2019 Organ RecitalsWednesdays @ 7:30pmAdmission free, retiring collection

10 April 22 May 26 June 11 September

9 October 6 November

Jonathan Hope

Benjamin Morris

Christopher Too

Adrian Partington

Peter King

Robert Quinney

PROGRAMMES

All recitals last approximately 75 minutes

JONATHAN HOPE

Gloucester Cathedral

10 April

Brahms Tragic Overture, op. 81 (arr. Hope)Elgar Chanson de Matin (arr. Brewer)

Rachmaninov Prelude in C sharp minor (arr. Vierne)

Saint-Saëns Adagio from Symphony No. 3 ‘Organ’ (arr. Bernard)

Elgar In the South (Alassio), op. 50 (arr. Hope)

Jonathan Hope was born in 1988 and educated at George Abbot School in Guildford. He studied initially with Stephen Lacey, John Belcher and David Sanger, and then at the Royal College of Music, London with Margaret Phillips (repertoire) and Sophie-Véronique Cauchefer-Choplin (improvisation). Jonathan became Assistant Director of Music at Gloucester Cathedral in March 2014, where he is the principal organist for the cathedral services, director of the Cathedral Youth Choir, accompanist to the Gloucester Choral Society, Musical Director of the Saint Cecilia Singers, and Festival Organist in the Gloucester Three Choirs Festivals. Before coming to Gloucester, Jonathan was Organ Scholar of Winchester Cathedral (2012-14), where he played for the funeral of the composer Sir John Tavener. Previously, Jonathan was Organ Scholar of Southwark Cathedral (2010-12).

In demand as an organ recitalist, Jonathan’s career has taken him throughout the UK, Europe, and to the USA and Australia. He has performed recitals at Westminster Cathedral, St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Abbey and Saint-Sulpice, Paris. Jonathan also regularly improvises to silent movies and has arranged many orchestral works for the organ. In 2015 he released his first solo disc, Gloucester Experience (Willowhayne), featuring Reubke’s mighty Sonata on the 94th Psalm. In the summer of 2016 he released a DVD, The Grand Organ of Gloucester Cathedral, with Priory Records. In the summer of 2019, Jonathan’s third solo recording will be released – this was recorded on the organ of St Mary Redcliffe, Bristol, and includes transcriptions of music by Brahms, Elgar, Rachmaninov, Saint-Saëns, and contemporary works by Cecilia McDowall and Neil Cox.

Through his work in the Three Choirs Festival, he has played with the Philharmonia Orchestra and worked with guest conductors such as Simon Halsey, Martyn Brabbins, Sir Andrew Davis and Edward Gardner, and often plays with the BBC National Chorus and Orchestra of Wales in Cardiff. He has broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and 4 and BBC Radio Gloucestershire.

Jonathan’s website can be found at www.jonathanhope.org

BENJAMIN MORRIS

York Minster

22 May

Wagner Prelude to Die Meistersinger von NürnbergVierne Cantilène (from Troisième symphonie, op. 28)

Iain Farrington Conversations (from Fiesta!)

J. S. Bach Pièce d’orgue (BWV 572)

Buxtehude Ciacona in C minor (BuxWV 159)

Mendelssohn Overture to A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Duruflé Sicilienne (from Suite, op. 5)

Lanquetuit Toccata

Benjamin Morris is Assistant Director of Music at York Minster. In this role, he plays for services and accompanies the choir in the Minster’s daily cycle of music, in concerts, tours, recordings and broadcasts, and assists in the training of the boy and girl choristers. Prior to this, Ben was Organ Scholar and then Assistant Organist at Jesus College, Cambridge, graduating with a double First in Music. He appeared in services and concerts around the world with the Choirs of Jesus College, and performed on multiple CD recordings. Before starting university, Ben spent a year as Organ Scholar at Gloucester Cathedral.

An experienced conductor and choir trainer, Ben regularly conducts York Minster Choir in services and rehearses daily with the choristers. Whilst in Cambridge, Ben spent a term running and directing Jesus College’s two choirs, and conducted orchestral works including Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 20 in D minor and sell-out performances of Milhaud’s chamber opera, Le Pauvre Matelot. Ben is Musical Director of the York-based Chapter House Choir.

With recent venues including Westminster Cathedral, Leeds Town Hall and Kristiansand Cathedral (Norway), Ben is regularly engaged as a soloist for recitals and other performances. He has performed as organ soloist under Sir Roger Norrington, Howard Shelley, and Stephen Cleobury, and has played organ and harpsichord continuo alongside His Majestys Sagbutts and Cornetts, The Saraband Consort and Britten Sinfonia. He studied organ with Gordon Stewart, Colin Walsh, David Briggs and Richard Pinel, and harpsichord at the Royal Academy of Music with Terence Charlston. He is a prizewinning Fellow of the Royal College of Organists.

CHRISTOPHER TOO

Gloucester Cathedral

26 June

Howells Rhapsody No. 3 in C sharp minor

Dupré Cortège et litanie (op. 19 no. 2)

J. S. Bach Prelude and Fugue in C (BWV 547)

J. S. Bach Come Sweetest Death, Come Blessed Rest (arr. Fox)

Vaughan Williams Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis

Demessieux Te Deum (op. 11)

Christopher Too was born in 2000 and grew up in Bridlington, East Yorkshire where he began playing the piano at the age of 7. He joined the Bridlington Priory Choir in 2010, and in July 2012, took up the organ under Michael Smith. Shortly after, he was offered an organ scholarship from the newly established Dr Martin Clarke Young Organ Scholars’ Trust. Since then, he has had a strong passion for playing organ and accompanying choirs, being inspired and encouraged by the many renowned organists and composers associated with the Trust, notably Robert Sharpe, Benjamin Morris, Francis Jackson and Philip Moore. Chris joined Ampleforth College as a music scholar in September 2013 where he continued the organ with the Abbey Organist, William Dore, passing his ARCO Diploma in July 2018.

Chris is currently spending a year as the Organ Scholar of Gloucester Cathedral under Adrian Partington. His weekly duties include regularly accompanying and assisting in the training of the 3 choirs of the cathedral and the numerous choral societies in the area. From 2019, dependent on A level results, Chris will become the organ scholar of King’s College, Cambridge, where he will be one of two accompanists for the world famous choir whilst studying for a music degree.

ADRIAN PARTINGTON

Gloucester Cathedral

11 September

James D’Angelo Fanfare FantasiaJ. S. Bach Prelude and Fugue in G (BWV 541)

J. S. Bach Trio Sonata No. 3 in D minor (BWV 527)

(Andante – Adagio e dolce – Vivace)

Gowers Toccata and Fugue

Andrew Carter Aria

Saint-Saëns Prelude and Fugue in C (op. 109 no. 3)

Adrian Partington is currently Director of Music at Gloucester Cathedral, Director of the BBC National Chorus of Wales, and Artistic Director of the Gloucester Three Choirs Festival, Europe’s longest-running music festival. In 2016, he directed his third Three Choirs Festival at Gloucester, which culminated with his conducting of Mahler’s Eighth Symphony with the Philharmonia Orchestra, which the Birmingham Post, in a 5-star review, described as “a triumph”.

Adrian has been Director of Music at Gloucester Cathedral since January 2008, and has since then, taken the choir on concert tours to the USA, South Africa, Sweden and Canada and has made CDs of the music of Joubert and Gurney. He has directed the choir in many broadcast evensongs, including the BBC’s Parry Memorial Evensong last year. He has commissioned almost twenty works for the choir, many of which have entered the repertoires of cathedral choirs across the UK and the US. In September 2016 he was jointly responsible for the inauguration of the first girl choristers at the Cathedral, 475 years after the Cathedral first had boy choristers.

Adrian has a busy life outside the cathedral world. He has been Chorus Master of the BBC National Chorus of Wales since 2000, and prepares them for around fifteen projects per year, including CDs, BBC Proms and broadcast concerts from Cardiff, many of which he conducts himself. Last summer, for example, he conducted Sir James Macmillan’s virtuosic and disturbing cantata “Seven Angels”. He has recently conducted the first performance of Stanford’s orchestral Mass: Via Victrix, (1914-18), which was broadcast “live” on BBC Radio 3 and has subsequently been made into a CD. Other recent performances with the orchestra have included the Beethoven Triple Concerto, the Delius Requiem, and works by Ravel, Poulenc, Britten and so on. Adrian has conducted many of the UK’s other leading orchestras including, the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, the Orchestra of the Swan, the Royal Northern Sinfonia, and, each year, the Philharmonia. In May 2018, he made his Royal Festival Hall debut, conducting the Philharmonia in a programme of music by Elgar and Parry. He has also conducted the Philharmonia at St. John's, Smith Square, and in Leicester, Bedford, Hereford and Worcester. He made his conducting debut at the Royal Albert Hall in 2007 with the Mozart Festival Orchestra, with whom he worked for a decade, from 2002-2012. This year he has renewed his working relationship with the RPO, directing the orchestra in concerts in various provincial cities.

Adrian was educated at the Royal College of Music, and at King’s College Cambridge, where he was the Organ Scholar. He passed his Fellowship of the Royal College of Organists diploma before he went to university, winning the prizes for the highest marks gained. He has given organ recitals in Australia, Japan, the United States, Germany, France, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, and in most of the principal venues in the UK. He has made a dozen solo CDs, including the complete works of Gustav Merkel, and the complete works of Basil Harwood.

PETER KING

Organist Emeritus, Bath Abbey

9 October

Karg-Elert Toccata ‘Jerusalem, du hochgebaute Stadt’Klička Concert Fantasie I in F sharp minor

Mendelssohn Prelude and Fugue in E minor

Liszt Funerailles

Liszt Consolation in D flat

Karg-Elert Valse mignonne

Franck Grande pièce symphonique

Peter King was Director of Music at Bath Abbey from 1986-2016. Under his direction the Abbey Choir visited France, Germany and Holland, and released eight CDs. In 1997 Peter started a Girls’ Choir at Bath Abbey; it quickly established itself as one of the finest in the country. Together with Nicolas Kynaston, Peter was responsible for the design and installation of the Abbey’s Klais Organ. His DVD and twelve CDs on the new instrument have been highly acclaimed by the critics. A CD of works for Organ & Orchestra with BBC National Orchestra of Wales, including the Poulenc Organ Concerto and the Respighi Suite has been particularly singled out for praise, being the recommended recording of the Poulenc in Building a Library on BBC Radio 3’s CD Review (Dec 2015); also Editor’s Choice in both BBC Music Magazine and Gramophone.

Peter was Assistant Chorus Director to the CBSO during all of Sir Simon Rattle’s reign as Musical Director and he still plays the organ with the orchestra. He plays on Sir Simon Rattle’s EMI recordings of Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony and Symphony of a Thousand. Concert engagements have involved work all over Europe; highlights have included recitals at Cologne Cathedral, Hamburg Michaeliskirche, Dresden Hofkirche and Essen Philharmonie (Germany), ’s Hertogenbosch Cathedral, Haarlem S Bavo, Alkmaar Grotekerk and Breda GroteKerk, (The Netherlands), Ghent Cathedral (Belgium), the Grand Organ Festival at Westminster Cathedral, King’s College, Cambridge, St Paul’s Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, an opening recital on the new organ in Palacio Euskalduna, Bilbao, and Birmingham, where he played at the opening of the new Organ in Symphony Hall. Other engagements have included concerts in Washington National Cathedral and in St Thomas, 5th Avenue, New York, solo appearances with the CBSO (Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony) and The Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields (Poulenc’s Organ Concerto). His recitals at the Bath Mozartfest have been broadcast on BBC Radio 3.

Engagements in 2018/19 include concerts in Salem Minster and Bad Sooden-Allendorf (Germany) London, St Paul’s Cathedral, Brompton Oratory, and the Temple Church, King’s College, Cambridge, Merton, Keble & The Queen’s Colleges, Oxford, Hull City Hall and Albert Hall Nottingham, Truro, Southwell, Portsmouth, Blackburn, Winchester and all three Three Choirs Cathedrals, Christchurch and Bridlington Priories, and Bath, Buckfast and Tewkesbury Abbeys, Marlborough & Cheltenham Colleges, and St Stephen’s Bournemouth May Festival. Peter King is a past president of the Incorporated Association of Organists. He holds the honorary degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Bath. In his spare time Peter is a volunteer tour guide at Exeter Cathedral with a special interest in the work of Thomas of Witney (fl. 1292-1342).

For further details of CDs and forthcoming concerts, visit www.peterking.org.

Follow Peter on Twitter: @PeterOrganKing

ROBERT QUINNEY

New College, Oxford

6 November

Naji Hakim Variation on two themes

J. S. Bach Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C (BWV 564)

Matthew Martin Triptych

J. S. Bach 2 Preludes on Allein Gott (BWV 663 and 664)

Mendelssohn Prelude and Fugue in E minor

Howells Psalm Prelude, ‘O sing unto the Lord’ (set 2 no. 3)

Robert Quinney is Organist of New College, Oxford. In addition to the daily direction of New College’s world-famous choir, his work comprises teaching, lecturing, and examining, as a Tutorial Fellow of the college and an Associate Professor at the University Faculty of Music. He also maintains a parallel career as a solo organist, and he is a prolific recording artist: his discs of organ music by J.S. Bach, Elgar, Dupré, Wagner and Brahms – and several CDs with the Choir of Westminster Abbey and The Sixteen – have been widely acclaimed. A noted Bach specialist, in February 2017 Robert performed Bach’s major organ works at London’s South Bank.

Robert Quinney read music at King’s College, Cambridge, where he was Organ Scholar. After four years as Assistant Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral, he became Sub-Organist of Westminster Abbey in 2004. While at the Abbey he performed on concert tours to the United States, Australia and Russia, at several televised services – including the marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – and on the BBC TV documentary Westminster Abbey. In April 2013 he moved to Peterborough Cathedral, where he was Director of Music for sixteen months before moving to Oxford. Between 2009 and 2014 he was Director of Oundle for Organists, whose residential courses continue to attract young organists from all over the world.

The Organ of Gloucester Cathedral

Harris 1666; Willis 1847; Harrison & Harrison 1920 Hill, Norman & Beard 1971; Nicholson & Co. 1999, 2010

Gloucester Cathedral’s famous organ was originally constructed in 1666 by Thomas Harris. It is the only complete 17th century cathedral organ case surviving in this country, and the pipes displayed on the front of the case still speak to this day.

Over the next three centuries the organ was extended and modified by nearly all of the established organ builders, notably ‘Father’ Henry Willis. The then young Henry Willis described his work on the organ in 1847 as “my stepping stone to fame”, and he returned to rebuild the organ in 1888-9. Harrison & Harrison rebuilt it again in 1920, and this organ served the Cathedral for over 50 years.

In 1971 Hill, Norman and Beard carried out a total redesign of the organ, under the instruction of Dr. John Sanders as Cathedral Organist and Ralph Downes as consultant. In 1999 Nicholson & Co. overhauled the organ, renovating the soundboards, pipework and wind supply and updating the computer system. A Swell sub-octave was installed, and a French-style cornet-separé and a Bombarde 32’ were added to the pedal division, as well as a pedal divide facility. In 2010, Nicholson also added a solo reed, the Trompette Harmonique, playable from both the Choir and West Positive manuals.

The organ comprises four manuals and pedals and is designed particularly to play from its position on the Quire screen to both East and West. This stipulation has brought about some unique design features. The Swell, situated in the centre of the case at console level, is controlled by two swell pedals, one for each side of the case. The Great organ, directly above the Swell, is split into East and West divisions, comprising two separate principal choruses. And the fourth manual is a West Positive, mirroring the Choir organ in function for the West side of the Cathedral. The organ’s position underneath the eastern part of the Nave roof takes full advantage of the unparalleled acoustics of the Cathedral, projecting into both sides of the building with the utmost clarity. The organ is essentially “neo-classical” in its approach, with balancing choruses in each division based on the Werkprinzip ideal.