SOME YORKSHIRE ORGANIST-COMPOSERS by Philip Scowcroft
Up and down the country there are at any one time thousands of organists.
Many of these at some time or another try their hands at composition.
Comparatively few achieve print and fewer still achieve fame in so doing,
but many achieve performance, however ephemeral. Most are soon forgotten,
which is a pity as they have made a vast contribution to the infrastructure
of British music.
My home town of Doncaster may serve as an illustration of this general thesis.
Of the organists of its Parish Church, maybe five have earned at least some
distinction as composers.
Edward Miller (1735-1807: Organist 1756-1807) produced some forty
songs, many of them good, some church music including a Service and Psalms
of David (of which the tune Rockingham is still frequently sung as
a hymn), several tutors, a set of bright, if slight, organ voluntaries, six
keyboard sonatas of quality and others transcribed from Corelli trio sonatas
and, probably his finest work, the six "solos" (sonatas in several movements)
for flute and continuo, Opus 1. Much later, Wilfrid Ernest Sanderson
(1878-1935):Organist 1904-23) showed that his horizons, like Miller's,
stretched well beyond the organ loft by conducting the town's amateur operatic
societies and main choral society and by publishing some 170 highly popular
songs of the ballad type and a few short, salon-style piano pieces, but hardly
any church music. Percy Saunders, Organist 1930-46, who left Doncaster
for Wakefield Cathedral, composed church music, including a Service setting
and two oratorios, but mostly before he arrived in the town. His successor,
Owen Franklin, Organist 1946-57, produced an anthem or two and some
Responses while the present Organist, Magnus Black, Organist from
1957 to 1994, has written service music and several organ works, including
a Trio Sonata which has had several performances outside Doncaster.
Other local churches have had their composers. Christ Church, founded 1829
and now closed, could point to George Havelock (d. 1915) who composed
a cantata-type setting of Psalm 145 as a doctoral thesis for Toronto
University but who normally preferred to arrange or compose pieces for his
"ladies orchestra" of strings, guitars and mandolins like, for example, a
Maltese Suite, Alfred Taylor (also d. 1915), who composed some
organ pieces but more piano miniatures with titles like Album Leaf
and Melody, which he used in his piano recitals, also dance music
- Sandringham Waltz and The Merry Cricketers Polka - and two
operas, Amanda and The Bachelors, and Walter Spinney. Spinney's
father was organist of Salisbury Cathedral and Spinney was at one time his
Assistant. Spinney died in 1894, having been Organist at Christ Church 1880-8.
His compositions included anthems (He Watereth the Hills, published
in 1890, soon after he left Doncaster, sold 27,000 copies in four months),
services, hymn tunes, piano miniatures like Swiss Clock and Tuning
Key Valse, songs, much organ music - marches, voluntaries, interludes,
Harvest Home and Song in the Night - which enjoyed currency
not only in Doncaster and Leamington, where he went in 1888, but as far afield
as America, and a three-act operetta The Whack'em Academy. Doncaster's
Methodist churches produced: Harry McKenzie, Organist and Schoolmaster
at Oxford Place who wrote music for children's orchestras and choirs and
for his other instrument the violin (Cavatina and Cradle Song
have been revived in Doncaster in recent years) as well as secular-sounding
organ movements like Berceuse, Gavotte and a Fantasie
on Rousseau's Dream; Asa Litchfield, Priory Church Organist
1888-1917, whose compositions were brief and for organ or piano; and Arnold
Williams, Priory Organist 1918-27, whose effusions were mainly vocal,
both solos and choral items for male, female or mixed choirs, many of which
were published, though after he had left Doncaster for Southampton in 1927
- a few may still be heard. G.H. Adams, Organist at nearby Askern
and then at St. Jude's, Doncaster wrote church music and religious cantatas
in a mid-Victorian style as late as the 1930s. Douglas Coates, sometime
connected with Swinton in the 1920s published Seven Short Improvisations
and preludes on Nun Danket and Schonster, Herr Jesu for organ,
a scherzo Pip: A Yorkshire Terrier, for piano, and, for unison
voices, The Cherubic Carol. And we could go on.
To cover the whole of Yorkshire even in such summary form would need a sizable
volume. Here we can point to only a few figures. It is natural and reasonable
to begin at York Minster. Of two of its organists in the present century
we need not perhaps say much as their music is quite often to be encountered.
Edward Bairstow (Organist 1913-46) composed much church music and
some for organ, including a Sonata, plus a few secular choral and vocal works
like the (choral), I Dare Not Ask a Kiss and the (solo) The Oak
Bough, all knowledgeably written and often beautiful if not always especially
individual.
Francis Jackson, O.B.E. Bairstow's successor, is still delighting
us with his organ playing and his compositions, even though he is well turned
70 and has been retired from his position at York Minster for many years.
His church music is used by many choirs while his organ works, which are
in a style often owing much to the French school, embrace for sonatas and
a huge number of single movement. There are few, if any, better composers
for organ alive today. His successor Philip Moore has ability as a composer,
too.
We should also remind ourselves of their predecessors. James Nares
(1715-83: Organist 1735-56) composed many anthems, of which The Souls
of the Righteous is still quite often to be heard, services, secular
odes, glees and catches, and various lessons for harpsichord solo, plus the
Six "Fugues" for organ or harpsichord, possibly his best work and still sometimes
to be encountered (Dr. Jackson loyally plays them!) Virtually all these
compositions appeared after Nares had left York for London. He was succeeded
by an amazing dynasty of Camidges: John, Matthew and John II, who
reigned in the Minster organ loft until 1859. All the Camidges composed,
mostly church music and keyboard pieces, but especially Matthew
(1764-1844), who produced Preludes for piano, easy sonatas and
other sonatas for piano with instrumental accompaniment, church music (psalms,
hymns, chants etc, etc.) a few secular songs and six rather Handelian concertos
(but with a few galant touches) for organ or piano, some of which have been
revived in our own day. E.G. Monk (1819-1900): Organist 1859-83) is
better known for his editions than for original compositions, just as John
Naylor (1838-97: Organist 1883-97) achieved less distinction in composition
than his son Edward (1867-1934) and his grandson Bernard (b.1907),
both of them organists, incidentally, but Monk and John Naylor nevertheless
begat church music and cantatas conscientiously. Thomas Tertius Noble,
trained at the RCM under Parratt, Frederick Bridge and Stanford, and previously
organist at Ely Cathedral, was Organist at York 1898-1912 and his
Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis in B Minor may still be heard.
He wrote several other services, including a Communion Service with
brass and drums, at least ten anthems (The Souls of the Righteous,
The Soul Triumphant, Grieve Not Holy Spirit, O Sapienta,
Come O Thou Traveller, O Wisdom Spirit, Fierce Was the Wild
Bellow, Come O Creator Spirit, Lord of the Worlds Above
and Thy Kingdom and Dominion Endeth for Ever), the cantata Gloria
Dominum (The Dedication of the Temple), Opus 15, orchestral music
(he founded the York Symphony Orchestra in 1899 and his orchestral works
include a Suite for violin and orchestra, the Introduction and
Passacaglia, first performed in England at the Proms in 1945 and music
for The Wasps of Aristophanes and the York Pageant of 1909),
secular choral items, chamber music, songs and organ pieces, such as the
Elizabethan Idyll (1915), Introduction and Passacaglia (1934,
presumably an earlier version of the orchestral work just mentioned),
Nachspiel (1901), Air and Variations, Solemn March and
chorale preludes on Dominus Regit Me (1929), Eventide (1949),
St. Ann (1925) and other tunes. Noble (1867-1953) outlived his successor
Bairstow, but he spent his last forty years in the United States, many of
them as Organist of the Church of St. Thomas, Fifth Avenue, New York. But
he contributed much to music in the York area, not only at the Minster but
as Conductor of the York Musical Society between 1901 and 1912 and as Director
of the Hovingham Festival from 1906.
We move now to Leeds. The most famous Organist of the Parish Church, which
has daily sung services, was S.S. Wesley (1810-76), who was in post
1842-9 but was also associated with Hereford, Exeter, Winchester and Gloucester
Cathedrals and much of his work was composed in these places. However, his
fine Service in E was completed in Leeds, as was a substantial proportion
of his small corpus of organ music: two books of Pieces for Chamber
Organ and the Fantasia in G. Also dating from the Leeds years
is the anthem Cast Me Not Away, composed while recuperating from an
accident incurred when fishing at Helmsley in the North Riding, the chromatic
setting of the words "the bones Thou hast broken" having a personal connotation!
Wesley's articled pupil from his Exeter days, William Spark (1823-97)
went with him to Leeds where he became Organist of St. George's and then,
after designing the Town Hall organ, Borough Organist from 1859 to 1897.
His brother Frederick was a guiding light of the Leeds Triennial Festival
and William played at each Festival between 1874 and 1886. Grove's Dictionary
dismisses his compositions as "numerous but unimportant". Unimportant or
not, they were nevertheless widely performed. His oratorio Immanuel
figured in the Leeds Festival of 1877 and Spark's recitals in and around
Doncaster in the 1870s and 1880s (he appeared in the town as early as February
1853, conducting thirty voices of his own Leeds Madrigal and Motet Society)
included his Concertstuck, a Fantasie and (several times)
Variations and Fugue on Jerusalem the Golden, also solo songs
and excerpts from Immanuel. Spark's Yorkshire Exhibition March
was written in 1875 for the grand organ in the Exhibition building. He wrote
and lectured tirelessly, his lecture subjects in Doncaster at that same period
including "The Vocal Music of the Victorian Era", "The Minstrelsy
of Old England", "National Ballad Music of England, Scotland, Ireland
and Wales" and "Glees and Partsongs", the illustrations for the
latter talk including at least one of his own compositions. He edited books
of music by others for organists to play. He was never Organist of Leeds
Parish Church but this has had many fine musicians since Wesley. Robert
Senior Burton composed a popular chant in B Flat. William G. Creser
(1844-1933) was later Organist of the Chapel Royal; born in York and
educated in Oxford, he composed diligently, including an oratorio
Micah, the cantatas Eudora and The sacrifice of Freia,
both performed in Leeds, a setting of The Golden Legend, made at roughly
the same time as Sullivan was working on his, a Mass, psalms, organ music,
an orchestral Old English Suite in three pleasant movements, and a
String Quartet in A Minor, a Piano Trio in A Major and a Sonata for violin
and piano, none of which Cobbett's Dictionary deigns to mention. Creser was
followed by Alfred Benton, Edward Bairstow, Albert Tysoe,
Melville Cook, Donald Hunt and now Simon Lindley; all
of these produced music for choirs of which we may mention Cook's church
music and his West Sussex Drinking Song for male voices and, by Lindley,
the part song How Dazzling Fair and the carol, Come Sing and
Dance. Hunt's works are more numerous and include a St. Peter Mass,
a Missa Leodiensis (Leeds Mass), a Missa Brevis and
a Te Deum, Music of the Spheres and Invocation to Music
are both for chorus and orchestra. An Organ Sonata and various carols, anthems
and motets complete the tally.
Herbert Austin Fricker (1868-1943) was also particularly associated
with the City of Leeds, where he was City Organist (1898-1917), acted as
Chorus Master to the Leeds Festival Choir up to 1913, conducted other local
choirs, at Bradford, Halifax and Morley, and founded the Leeds Symphony
Orchestra, which later changed its name to the Northern Philharmonic Orchestra.
In 1917 he emigrated to Canada where among other things he conducted the
Toronto Mendelssohn Choir. His compositions included a number of original
pieces and arrangements for mixed voices, cantatas such as The Shield
of Faith, A Song of Thanksgiving and The Hermit, service
music, anthems for organ, most notably the Concert Overture in C Minor
of 1906, the Cantilene Nuptiale, a Fantasie Overture in C Minor
and the Adagio in A Flat. When the Concert Overture was played
in Doncaster in 1928 by the then Parish Church Organist H.A. Bennett,
the local press described it as "teeming with exuberance"; Bennett himself
must have liked it as he repeated it in a recital the following year. Fricker's
two recitals at Doncaster's Oxford Place Methodist Chapel on 8 February 1900
were devoted respectively to Mendelssohn and to Alfred Hollins, Dvorak,
Saint-Saens, E.H. Lemare and Widor.
This article should not ignore William Jackson, called "Jackson of
Masham" to distinguish him from the earlier William Jackson "of Exeter"
(1730-1803). Born at Masham in 1815, the son of a miller, the Yorkshire Jackson
was Organist in Masham in 1832. Self-taught as a composer, he published an
anthem, then a glee. Then he set Psalm 103, performed by the Huddersfield
Choral Society in 1841, capping this in 1847 when his oratorio The Deliverance
of Israel From Babylon was performed in Leeds. He then settled in Bradford
where he carried on a music business, played the organ (at St. John's Church
and at Horton Lane Independent Chapel) and directed choirs. He acted as
chorus-master to three Bradford festivals (1853-56-59) and became Conductor
of the Bradford Festival Choral Society in 1856. He died in 1866 before hearing
his Praise of Music for voices and orchestra, written for the Festival
of that year. His music was mainly choral;, besides the titles already mentioned
there was the oratorio Isaiah (1851), a second setting of Psalm
103 (1856), the cantata The Year (1959), a Mass, an Anglican service,
about twenty anthems (Come and Let Us Return was available well into
the present century), partsongs, three books of hymn tunes and a Singing
Class Manual. The best known of his songs was the Address to the
Wood-Lark, twice arranged earlier this century by Leslie Woodgate, once
for male voices, once for SATB. No organ music of Jackson's appears to survive,
but he did produce a slow movement and a Rondo for piano solo in 1844.
His work owed nothing to the then modern idiom of Mendelssohn and Spohr and
was very Handelian in outlook. It has been criticised for occasional crudity
(he was, we must remember self-taught) and praised for its vigour. At least
The New Grove, which has savagely excised so many British 19th Century composers
from its pages, retains a substantial article on him.
What of Sheffield's contribution in this field? The Parish Church (Cathedral
from 1914) has had many fine organists since the time of William
Sterndale-Bennett's father Robert, who died in 1818. Thomas Tallis
Trimnell, Organist 1875-85, composed considerably for the church but
is now little remembered. Much more famous is Edwin Harry Lemare
(1865-1934), who became an organist of international repute. He was at
Sheffield, as Organist of both the Parish Church and the Albert Hall for
only the six years 1886-92, but during that time he gave over 300 recitals
in the North of England. He composed a few service settings, an Easter
Cantata and a large quantity of organ music, his opus numbers running
to over a hundred. Much of this is obviously secular in character as Lemare
toured widely as a concert organist, latterly in the United States, where
he died. Little if anything, had been published when he left Sheffield. His
organ music includes major pieces like two Symphonies, arguably the acme
of the "orchestral" style among British organists and owing much to Widor
and Franck, not to mention the top orchestral composers of the day like Wagner
and Tchaikovsky, plus Concert Fantasies, two Concertstucken,
some large-scale fugal works in the style of Bach, suites like the Summer
Sketches, Twilight Sketches, Festival Suite and Arcadian
Idylle and countless shorter movements and transcriptions for organ,
notably of Wagner and, still played, Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance March
No. 1. Best known of the short pieces is the Andantino in D Flat,
an account of the words Moonlight and Roses later fitted to it, greatly
to Lemare's disgust as he was so often asked to play it as a "request"! It
was arranged in 1909 for small orchestra by no less a figure than Gustav
Holst. His invention in major work shows expansiveness and, in the fugues,
considerable contrapuntal resource He wrote for orchestra, too: Caprice
Orientale, Minuet Nuptiale, a Rhapsody, Opus 43A and the
Shenley Overture.
Mention of Lemare's activities as a concert organist brings to mind those
of the remarkable blind performer Alfred Hollins (1865-1942), born
in Hull, who, after study with E.J. Hopkins, Bulow and Raff, travelled all
over the world giving organ recitals, though he was also Organist of a church
in Edinburgh and a Professor at the Royal Normal College for the Blind. His
compositional energy was unbounded too. His Concert Overtures in F
Minor (written as early as 1899), C Major and C Minor were substantial works,
rather in the manner of Mendelssohn, valuable for giving solid beginnings
to his own recitals, which doubtless also featured pieces like the Concert
Toccata in B Flat (1926 and the Concert Rondo, in the same
key, of 1900. Other pieces, such as A Song of Sunshine, Spring
Song, the gavotte Maytime and marches, elegies, "prayers" and
sundry dances available almost by the acre, were "lollipops", doing much
the same for the organ repertoire as Eric Coates and others were at that
time doing for the orchestra. One is pleased to see his work still being
performed by organists, whether in recital and on record. His other compositions
included a Romance for violin and piano, solo piano music (he was
also a concert pianist), songs like My Mary and Divided and
anthems like The Earth is the Lord's and O Worship the Lord,
all of which titles were published.
Of Lemare's successors at the (Cathedral) it is worth mentioning T.W.
Hanforth (1867-1948), born in Hunslet (Leeds) and a chorister at Leeds
Parish Church and then York Minster, who was in post from 1892 to his retirement
in 1937 and R. Tustin Baker (1900-66). Both composed modestly. Hanforth's
(choral) Beyond the Darkness was performed by a Doncaster choir in
1927; Baker's publications included the carol Christ Was Born on Christmas
Day for accompanied SSA voices and, for the same combination, the Wordsworth
lyric, I Wandered lonely as a Cloud. His output generally embraced
anthems, services, carols and other partsongs. Among Sheffield's suburban
organists we must note George F. Linstead, lecturer, critic and composer,
organist successively at Walkley and Fulwood Parish Churches, and Norman
J. Barnes, music-master at my old school, King Edward VII Grammar, from
1947 and Organist of St. John's Ranmoor (in Sheffield), who had the SATB
anthem The Spirit of the Lord published; I remember, too, and with
pleasure, his setting of Siegfried Sassoon's Everyone Sang which he
gave his School Choir (including me!) to sing in 1949.
John Arthur Meale, born in Slaithwaite in 1880, was Musical Director
at the Central Hall, Westminster from its opening in 1912 until his death
in 1932, giving some six hundred Wednesday recitals and many Saturday Popular
Concerts. A noted exponent of the "orchestral" school or organ playing, a
FRCO and a recitalist much in demand all over the country (he recorded for
HMV) he came to Doncaster on several occasions after the First World War
and played among other things his own "tone pictures" The Mighty Andes,
Fountain Melody, In Peril on the Sea, the Introduction,
Variations and Fugue on The Vicar of Bray, the pedal study "The
Magic Harp, At Sunrise, Impressions sur la Belgique, A
Night at Sea and March Patrol. Other organ solos by him included
Sunny, The Storm, composed as a feature for a church bazaar at
Selby, Twilight, Cante Religioso and A Summer Idyll
(1917); his output included also anthems and many songs, of which Coming
to You was perhaps the most popular. He prepared the specification for
the organ in Hull City Hall and for many others. He was another in the mould
of Lemare and Hollins.
This paper would not be complete without some mention of Walter Parratt
(1841-1924), a native of Huddersfield and subsequently Organist at Magdalen
College, Oxford and St. George's Chapel, Windsor, combining this with academic
posts such as Professor of Music at Oxford (1908-18), Dean of the Faculty
of Music of London University (1916-20) and a Professorship at the RCM. He
was Master of the (Queen's) Music for over thirty years from 1893 to 1924
and was knighted in 1892. His organ playing was renowned for its skill and
taste and he wrote a number of articles on music, but his compositions are
not numerous. (His Who's Who entry did not specify any). They include music
for Agamemnon and The Story of Orestes, an Elegy to
Patroclus, a few anthems, e.g. Death and Life and Give Rest
O Christ, and the Comfortare he wrote for the Coronation of 1911
plus a few secular songs: The Triumph of Victoria (SSATB) and, for
solo voice, Sing Me a Song, The Knight's Leap, Rosy
Maiden, Winifred and If a Pig Wore a Wig, most of these
latter dating from 1916.
Herbert Walton, born in Thursk in 1869, studied at the RCM under Parratt,
Parry and Frederic Cliffe, later becoming Organist of St. Mark's Leeds, then
(1897) of Glasgow Cathedral. His most popular composition for organ was the
Rhapsodic Variations.
Edward Woodall Naylor, born in Scarborough in February 1867, was,
as we have seen, the son of a York Minster Organist; he became Organ Scholar
of Emmanuel College, Cambridge and, after study at the RCM in 1888-92, an
organist at two London churches - St. Michael's, Chester Square (1889) and
St. Mary's Kilburn (1896) - before returning to Emmanuel as Organist (1898)
and Lecturer (1902) (while in Cambridge he taught at the Leys School) and
eventually died in the fateful year of 1934. He was less known for his organ
music than in other directions. A scena, Merlin and the Glen, was
performed at the RCM when he was a student and two operas come from his pen,
The Angelus and Slaves of Liberty, the former being produced
at Covent Garden in 1909. Described as a "romantic opera in a Prologue and
four Acts", it won a prize offered by Ricordi but suffered from a stilted
libretto, Naylor's inexperience of the stage and by being put on during a
foggy winter season. It enjoyed more success when revived by the Carl Rosa
in 1921. A Requiem, Pax Dei, showing the influence of both Verdi and
Stanford(!) was performed in Cambridge in 1913 with orchestra; a cantata,
Arthur the King, was aired at Harrogate in 1902. Other Naylor choral
works included many canticle settings, notably a Magnificat for double
choir (1903) and some for male voices (TTBB) only, also a motet Vox
Dicentis (1911) and the partsongs The Merry Bells of Yule and
The Charge of the Light Brigade. His orchestral works include the
Variations in B Flat and the overture, Tokugawa, chamber works, a
Quintet and a Piano Trio in D Minor. More popular than any of these were
his arrangements of Shakespeare's Music (a subject on which he wrote
a book in 1896) for various combinations. Other publications were The
Poets and Music (1928) and An Elizabethan Virginal Book (1905).
E.J. Dent described him as an erratic but stimulating lecturer and the finest
Cambridge University teacher of his time after Stanford. He was certainly
more than useful as organist, pianist and composer.
Bernard Johnson was Organist at Bridlington Parish Church for some
years prior to the Great War and composed considerably and not only for organ.
As to his compositions these included the choral songs The Brooklet
(unison) and The Tide Rises (SATB), the set (four numbers) of solo
songs A Fairy Ring the Faerie Suite for piano and the sacred
cantata for solo quartet, chorus and organ, Ecce Homo. Organ works,
published between 1907 and 1932 but mostly in the five years 1907-12, were
a Andante Con Moto in B Minor, Aubade in D Flat,
Canzonet in E
Of Lemare's successors at the (Cathedral) it is worth mentioning T.W.
Hanforth (1867-1948), born in Hunslet (Leeds) and a chorister at Leeds
Parish Church and then York Minster, who was in post from 1892 to his retirement
in 1937 and R. Tustin Baker (1900-66). Both composed modestly. Hanforth's
(choral) Beyond the Darkness was performed by a Doncaster choir in
1927; Baker's publication included the carol Christ Was Born on Christmas
Day for accompanied SSA voices and, for the same combination, the Wordsworth
lyric, I Wandered lonely as a Cloud. His output generally embraced
anthems, services, carols and other partsongs. Among Sheffield's suburban
organists we must note George F. Linstead, lecturer, critic and composer,
organist successively at Walkley and Fulwood Parish Churches, and Norman
J. Barnes, music-master at my old school King Edward VII Grammar, from
1947 and Organist of St. John's Rarmon, who had the SATB anthem The Spirit
of the Lord published; I remember, too, and with pleasure his setting
of Siegfried Sassoon's Everyone Sang which he gave his School Choir
(including me!) to sing in 1949. There was also a Caprice in B, the
two Duologues (The Sigh, The Smile), Elfentanz,
Lullaby in F, Intermezzo in D Flat, Pavane in A (also
orchestrated) and the Overture in C Sharp Minor, subtitled "Homage to
Tchaikovsky", a piece received with success by Chester Cathedral Organist,
Roger Fisher at Doncaster Parish Church in 1990. Fisher has recorded the
piece, which quotes from the Pathétique Symphony.
Samuel Liddle differs from most of our other examples in that he was
only briefly an organist as such. Born in Armley, Leeds in 1867, he became
Organist of St. James' Leeds at 16 years old but after study with Stanford
at the RCM he went into concert life as a pianist, working with Clara Butt,
Ada Crossley, Plunket Greene and W.H. Squire; his robust, virile style as
accompanist was much appreciated. He appeared in Doncaster at least four
times: in 1902, when the "judgement, taste and precision" of his accompaniments
were praised; in 1904, when Clara Butt sang his Abide With Me; in
1906; and in 1912. He composed no organ music, as far as I know, and I have
traced only one instrumental piece, an Elegy for cello and piano;
but he composed many solo songs of the ballad type. Many of these, including
the best remembered ones, had sacred words: Abide With Me, How
Lovely are Thy Dwellings, Like as the Hart, The Lord is My
Shepherd, Thy Faith Hath Saved Thee and Ye Shall Be
Comforted. But there were more secular examples too, of which we can
cite, Arabic Love Song, sung by McCormack, among others, A
Farewell, Fall Snowflakes, At Last, Home Song,
Lovely Kind and Kindly Loving, My Lute, The Gay Gordons,
The Young Royalist, the Seven Old English Lyrics, the duet Now
Is the Month of Maying and his very popular arrangement of The Garden
Where the Praties Grow. He died late in 1951.
Other Yorkshire born organists have included Edward Allan Wicks (born
1923). Organist of Canterbury Cathedral 1961-88, Keith Vernon Rhodes
(born 1930), Organist of Bradford Cathedral 1963-82 and composer of a
Communion Service, Philip Marshall (born 1921), prolific composer
of organ music, anthems, chants and a superb improviser and Organist of Ripon
and Lincoln Cathedrals, Gordon Archbold Slater (1896-1979, Marshall's
predecessor at Lincoln and composer of organ, piano and choral music, Norman
Cocker (1889-1953), Organist of Manchester Cathedral 1943-53 and writer
of organ music - Interlude and Paean, Angelus and the ever-popular
Tuba Tune, and Harrison Oxley (born 1933), Organist at Bury
St Edmunds 1957-84, also noted as a composer.
And there we must stop. Some of the organists we have discussed remain at
least modestly popular but most do not; yet all of them and countless others
we have not had space to mention contributed worthily to the sum of musical
experience in their own time and, as we have seen, by no means all of them
confined themselves to writing for their instrument or for church services.
Philip Scowcroft
