British Organ Music in the Twentieth Century - book review
The RCO ARCO written papers require candidates to write a short essay (currently 750 words) on a specific topic related to organ music and organ design. For the last few years the period has been Baroque Spanish and Portuguese organ music, which is not something I was looking forward to. En chamade trumpets are in short supply in Britan! The topic has now changed to British organ music from 1945 onwards, with an indicative list of 31 composers (!) to be familiar with. That is quite a research challenge. Fortunately there is a superb book entitled British Organ Music in the Twentieth Century by Peter Hardwick that inter alia covers this period up to around 2000.
I have to admit I had not come across this book before now, and I can’t understand why! The book runs to over 400 pages and provides informed analysis of the organ music of over 40 British composers. The book starts with Parry and Stanford, moves on to Basil Harwood. Some of the more extensive chapters are on Bairstow, Healy Willian and in particular Herbert Howells. Among the other chapters I was especially surprised to discover the scale of composition of both Francis Jackson (York Minster) and Arthur Wills (Ely Cathedral).
Kenneth Leighton, and William Mathias are covered in depth, as is Colin Mawby, who was the Master of Music at Westminster Cathedral from 1961 to 1981 and was a prolific composer of organ music. Indeed one of the sub-themes of the book are the differences in approach from composers like Howells with a wide range of musical genres and from cathedral organists such as Wills, Jackson and Mawby.
An appendix to the book provides a complete list of organ compositions for the composers, there is an excellent index and there are many notes for each chapter to support further research.
Peter Hardwick was born in England in 1934 and studied at the Royal College of Music before emigrating to Canada in 1966. He brings both an academic approach to research and analysis and a distinguished career as a cathedral organist to this book. Many of the comments are clearly based on his own performances of the music, most evident in the chapters on Howells and Jackson.
The book was published in 2003, though the research largely comes to a close in 2000. Since that time there was been a wealth of organ music composed by (just as examples) Cecilia McDowell, Judith Bingham, Judith Weir (Master of the Kings Music) Francis Grier, Joanna Marsh, Francis Pott and David Briggs. Indeed the music of Cecilia McDowell is the topic of the Set Works section of the ARCO examination and I’m looking forward to exploring it.
All too often I suspect we play music with what is probably only a partial knowledge of the background of the composer, especially in music of the 20th century. This invaluable book was published by Scarecrow Press in 2003 and the current publisher price is £94.00 though Amazon has it for £60.00.
I should add that there is also a book entitled Twentieth Century Organ Music that offers a world-wide view of compositions for the organ. The hardback version is £150 but there is a paperback edition for £52.99.