The wandering organist

I can't believe how long it has taken for bookings to start coming in again after the 2020 lock-up of every church in the Kingdom. However, at long last I got  asked to play somewhere other than Brighton. OK, I have played here before, but it's still a change of scene. I played at Heene Church   on Sunday last. Heene is  a part of Worthing that predates Worthing. The word apparently means "high", it is the site of the old windmill (long gone) and is on the only high ground for some distance around. About 30' above sea-level, since you ask. The organ is still working, still uncleaned (last work was done in 1966, so it's a bit dusty in there), but the electronic "concert organ" has been taken out of service, and there seem to be no plans to plug it in again. (Just a couple of photoes to entertain. The organ facade was redesigned in 1966 to allow maximum sound to percolate from the chamber to the nave, as there is almost no egress from the west side. Al...

The Advent Carol Service at the Church of the Holy Spirit, Southsea always marks the beginning of the countdown to Christmass. I wandered thence yesterday and, although not over-employed (three hymns, O Thou, the Central Orb and the Bach Wachet Auf ) had a nice time and grabbed this photo while the choir rehearsed. Wandering back home the snow was falling, snow on snow between Farlington and Arundel, but in Portsmouth and Worthing there was nary a flake.

Well, I wandered again. Not far, St Botolph's, Heene, in Worthing, but it was a booking. An event nowadays. Sung eucharist, an anthem (Goss O Saviour of the World ) and some music before and after The choir was as good as ever, the sermon a bit "miserable sinner", intincted wafers, and the pipe organ ciphering on middle E on the Great, which rendered that manual unusable. So I played the hymns and voluntaries on the electronic. That had tenor E flat not working at all on the pedals, so I chose pieces which were in C major and E major (slightly modal E, leading note flattened every time it occurred in the pedal). The main thing is that, after such a long break from having to be responsible for leading the music in a service other than St Mary's Kemptown, the feelings I had of slight panic have returned after a good couple of decades absence. Probably all to the good, keeps me on my toes, and all that sort of thing. After lunch I decided I would like to go to choral eve...

Well, not quite free, but playing at a church again. After 4 months, I finally got my little fingers on the keyboard of a real organ. And it was the lovely Bevingdon of St Mary, Kemptown . I've been attending services, but only via the internet. Not the same. Better than nothing, but not the same. I've posted photoes of St Mary's before, but this time I took some pictures during the service (still only virtual for the congregation) as I was able to wander around without disturbing anyone. So here's a small selection. And, just to show we're an inclusive church, the 'concelebrant', Magnus, who's a sweety, and very good in church.

I see that I haven't posted here for some while. Mostly laziness, I'm afraid, but a side order of moving home and this wretched virus has meant that some things have been put to one side. Moving home: I put the flat on the market in July 2019. Got an offer within three days and found somewhere to live. It turned out that the offer was from someone who couldn't afford it, and the place I found had a structural problem caused by next door trying to dissolve the garage (don't ask). Next, back on the market, and found a place (this time in a town I wanted to live in, not Littlehampton), and got another buyer. By November it was revealed that the buyer was a fantasist and I had to withdraw my offer on the place in Portslade. Generic bungalow of the same sort. Home sweet home! Come December I got another buyer (dear God!) but the over £5000 service charge for fireproofing, redecorating common ways and replacing the garage roofs became due, and so I was £5000 down. ...

Today I was back in Findon for Trinity Sunday (45 years a church organist today liturgically), which coincidentally was the visit of residents of Schney in Bavaria, who are twinned with Findon. It was also an all-age service. The Vicar had, since it was Trinity Sunday, put down St Patrick's Breastplate which is theologically wonderful but crap for congregations to sing. It wasn't helped by the Mayhew book omitting a few verses and the vicar omitting a couple more, so we had the first verse, Christ within me and the last verse with its utterly unhelpful organ accompaniment (pinched from AMR which, since it's Stanford (d.1924), is out of copyright). Sitting by the organ console there were two people who knew it, as did the vicar. I couldn't hear much coming from the rest of the church... The readings and sermon were in English and German. I just about caught one word in 10 of the latter. During communion I played the Walton Elegy  (from music written for Richard III ), ...

Yesterday morning was an unexpected pleasure when the previous Tuesday, I was asked if I could stand in at short notice at Findon, their organist booked for the day had a problem. A normal 4-hymn eucharist, with Bach during communion and Frank Bridge after. In the afternoon, I thought that, since it was a lovely day, I'd go to a choral evensong. Chichester had Purcell in C and his Thy Word is a Lantern.   Guildford had Howells' Gloucester service and Finzi's Lo, the full final sacrifice . So Guildford it was, 35 miles through the Sussex Downlands and Surrey commuterland. As I was standing, gormlessly, at the back of the cathedral, two friends greeted me, they'd some up from Portsmouth for the same reason (nothing much on at their diocesan cathedral - Chilcott 3 choirs service and Mathias' Let the people praise thee, a service, slightly confusingly, described as choral evensong "with Commemoration of the WWI Centenary ringing by Winchester & Portsmou...

Well, as spring springs, and the beautiful sunshine makes the world a brighter place, I'm back to wandering. An old haunt, St John Findon , in its picturesque setting, and most of the blossom already gone. The wild primroses out in force and the daffs a little past their best. The service, a simple communion with the Murray setting and hymns, always appeals. Today it was taken by my former colleague, (now Rev) Colin Cox. I had forgotten he was attached to the parishes and when I was told it was "Colin" taking the service, thought nothing about it. Organ case on the west tower wall The organ, an unlovely-looking thing, skulks in the rafters of this fine and unusual church, which makes it awkward to photograph.  Sound-wise, it is a little on the reticent side, apart from the Trumpet, which is not subtle. The Swell stops are slightly louder than the Great, too. It has a 16' Open Metal, unusual for a village church. The Swell box is to the right of the gold-ish ...

Organist's view of the high altar Well, first Sunday away from the tied bench I wandered me over to St Mary, Kemptown, in Brighton. Such a friendly church, with all sorts of people. I love the way I don't stand out and can merge into the background more. This morning's service (All SS Sunday) also had 30 minutes of All Souls-tide remembrance (over 200 names read out), which stretched the service a weeeeny bit. My friend Alan Ireland was playing there for the first time, and did nicely improvising quietly over the congregational candle-lighting. Before the service he played some Mendelssohn I'd not heard before. He told me after it was the prelude to the G major P+F. The Bach Fantasia in c BWV 562 afterwards on full Great flues. Next week, no plans yet. Watch this space :-)

A picture of the west end from 2010 Well, being titular organist means you have to deal with the choir library, whether small, large, or middling. St Botolph's library is large for a parish church, a legacy of days of yore when the choir was all-male with the number of boys in double figures. Now it's just double figures and all adult, but at least as competent. Double-choir stuff is out of the window (only one bass and alto), but they can do pretty much anything else. The library. Well, I was in for a nasty shock when I looked inside the folders. I had decided I needed to know what we actually had. The official index was about 10 years out-of-date, and to find stuff just ignore the index's idea, which was based on the position in a pile in a double-width cubby-hole: eg 1 A 13, being first cubby-hole, left hand pile, 13th down from the top. Hmm. Someone had changed this into alphabetical order, dividing anthems from settings, but not updated the index. So, out with th...

A few weeks back the Churchwardens of St Botolph's, Heene, slightly twisted my arm and I agreed to take over as Organist & Choirmaster from next January, carrying on with the 2nd & 4th Sundays I had already agreed to do, with choir practices before those Sundays. Last night I turned up, having been told that the PCC would be meeting the previous Tuesday to confirm my appointment, and that they would tell the choir. I had also said that a 6-month trial period - for both parties - would be sensible. Bless them, they've only gone and appointed me from 1st October, whilst letting me carry on with the other churches who have already booked me. This flummoxed me a little, and I didn't get off to the best start with the choir practice. Very kind, but perhaps asking me? I am not complaining, just expressing the flummoxisation. Their website is this one: http://stbotolphsheene2015.com/ and beware of imitations. There are at least two other sites which purport to be the ...

The weekend before last I renewed my acquaintanceship with Portsmouth Cathedral's organ (CofE, though I have played the RC one). Nicholson's did a good job in the 90s, and mechanically it seems ok with the daily use that a busy cathedral organ gets. I couldn't work out if the electric assistance coupling was on or off with the switch down or up, but it made a difference to the coupling: Swell to Great pulled down fully on all notes (one or two in the middle octave were a little iffy with the switch in the other direction) so I left well alone. I liked the little extras Portsmouth Cathedral chorister... which were above the console - however, I was less enthusiastic about the other extras which are soon to be added: not that extra stops are in and of themselves bad, just that I don't really see the necessity for a loud trumpet at the west end of the nave, which is not exactly far from the loud trumpet on the main organ.The other thing I didn't like was the c...

There really isn't much you can say, other than nowadays the C of E would make them take it down and re-do it straight. The organ pipes, on the other hand, were straight. At least, the bits on display. It's a bit of a cheat, actually, because the side towers' pipes should poke over the top of the case, but Henry Willis (I imagine it was HW 4, his firm put the organ in in 1963) mitred the pipes so they didn't. It was impossible to get a picture of this, but at the top of the pipes they put a 45-degree mitre back into the organ so the pipes were full-length but not poking up. I suspect an architect who didn't ask and didn't believe in talking to organ builders. The photo of the church (Chesterfield PC) and the organ (north transept) were taken this last weekend when I wandered up there (207 miles).That's almost olympic-class wandering. The organ is quite loud by the altar under the crossing, but by virtue of its position, in the nave it's almost subd...

Have just got back after a day in church, rehearsing and then performing Rossini's Petite Messe Solonelle . Worthing Choral Society with excellent soloists and my friends Marcus Martin and Donovan Brown on the two pianos, myself on the "harmonium". The style is pure Opera Buffa, and the concert (with a 30-minute interval after the Creed) lasted two hours. Many thanks to Emmanuel Church, Worthing  f or their hospitality. (They don't have a website, or I'd give a link here.) Rossini wrote:  "Dear Lord, here it is finished, this poor little mass. Have I just written sacred music, or rather, sacrilegious music? I was born for opera buffa, as you well know. Not much technique, a little bit of heart, that’s all. Blessings to you and grant me Paradise." So it was "cramming for his finals", as one irreverent person called it. "Harmonium". Well, yes, the sounds were right, thanks to Al Stepney's laptop and some downloaded sample...

I have spent two-and-a-half hours putting together a dossier of documents from the internet to find out if I and the Revenue have been wrong these last 21 years that I've been filling out (or in? In, I think.) the self-assessment forms. This, together with the other hours I have spent talking with priests and a diocesan employee, has convinced me that the commandment to describe me (and all other organists in the Diocese of Chichester) as employed by every church we play for, is based on a very one-sided opinion . There has been no change of interpretation by HMRC, no new guidelines. I spoke with the employee, who was unwilling to meet or change his mind without a decision in writing from HMRC, something I don't know how to achieve as HMRC only allows you to phone them, and it costs 12p a minute whilst you spend 3 minutes listening to their exhortations to "do it online" and 40 minutes waiting to speak to a real human. Not a postal address anywhere on their site. ...

Back again to St John, Findon this morning, and a Fambly Service which, with voluntaries (Bach, von Paradis arr Macdonald, and Charpentier) thrown in free, worked out at £12.50 per hymn. To dark and wet to take a picture of a splendid pine tree with all its cones on, so will try to pop back soon and get it before they get blown/rained off their branches. Lovely to look at whilst I sat in the car, listening to A Point of View, with Howard Jacobson on Difficulty . Update on the Revenue situation: Despite having called them twice, and been promised a 72-hour (3-day, to you and me) callback twice, I'm still waiting for them. Apparently they don't have enough Technical Experts any more. Bearing in mind my own experience of DWP Voluntary Release schemes, this doesn't surprise me. Recently they offfered VR to all the computer experts whilst advertising for more. We now have no-one actually closer than 20 miles away to sort out any server problems. Oh well. Only 21 months to go.

I am just completely fed up with 1) Inland Revenue (as it used, in simpler days, to be known) and 2) the Diocese of Chichester for blindly following the stupid HMRC diktat which completely contradicts the church's earlier position - not contradicted by the revenue at the time - that organists were not employees and thus eminently sackable . And here . And here . Two churches have mentioned this to me, that I am to be treated as an employee. It would be financially doubleplusungood as my expenses would be slashed at a stroke and, much more importantly, my National Insurance Number, birth-date and everything necessary to commit mayhem and ID theft would be at the mercy of about 10 parish treasurers and their internet security. One treasurer-click on a phishing link, and there's my bank details gone. No. No, no and NO. One person mentioned that I would get a pension - well, no. I'd have to be paid £10,000 by each church to qualify for that, likewise sick pay. Even the ide...

A trip to London one hot July afternoon, to play for that high art form, the service of Choral Evensong, with Wyndcliffe Voices and Philip Drew. St John, Holland Road was the destination, invited by the church's organist, Paul Joslin. I had visited the church about 30 years ago and knew it as the last stone-vaulted building to be built in London. Built from 1885 to 1910 the website is worth a look, and explains some interesting little oddities, like the floor-level. Walking in, the immediate impression is "wow". We arrived after another service had finished and incense was still lingering. In the history of this church, that was nothing new! An estate agent's blurb about a flat for sale next door: " Holland Road is close to the green open spaces of Holland Park and the Shepherd's Bush's Westfield shopping centre " which made me smile. The organ has no case, and is almost unphotographable, being 50' above floor-level. The origina...

A friend of mine chooses the ties he wears on Sundays by the liturgical colour of the day - predominantly green in the Sundays of Trinity, gold for Easter and Christmas, red for Martyrs - and, nowadays, Whitsunday - and so on. Whilst I have a large number of ties, they don't seem to have a predominating colour, being mostly musical notation or instruments (Christmasses became a little predictable a while back!). And then, about three years ago, I spotted a multi-pack of socks in Marks and Spencer and my problem was solved - liturgically appropriate socks. Unfortunately, the green pair has had rather more wear than the others and has gone into holes, so here is a tribute to the set before they start, one by one, to go through. I had thought to take pictures of them actually being worn, but it was an unusual day, quite summery and warm.

Yesterday was a sad day - the funeral of John S Smith, past President of the Organ Club and long-standing secretary of my local Organists' Association, Brighton & Hove. A fount of information on matters organic who will be missed. A true old-fashioned gentleman. It was also sad as I said goodbye to the last remaining part of my graduation present from my parents, the Dual 505 turntable (which was connected to a NAD3020 and Acoustic Research AR18s). It just stopped working. Bearing in mind it was 35 years old and was one of the old-fashioned sort that had an extra lead to connect to the amp, and that it had been quite well used before the advent of CDs, I actually had to put my hands over my ears as it went into the skip at the local tip. And lastly, I got so fed up with not being able to find music I wanted to hear from my CD collection, I indexed them all. It was started by not being able to find the Holst St Paul's Suite which, even when they were finally put into co...