second- or double-touch keyboard for bringing into action another rank of pipes, the replacement of stop drawknobs by stop keys, and a rapid sforzando pedal. It was claimed that these innovations in construction would also bring about a revolution in organ playing through the instantaneous attack made possible by the elimination of cumbersome mechanisms.27

The possibilities of the introduction of electricity into organ construction inspired a visionary speculation on "The Future of the Organ."28 The author imagined a new process of musical composition, in which the notation--perhaps as elaborate as that of an orchestral score--would be instantly translated into sound through electrically-sensitive ink. In this whimsical system, notes would be perfectly executed, along with appropriate registration and expression, as if emanating directly from the mind of the composer. Although instruments would still have manuals and pedals for those unable to compose in this fashion, present organs would someday seem tame and unwieldy relics of the past!

Timely Topics: Organ Playing

As part of its declared educational mission, The Organ offered miscellaneous advice on performance, either in the form of short articles or in a question and answer section. For beginners in particular, an article in an early issue advocated a mastery of manual parts on the piano, followed by slow practice on the organ using the soft stops, to achieve accuracy and clarity.29 A later article on pedal playing covered the proper seating position on the bench, locating the relative position of the notes, exercises in intervals, and playing hymn tunes.30 A discourse on registration touched on classes of organ tone, and offered general guidelines for combining stops for different contexts, such as chords, arpeggios, solos, accompaniment, and special effects.31 A uniquely practical piece consisted of a measure-by-measure discussion of the registration of the Adagio from Mendelssohn's First Organ Sonata, which was published in the same issue.32

For organ students and experienced players alike, there were two collections of "Don'ts."33 These assorted proscriptions denounced sliding about on the seat when playing pedal passages, swaying back and forth anytime, using the tremulant when accompanying singers, improvising every prelude and postlude ("How can your congregation stand your music all the time?"), keeping the right foot on the swell pedal, changing combinations before the end of a phrase, grumbling when the pastor announces different hymns on Sunday from the ones provided on Saturday, and forgetting to turn off the water motor, among other things.

The perennial problem of how to get an adequate amount of organ practice time in cold churches during winter months was addressed by a recommendation submitted by an ingenious organist: construct a tent over the console, heated by a kerosene lamp to raise the temperature of the miniature studio to room temperature in ten minutes.34

For players at all levels of accomplishment, the issue of whether one person can be both a good organist and a good pianist, and whether practice on one instrument is injurious to performance on the other, was discussed in terms of differences between piano and organ keyboard touch, finger position, legato playing, overlapping tones, and fortissimo playing.35 The discouraging conclusion was that it would be impossible for any one person to achieve the artistic heights of both Guilmant and Paderewski, for example; the required hours of practice would be prohibitive in an already too-short life. Nevertheless, among the advantages a country piano teacher might expect by becoming an organist included greater opportunities for being heard on both instruments, and the career advantage of working in the "elevated atmosphere" of a church. Piano students, on the other hand, were said to regard their art solely from the "Bohemian side."36

The early issues of The Organ announced that eight pages of organ music would be found in every number, a large part of which would be composed or arranged specially for the journal, the rest selected from the best writers for the instrument. This project was carried out consistently throughout the period of publication: a total of 45 selections by 26 composers were printed. These consisted mainly of short andantes, marches, and other melodies designed for players of modest technical abilities. Only two transcriptions were among them: Wagner's Wedding Processional from Lohengrin, and a Serenade by Gounod arranged by Everett Truette. Liszt, Mendelssohn, and Widor were among the composers of original works, along with Batiste, Dubois, Merkel, Salomé, and others whose pieces were often heard in organ recitals of the time. Truette published five of his own short pieces.

The center of formal instruction in organ playing in the 1890s was The New England Conservatory of Music, Boston, whose organ department had been established about twenty years before its advertisements appeared in The Organ; a brief history of the institution was published in a later issue of the journal.37 In 1894, two three-manual pipe organs, two two-manual pipe organs, and ten two-manual reed organs manufactured by the Estey Company specially for the needs of Conservatory students, were available for instruction and practice. In addition to the regular courses in organ playing, there were other classes in choir accompaniment, improvisation, and organ construction and tuning (a special nine-stop, two-manual, uncased organ was erected specially for the use of this class). The student tuition for a ten-week term in classes of four was $20.00; organ practice was 10 cents per hour and upwards. The board of instruction consisted of George E. Whiting, Henry M. Dunham, and Allen W. Swan, all of whom were frequent recitalists in Boston and surrounding areas. Thousands of organ students received their training at the Conservatory, and many of them later filled important positions throughout the United States and in Canada.

MORE POWER NEEDED

Minister.              "I think we should have congregational singing."

Organist.              "Then we must have a new organ."

"Why so?"

"This instrument isn't powerful enough to drown 'em out."

--Topeka Capital.38

Notes

                  1.              This biographical information is derived from an introductory essay on Everett E. Truette by E.A. Boadway, preceding the facsimile reproduction of The Organ, hereafter TO.

                  2.              Edwin A. Tilton, "The Brattle Organ," TO, I (December 1892): 173-75.

                  3.              TO, II (April 1894): 275.

                  4.              The following details of the lives and activities of these builders are derived from Orpha Ochse, The History of the Organ in the United States (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1975), and Barbara Owen, The Organ in New England (Raleigh: The Sunbury Press, 1979).

                  5.              Photograph in Owen, Plate XIV-25, 604.

                  6.              For a brief discussion of the organ literature of the late nineteenth century, see Owen, 269-71.

                  7.              "Organ Arrangements,"  TO, I (June 1892): 31, 41.

                  8.              "W.T. Best." TO, I (July 1892): 53-54.

                  9.              TO, I (October 1892): 125.

                  10.           TO, I (January 1893): 211.

                  11.           TO, I (September 1892): 114-15.

                  12.           TO, II (May 1893): 7, 17.

                  13.           "Alexandre Guilmant,"  TO, I (April 1893): 269-70.

                  14.           TO, II (October 1893): 137.

                  15.           "Alexandre Guilmant in Boston," TO, II (October 1893): 139.

                  16.           William George Pearce, "Through Canada with Alex. Guilmant," TO, II (January 1894): 211-12.              17.           "Organ Concerts," TO, I (July 1892): 65-6. Of the total of 83 pieces he played there, 29 were transcriptions; Best included one of his own compositions in every program.

                  18.           TO, I (May 1892): 6-7, 17.

                  19.           The unusually large swell-box of the Gray & Davidson organ under construction in 1858 in the Town Hall, Leeds, England, was the site for a merry celebratory dinner where the designers, builders, and others feasted on choice entrées, salmon, and venison, all washed down with a dozen bottles of sparkling and six of '34 port wine, in the novel environment gayly decorated with flags and banners. "Dinner in a Swell-box," TO, I (September 1892): 113-14.

                  20.           "The Location of the Balanced Swell-pedal," TO, I (January 1893): 197-98.

                  21.           TO, I (July 1892): 55, 65.

                  22.           "Comparative Table of the Largest Organs of the World," TO, II (December 1893): 175.

                  23.           W.S.B. Mathews, "Portable Pipe Organ," TO, II (August 1893): 90-91, reprinted from Music.

                  24.           "The Decline of Church Organ-building in the United States," TO, I (February 1893): 234.

                  25.           "For the Protection of Organ Builders," TO, II (October 1893): 126-27.

                  26            Commencing in TO, I (March 1893): 246.

                  27.           The blind English organist, Alfred Hollins, quoted William T. Best's opinion on "Hopeless Jones," who "plays his organs at the end of a long rope which ought to be around his neck." A Blind Musician Looks Back (Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood & Sons, 1936), 167.

                  28.           TO, II (March 1894): 248.

                  29.           Thomas Ely, "The Art of Practising on the Organ," TO, I (August 1892): 78-79, reprinted from the London Musical Herald.

                  30.           Horatio Clarke, "For Beginners in Pedal Playing," TO, II (January 1894): 199.

                  31.           "Registration for Beginners," TO, II (February 1894): 223-24.

                  32.           "A Few Hints on Registration," TO, I (October 1892): 127, 137.

                  33.           "A Chapter of Don'ts," TO, I (October 1892): 139; "A Second Chapter of Don'ts," TO, I (November 1892): 162.

                  34.           TO, II (January 1894): 197.

                  35.           "An Organist and a Pianist," TO, II (January 1894): 197-98.

                  36.           Albert W. Borst, "Should a Music Teacher Be an Organist as Well as a Pianist?" TO, II (October 1893): 127-28, reprinted from The Étude.

                  37.           "Organs and Organ Teaching at the New England Conservatory of Music," TO, II (March 1894): 247-48.

                  38.           "Cipherings," TO, I (April 1893): 287.