SKU: ST.H449

ISBN 9790220221286.

A well-known teacher and compiler of Stainer & Bell's Opera Gala series, John Norris has created Wedding Gala with an ear to giving church organists a mix of favourites and exciting discoveries to brighten the routine of music for the service of holy matrimony.

No album would be complete without the traditional wedding music of Mendelssohn and Wagner, and it can be found here in this collection alongside other classics of the wedding repertoire by Jeremiah Clarke, Bach and Handel. But there's also a thoroughly contemporary leavening, with arrangements of Sydney Carter's One More Step and Lord of the Dance, both firm favourites, plus Musorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition and Charpentier's Prelude, adding a note of splendour.

But the real bonus is for lovers of English music, with Elgar's Chanson de Matin and 'The Call' from the Five Mystical Songs by Ralph Vaughan Williams, seldom found in comparable collections. And there's also a rare new discovery: the ravishing Chosen Tune by Herbert Howells, transcribed from his Three Pieces for violin and piano, Op. 28, and available as an organ piece for the first time.

Each piece is comprehensively registered by the arranger, and the collection as a whole will be welcomed by all organists of intermediate standard as a source of new material not only for liturgical use but also for recitals.

SKU: HL.49033297

ISBN 9790001137751. UPC: 884088070496. 9.0x12.0x0.158 inches.

Though the work bearing this title is a portrait of childhood, it is a childhood quite different from the purely gameplaying and dreamlike childhood that is customarily represented. The childhood described here is carrying the seed, in all its purity, of all positive and negative qualities to be found the fully-grown men: a childhood both angelic and diabolical, and indeed very close to Henry James' The Turn of the Screw which was the direct inspiration for this monodrama.Its growth follows the innumerable sudden changes, turns and contrasts of the unsophisticated spirit. There is hardly any development at all, as each idea gives birth to the next or rejects the previons one, being object to every impulse, every tempest, every flux, every fear and delight. After a dreamlike introduction, in which two simple melodies stand out, comes a sudden awakening, Allegro, stamped all over with lavish and forever regenerating dynamism. A sudden halt leads a kind of outburst from the most simple folklore is singing, in regular, repeated notes. Again the question mark leads us to another melody, Tranquillo, of a sweet tempo, but brilliantly decorated with counter-point, its cursive traits leading this time to a kind of roguish march (Vigoroso).Yet soon there emerges a melancholic chant, Largo, in the Cromorne's timbre, and then, in the highest register of the Trumpet there reappears like a metamorphosed memory, the theme of the second movement. Passing other episodes, we come to Tempo giusto, insistent and glorious, interrupted by other passionate figures, cut off by unsettling silent moments and taken up again in always accelerating volleys.

SKU: FZ.50529

12.5 x 14 cm inches.

Anne Fuzeau Classique propose to discover our facsimiles' music in CD. Regis Allard, historical organ of Saint Michel de Bolbec (Calvados). Mass in the 8th tone for organ - Gaspard Corrette. Processional of the Royal Abbey of Chelles - Guillaume Gabriel Nivers. Romano-Monasticum Gradual - Guillaume Gabriel Nivers. Divine Office for use by the Ursuline Ladies of Dijon - Charles Derey. Improvised verses on the organ, Regis Alard.
Alternating with Nivers's 'musical plainchant', Corrette's Mass sounds like a homage of the organ to itself, as it gracefully takes on the role of preacher of the Divine Cult.
Regis Allard was trained by Andre Isoir and Michel Chapuis (for several years he had private lessons with the latter) as well as at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, where he graduated. He devotes himself exclusively to the interpretation of early music and participates in numerous events centred on historic instruments in France, Spain, Holland and northern Germany. He was a prize winner in the International Competition of French Music in Toulouse. His first disk, with pieces by Heinrich Scheidemann on the Arp Schnitger organ in the Stade church in northern Germany, received a Choc from Le Monde de la Musique. His latest recording, J. S. Bach's Art of the Fugue under the Hortus label performed on the new instrument of the church Saint Louis en l'isle in Paris, received critical praise.
Ad Limina This group of women cantors, all trained in the Conservatory, themselves music teachers, choir directors, soloists, come from either side of the French-Swiss border, whence the name Ad Limina, which means 'at the border'.
This ensemble pursues a novel exploration of the paths of religious music, from the baroque period to our day, with emphasis on Gregorian plainchant and European music from the 19th century to contemporary creation.