I add my whoops and applause to the rousing - and much deserved - acclamation we briefly heard at the end from the highly appreciative St Lawrence audience who heard this piece played live by you in your July recital. What a splendid instrument this 1866 Henry Speechly organ is, and very well suited to Stanford's music. I first heard this work as a teenager when I bought the 1967 Abbey record of Francis Jackson playing 'Nineteenth Century Organ Music' at York Minster, and it has been a favourite ever since. The British musicologist, Professor Jeremy Dibble has written some useful programme notes about this work which are worth sharing to supplement your commentary. As you remark, Ben, the Fantasia and Toccata, Op 57, was completed in July 1894, but it was not published for another eight years until 1902. The dedicatee, Sir Walter Parratt, was Professor of Organ at the RCM, as well as Director of Music at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Parratt (along with his older contemporary, Stainer) was one of the first genuine virtuoso organists in England at the end of the nineteenth century, and Dibble notes that "his importance to the development of the organ profession can be witnessed in his organ recitals which abjured the more traditional programming of arrangements of the ‘classics’ in favour of original works for the organ" (a sentiment close to your heart, Ben, thinking to your recent interview with Mark O'Brien!). Dibble adds that "The fantasia, with its strong opening flourish, mimics Bach’s fantasia and fugue in G minor, BWV542, though Stanford’s gesticulative dissonances at the conclusion to each phrase are thoroughly romantic, as is the panoply of chromatic progressions. Bachian too is the secondary allegretto con moto section in compound time. A repeat of the first animated paragraph in F major is concluded by a reprise of the allegretto, now transformed in D major, and a coda in which the initial flourishes are presented in dialogue between the hands. The toccata invokes the mood and figuration of the ‘Dorian’ toccata and fugue, BWV538. A ‘free’ form, like its fantasia counterpart, it has an aura of improvisation, but, as one would expect, this apparent ‘looseness’ conceals a sophisticated concerto design in which the opening figure for pedals constitutes a functioning ritornello, punctuating the important formal modulations to related keys, while the toccata material for the hands constitutes the ever-expanding, tonally fluid episodes. An exciting, dynamically rhythmical work, it concludes, like many toccatas, with an extended tonic pedal and a majestic Buxtehude-like gesture for full organ". You would have delighted Dibble if he could have been there to hear you play on 9th July . . . or if he ever listens to this upload: B R A V O !
Bravo, Ben. Wonderful playing, thank you..
I add my whoops and applause to the rousing - and much deserved - acclamation we briefly heard at the end from the highly appreciative St Lawrence audience who heard this piece played live by you in your July recital. What a splendid instrument this 1866 Henry Speechly organ is, and very well suited to Stanford's music.
I first heard this work as a teenager when I bought the 1967 Abbey record of Francis Jackson playing 'Nineteenth Century Organ Music' at York Minster, and it has been a favourite ever since. The British musicologist, Professor Jeremy Dibble has written some useful programme notes about this work which are worth sharing to supplement your commentary. As you remark, Ben, the Fantasia and Toccata, Op 57, was completed in July 1894, but it was not published for another eight years until 1902. The dedicatee, Sir Walter Parratt, was Professor of Organ at the RCM, as well as Director of Music at St George’s Chapel, Windsor. Parratt (along with his older contemporary, Stainer) was one of the first genuine virtuoso organists in England at the end of the nineteenth century, and Dibble notes that "his importance to the development of the organ profession can be witnessed in his organ recitals which abjured the more traditional programming of arrangements of the ‘classics’ in favour of original works for the organ" (a sentiment close to your heart, Ben, thinking to your recent interview with Mark O'Brien!). Dibble adds that "The fantasia, with its strong opening flourish, mimics Bach’s fantasia and fugue in G minor, BWV542, though Stanford’s gesticulative dissonances at the conclusion to each phrase are thoroughly romantic, as is the panoply of chromatic progressions. Bachian too is the secondary allegretto con moto section in compound time. A repeat of the first animated paragraph in F major is concluded by a reprise of the allegretto, now transformed in D major, and a coda in which the initial flourishes are presented in dialogue between the hands. The toccata invokes the mood and figuration of the ‘Dorian’ toccata and fugue, BWV538. A ‘free’ form, like its fantasia counterpart, it has an aura of improvisation, but, as one would expect, this apparent ‘looseness’ conceals a sophisticated concerto design in which the opening figure for pedals constitutes a functioning ritornello, punctuating the important formal modulations to related keys, while the toccata material for the hands constitutes the ever-expanding, tonally fluid episodes. An exciting, dynamically rhythmical work, it concludes, like many toccatas, with an extended tonic pedal and a majestic Buxtehude-like gesture for full organ". You would have delighted Dibble if he could have been there to hear you play on 9th July . . . or if he ever listens to this upload: B R A V O !
love those crashing chords.