Cambridge Congress 2008

There must be more fine organs per square mile in Cambridge than anywhere else in the world, so the University City and its surrounding area made an excellent choice as the venue for the 2008 IAO Congress. 

Thursday

The congress opened with a splendid recital by Francesca Massey at the Church of St Mary the Virgin in St Neots.  This beautiful, spacious church contains an organ by G M Holdich built in 1855 and recently restored.  Francesca’s recital included two works by Bach (the Praeludium in E Major BWV 566 and the lovely Chorale Prelude on Vater unser BWV 682) and the Prelude and Fugue in G minor by Brahms.  These were followed by Offrande au Saint Sacrement by Messiaen and an extraordinary little known piece by Alain: Fantasmagorie.  This is written with the two hands playing simultaneously in different keys.  Her final piece was Eben’s Hommage à Dietrich Buxtehude.

We were then welcomed somewhat unexpectedly by the IAO President, David Hill, who had hoped to be practising at Ely for his Sunday recital only to find the cathedral and surrounding area hit by a power cut.  A glass of wine gave an opportunity for Congress members to catch up with old friends and make new ones.

Friday

By Friday, Ely’s power cut had spread to Huntingdon and at breakfast the whole of the Marriott Hotel was plunged into heathen darkness.  Fortunately our buses were on hand to whisk us away to Cambridge, mercifully still hooked up to the National Grid.

The day began with demonstrations of three Cambridge organs by Daniel Hyde.  First the 2006-7 Kenneth Tickell organ in Little St Mary’s, housed in a stunning swallow’s nest case of 1978 designed by Laurence Bond to complement its glittering Anglo-Catholic surroundings.  We heard Bach’s C major Prelude and Fugue BWV 547 and Mozart’s Fantasia K 594 which sounded delightful on the more delicate stops of this organ.  Next door to St Mary’s, in the simpler surroundings of Emmanuel United Reformed Church, we heard the 1880 Willis (restored by Harrison and Harrison in 1992) which, despite being almost entirely hidden from view, sounded very well in the church.  Daniel Hyde played Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A major BWV 536 followed by Vaughan Williams’s Prelude on Rhosymedre.  Then on to Queens’ College and its richly decorated chapel built by G F Bodley towards the end of the nineteenth century.  Bodley also designed the organ case, which houses a fine Binns organ of 1892.  Here Daniel Hyde gave an interesting demonstration of stops and played music by Mendelssohn and Parry, whetting our appetite for a recital by Simon Hogan after lunch.

Simon Hogan has just completed a year as organ scholar at Salisbury and is taking up a place at the RCM in the Autumn to study with Margaret Phillips.  He and two other young players – Peter Yardley-Jones and Thomas Neal – were attending Congress with support from the Brereton Fund, set up in memory of Philip and Gwen Brereton, for so many years the organisers of the IAO Congress.  Simon’s programme at Queens’ consisted of works written by or inspired by Vierne.  First his familiar Berceuse (from 24 Pièces en style libre), and to end, the Fourth Symphony in G minor Op 32.  Between these two came the far less familiar Berceuse à la mémoire de Louis Vierne by Pierre Cochereau.  Based on Vierne’s Berceuse it provided a refreshing contrast at the centre of the programme.

We then made a quick dash to Selwyn College for our second recital of the day.  Selwyn are on their fifth organ in just over 100 years, the previous instrument – a Peter Collins rebuild and installation – having survived just ten years.  Let’s hope the present splendid Létourneau organ of 2004 lasts rather longer.  It is French in conception with a big, rich, exciting sound.  We were there to hear the Brereton Memorial Recital given this year by Colin Walsh.  This annual recital has been set up by the IAO, also in memory of the Breretons, and retiring collections taken each year are donated to the IAO Benevolent Fund.  Colin Walsh played a largely French programme including the Prélude from Duruflé’s Suite Op 5, Vierne’s Toccata in B flat minor (from Pièces de Fantaisie) and Franck’s Final in B flat.  Between these big works we heard music by Ropartz, Langlais and Litaize, as well as Bach, Mozart and Bridge.  Needless to say, it was all superbly played.

The final event of the day was a recital by Stephen Cleobury.  Early evening in King’s College Chapel with summer sunlight flooding through the vast walls of stained glass must be very close to heaven, and the recital took us a little closer still.  Stephen Cleobury described it, somewhat mundanely, as being like a club sandwich.  The meat in the centre of the sandwich was made up of three large pieces based on variation form: Mendelssohn’s Sixth Sonata; Bach’s Partita on Sei gegrüsset, Jesu gütig and Rheinberger’s Eighth Sonata.  Butter, either side of this block, came in the form of two movements from Couperin’s Messe pour les Paroisses; and Widor’s Toccata to begin and Vierne’s Final to end provided two hefty pieces of bread to bind the whole thing together.  In his notes Stephen Cleobury stated that he enjoys devising programmes, and the club sandwich concept certainly provided a very interesting and most effective recital, and a superb end to the day.

Saturday

Saturday morning took us to Emmanuel College with its armies of peripatetic coots patrolling the graceful courts.  The beautiful Wren chapel is home to a 1988 Kenneth Jones organ with much of its case dating from the seventeenth century.  Our recitalist here was Peter Yardley-Jones, currently organ scholar at the University of Glasgow and Director of Marketing for Organists’ Review.  Peter had chosen a programme of largely early music – such as Frescobaldi, Purcell and Tallis – which demonstrated well the quieter stops of the organ.  He also included Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in B minor BWV 544 and two pieces by Howells: Master Tallis’s Testament and the Saraband in Modo Elegiaco.

Cambridge is full of delights and surprises.  From seventeenth century restraint and reason we moved to nineteenth century flamboyance and mystery.  The magnificent church of Our Lady and the English Martyrs, designed by Dunn and Hansom, was opened in 1890 and the Johnson organ dates from this time.  It was the perfect venue for an all Messiaen concert: L’Ascension followed by Messe de la Pentecôte.  Interestingly the organ has no mutation stops and Robert Houssart, in his fascinating introduction, explained that although Messiaen calls very specifically for such stops in much of his music, the harmonics produced by the 8’ and 4’ stops of this organ supply the sound of the missing mutations.  He also gave us some insights into Messiaen’s interpretation of his own music.  It seems that Nicholas Kynaston had once played L’Ascension to the composer, whose only comment on hearing it had been “much slower”.  Kynaston played the final movement of the work again, much more slowly, to which Messiaen responded by writing quaver equals 4 (sic) on the score!  Although Robert Houssart didn’t quite reach this speed, the ecstasy of Transports de joie followed by this slow, timeless final movement – Prière du Christ montant vers son Père – made this recital one of the most moving of the Congress.

The third event on Saturday was an open rehearsal by David Hill with members of the Bach Choir in St John’s College Chapel.  This was an extremely interesting session and we could only envy working with a choir which can actually demonstrate how to sing badly and then how to do it properly!  They were preparing the Fauré Requiem and Vaughan Williams’s O Clap Your Hands for a performance later that afternoon with Jane Watts at the organ.  Part way through, Thomas Neal from Stockton-on-Tees was invited to rehearse the choir in the Agnus Dei from the Requiem which he did most impressively.  Afterwards he said how wonderful it was to conduct a choir where every single eye was watching him all the time!

After the rehearsal David Hill presented Simon Hogan with the Stanley Vann Scholarship. This scholarship was endowed by Major Yon, an American serviceman stationed in this country in the 1950s, who was enormously inspired by the musicianship of Stanley Vann during his tenure at Peterborough Cathedral.  It is awarded each year to young choral directors to further them in their studies.

Sunday

On Sunday most of us headed to Sung Eucharist and a recital at Peterborough, although also on offer was an organ-less trip to Burghley House.  The interior of Peterborough Cathedral seemed to glow in the August sunlight – apparently it is cleaner than it has been for years following the fire which damaged the building in 2001.  The service was sung by the cathedral choir, still in residence following a week of recording.  The setting was a stunning mass by James Macmillan.  Particularly effective was the Eucharistic prayer, sung throughout by the priest and including a Sanctus which grew from low quiet beginnings to ecstatic Hosannas, and outpourings from the organ at the consecration of the bread and the wine.  Francesca Massey was the organist and played Bach’s Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C BWV 564 beforehand and Empyrion by Francis Potts to conclude.

Andrew Reid welcomed us warmly after the service and went on to give a recital on the William Hill organ.  This included the first movement from Percy Whitlock’s C minor Sonata, Alfred Hollins’s delightful Spring Song, Bach’s Trio Sonata No 4 and to end with the Prélude, Adagio et Choral varié sur le Veni Creator by Duruflé.  Another splendid recital which showed off the organ extremely well.

From Peterborough we made for Ely and Evensong.  This was sung by a choir from Leeds University, who, if somewhat taken aback by the sudden appearance of 170 organists in the congregation, managed not to show it.  Organ music was by Howells (Sine Nomine before and the Paean afterwards), but I’m afraid the music which most stuck in my mind was the chant for the psalm, which appeared to have been lifted directly from A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square!

David Hill then rounded off the day with a recital on the Ely Harrison and Harrison.  This began with Mendelssohn’s Prelude and Fugue in C minor and, after two chorale preludes by Bach (including the beautiful Vater unser BWV 682, played earlier in the week by Francesca Massey), moved on to Reger’s Toccata and Fugue Op 59, two movements from Messiaen’s La Nativité and the colossal Ad nos, ad salutarem undam by Liszt.  We were reminded that our President is not only a superb choir trainer but a gifted organist as well.

Monday

For our final day we returned to Cambridge and this time Jesus College.  Jesus would appear to have had about eight organs in its long history.  The Sutton organ of 1849 glitters in its Pugin case on the north side of the quire and is soon to be restored by William Drake.  But we were there to hear the new Kuhn organ which sits one bay to the west.  This instrument, the gift of a single donor, as Daniel Hyde explained, is the first instrument by the Swiss firm in this country.  Many Congress members will recall hearing another fine Kuhn in St Kunibert’s Church in Cologne during the Rhineland Congress two years ago.  It is a large two manual organ with a wide range of eight foot stops, each with its own very distinctive colour.  Dieter Rüfenacht talked to us about the work of Orgelbau Kuhn and in particular the Jesus organ.  Daniel Hyde then demonstrated the instrument very beautifully with Bach’s Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C BWV 564, Hollins (this time the Song of Sunshine), Kenneth Leighton’s Paean, Ireland’s Villanella and to finish the Mulet Carillon-Sortie.

Our final musical event was a talk by John Rutter in which he told us about a book and CD he has been working on charting the career of Sir David Willcocks, who will be celebrating his 90th birthday next year.  He has recorded some of Sir David’s reminiscences and shared some of these with us during the talk.  We heard Sir David recalling seeing King George V and Queen Mary during his life as a chorister at Westminster Abbey in the 1930s.  We also heard him discussing Herbert Howells and his choral music.  What an extraordinary quality those 1960s recordings possess of King’s singing the Howells Collegium Regale canticles.  The beauty of the quiet singing in the Magnificat still sends shivers up the spine.  John Rutter had an interesting theory about pronunciation: he reckons that choral pronunciation is about 30 years behind ordinary spoken pronunciation.  So the King’s recordings of the psalms produced in the 1960s sound as if they might have been spoken in the 1930s.  They certainly contain an extraordinary clarity of diction and sense of the poetry of the language.

The Congress closed with the Annual Dinner and we were delighted to welcome back our past president Catherine Ennis as guest speaker.  She spoke about Albert Schweitzer, a polymath once highly regarded but perhaps largely forgotten today.  As President, David Hill thanked Catherine Ennis for her speech, and in turn we must thank David Hill for his huge involvement in this year’s Congress, which must surely rank amongst one of the most successful of recent years.  And of course we must also thank our Mother Superior, or She Who Must Be Obeyed (aka Jeanne Cawley) who, as I write, is probably beginning to organise next year’s Congress.  The hard work which goes on behind the scenes means that those of us without responsibility have a relaxed, thoroughly enjoyable time in the knowledge that all will run smoothly and all our needs will be superbly catered for.

Next year’s Congress will be in the North West of England and will run from 30 July to 4 August.

Dr Duncan Jones

Duncan Jones read Mathematics at Royal Holloway College, London, and later completed a PhD at the University of London Institute of Education.  He also passed the ARCO diploma.  Duncan has been a primary school headmaster for over ten years, currently working in the West Midlands.

"We are delighted that there will now be two opportunities for the dedicated audience of Choral Evensong to hear the programme each week,” said Professor John Harper, Emeritus Director of the RSCM. “This endorsement of the popularity of the programme is encouraging to those who sustain the daily cycle of music and prayer in churches and cathedrals the length of the country.”

The weekly broadcast of Choral Evensong was moved a year ago from its hallowed Wednesday afternoon slot, but was kept under review by the BBC. At the time the move of the broadcast was announced in November 2006, the RSCM, although “broadly welcoming” the move, pointed out that a live broadcast on a Sunday afternoon would raise logistical issues for cathedrals and collegiate chapels on what is the busiest day of the week. Professor Harper also pointed out that there would be no reflection of the fact that there are over 100 church communities who sing the office of Choral Evensong during the week.

“Listeners to the Sunday repeat will not be hearing the psalms, readings and collect set for that day, but it does mean that many more people will have the opportunity to hear the service” said Professor Harper. “This is a welcome development.”