Francis Jackson's Festival Toccata arranged for Organ.Dr Francis Jackson CBE is a British organist and composer. He was born in Malton Yorkshire and received his early education as a Chorister at York Minster under his precursor the legendary Sir Edward Bairstow. Jackson succeeded Bairstow as Organist of York Minster in 1946 a post he held until his official retirement in 1982. His extensive output of sacred and secular music includes canticles anthems hymn tunes organ pieces two acclaimed monodramas an overture a concerto a symphony and solo songs. Jackson's creative output has continued since his retirement.

The Festival Toccata is relatively well-known among the works of Fletcher and is popular as a wedding piece and for encores. The brilliance of Festival Toccata’s surface disguises the fact that one does not need to be a virtuoso to play it well and effectively.Percy Fletcher was an English composer conductor and Orchestrator of prodigious output who made his career in the lively world of the London music theatre of the years of the late 19th and early 20th century. He was music director at many theatres including His Majesty’s Theatre for the last seventeen years of his life. He was the Orchestrator and conductor for the big budget spectacular theatre piece Chu Chin Chowwhich ran for five years a record that remained unbroken for forty years. In addition to his myriad works of light music Fletcher also wrote a serious church cantata The Passion of Christ as well as the delightful children’s work The Walrus and the Carpenter.

Thomas Hewitt Jones' Carnival. Composed 2010. Written for Martin Neary President of the Organists Charitable Trust. These five short works are all extracted from the excellent Little Organ Book from the Organists Charitable Trust edited by Martin Neary and first published by Novello in 2010. This is a wonderful resource of 11 mainly new works by British composers all of moderate difficulty and well-defined character. Iain Farrington’s Bluesday is full of delicious harmonies with a bold climax framed by a gentle beginning and ending. David Bednall’s Fanfare is a joyful work that would bea good recital opener or festival voluntary with a chance to unleash the big reeds. The simplicity of the title of Howells’s Cradle Song belies a richness and warmth that make this a moving miniature. John Rutter’s evening prelude from 1979 on the plainsong hymn Te lucis ante terminum is tender and clear with some surprisingly plangent harmonies. Thomas Hewitt Jones’s Carnival is an outburst of festivity and bravura. All these pieces are very much worth playing though organists interested in more than two of them would be better served purchasing a copy of the original anthology which is still very well priced (Little Organ Book Novello 9781849386814 £9.95). - Sunday by Sunday

Commissioned for the 26th International Organ Festival at St Albans 2011 and funded by the RVW Trust.Duration: 7.45 Performance notes Registration: the performer is free to determine the entire registration scheme except at bar 60 where a solo reed is mandatory.Pitch: manual passages at bars 25 32 38 are written for a solo 4' stop (s). The Pedal is at 16' (ad lib 32') unless otherwise indicated (bars 31 37 where a solo 8' is required).III - Sw.II - Gt.I - Pos/Ch Composer's note Esperanza is named after Camp Esperanza (Camp Hope) the location of the mission to rescue the thirty-three miners trappedunderground for seventy days in 2010 at the San Jose Mine in Chile a rescue that was televised live and was one of the most moving and inspiring things I have ever seen. By the most extraordinary coincidence I had already done a good deal of sketching for this Organ piece before this all happened and had determined on a 'darkness-to-light' kind of piece - so the coincidence as well as my feelings of elation were both too strong to ignore.The piece persues a course from a fairly knotty slow beginning (heralded by a few chords that recur at the very end) full of rising themes (another coincidence - the material had already been sketched before the miners were trapped underground) and reaching a loud climax the quick toccata-like second section bursting vigourously out of the tension which is created at the beginning of the work.

Thea Musgrave's Psalm 147 - The Orgelbiichlein Project for solo Organ. Commissioned by Graeme Kay Premiered by Martin Baker in the Grand Organ Festival at Westminster Cathedral on 29 November 2017.

For Chamber Organ-Commissioned for the 1990 Peterborough Festival and first performed by Nicholas Danby in July 1990. These preludes were composed for a new instrument by Kenneth Tickell and Co. recently installed in Peterborough Cathedral. Possessing one keyboard 5 stops (no 16-foot) no pedals and no swell-box dynamic levels can be realised by changes in registration only. The cresc. and dim. markings in brackets apply only when performance on a larger organ is envisaged. Duration c. 13 minutes.

Missa De Gloria (Dublin Festival Mass) was written for the Dublin International Festival in 1980.

Commissioned by the Organ Club for their Golden Jubilee Concert. Premiered in the Royal Festival Hall by Nicholas Kynaston.

Four Short Pieces for Organ was published in 1938 and includes Prelude Reverie Interlude and Scherzetto. Prelude was composed in 1931 at the Leipzig Thomaskirche where J S Bach was Kapellmeister and where his remains are interred.Twentieth century English composer conductor chorister and Organist William H Harris was Organist at St George’s Chapel at Windsor Castle and was conductor for the coronations of Queen Elizabeth II and her father King George VI. His work was performed at the Three Choirs Festival and the Proms though he was best known as a choir trainer.

Mand lion was commissioned for the 1982 Dublin International Organ Festival by RHM Foods. It was first performed on the 27th June 1982 by Pete Sweeney at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin.The piecetakes its name from the Greek word for ‘handkerchief' a word that is also used in iconography to refer to an Ikon ‘not made by hands’ which is equivalent to the idea of the shroud. Mand lion is a meditation uponIkons and upon the changing image of the face of Christ.Tavener recommends that this piece should be played freely and with great ‘sweep’.

This three-movement work for Organ Air Berceuse and Procession written in 1949 is a very appealing piece that speaks in Sumsion’s fresh melodic Voice. His style is diatonic modern and individual and has not been aged by the orthodoxies of its time.Twentieth century composer and Organist Harold Sumsion spent most of his life in Gloucester where he was a chorister at the cathedral then an articled pupil to the Organist and later assistant Organist and eventually a leader of the Three Choirs Festival. There were short periods studying and teaching in at the Royal Academy of Music in London and the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia. He enjoyed a long and productive tenure atGloucester Cathedral where through is leadership of the Three Choirs Festiva l he came to know some of the most important British composers in particular Edward Elgar.