25 OCT | Wednesday 9.30 pm
Church of Santa Luzia
Funchal
The english tradition
William Whitehead, organ
This programme revolves around the native English tradition from three centuries. While organ design in mainland Europe developed hugely, the English organ remained relatively small between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. Pedals only began to appear in the later eighteenth century, but few composers wrote for them until Mendelssohn’s visits from the 1820s onwards. It is quite possible to play a wide variety of musical styles on Santa Luzia’s small organ, therefore.
William Byrd may have been a chorister at St Paul’s Cathedral in London, and probably studied with Thomas Tallis, but little is known of his early life. He later became a Gentleman of the Chapel Royal. This Fantasia in C was included in My Lady Nevells Book, copied in 1591.
Religious turmoil again engulfed Britain in the mid-seventeenth century, when there was briefly a republic and no monarch. After the restoration of the king, Charles II, music began to flourish once more. Westminster Abbey enjoyed the fruits of the labours of both John Blow and Henry Purcell, who reflect the influx of both French and Italian style into Britain. Blow’s Cornet voluntary in D minor is reminiscent, perhaps, of a French récit, and gives an opportunity to hear the divided cornet on this organ. The ornamentation here and in Purcell’s Voluntary is decidedly French. A two-manual organ was installed in Westminster Abbey during Purcell’s lifetime, and it may be that his Double Voluntary in D minor was written to demonstrate its new capabilities. A smaller version of the piece, playable on a single manual, also exists, and it is this that I play today.
The Georgian dynasty brought new musical tastes with it, largely driven by George Frederick Handel, who took up residence in Britain under the new kings. Thomas Arne was organist of the Sardinian Embassy, and composed the British National Anthem, amongst other things. His musical output was largely theatrical and occasional. It seems this concerto was written for his son, Michael. Thomas Roseingrave was an Irishman, but had spent time in Italy studying with Domenico Scarlatti. This Fugue in F minor is characteristic of his rather experimental style, full of chromatic meanderings. He became organist of St George’s, Hanover Square, where Handel worshipped in London. William Walond was described as ‘Organist in Oxford’. I play from a first edition of this Voluntary, which is written for the Trumpet stop. Representing the last flowering of the ‘Old English Organ Style’, I play a voluntary by Thomas Adams, known as the ‘Thalberg of the organ’. His music requires some dexterity, especially his densely written fugal movements.
I end with three German composers. Though Bach did not travel to England as far as we know, the two others not only travelled but emigrated there. Handel became the favoured musical scion of the Georges, composing opera and oratorio for the London public. These two pieces come from musical clocks by Charles Clay, and were programmed in c. 1738. The three Bach pieces are his manualiter contributions to the Kyrie section of Clavierübung (1739). I end with selections from Pepusch’s gigantic Voluntary in C. Pepusch settled in London and worked alongside Handel for the Duke of Chandos. Each movement shows off a different colour of the organ.
Music from Elizabethan times
William Byrd (c. 1539-1623)
¬ Fantasia in C
(My Lady Nevells Book)
Music from the Restoration period
John Blow (1649-1708)
¬ Voluntary in d [for the cornet stop]
Henry Purcell (c.1659-95)
¬ Voluntary in d, Z718
Music from Georgian England
Thomas Arne (1710-78)
¬ Allegro
(Concerto nº1 em Dó maior in C major)
Thomas Roseingrave (1688-1766)
¬ Fugue in f minor
William Walond (1719-68)
¬ Voluntary IV in D major, Op. 2
› Grave
› Moderato
Music from the Nineteenth Century
Thomas Adams (1785-1858)
¬ Voluntary in D major (Twelve Voluntaries)
› Adagio
› Allegro
Three Germans
Georg Friedrich Haendel (1685-1759)
¬ Sixth Air
¬ Gigue
(Pieces for a Musical Clock)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
¬ Chorale prelude «Kyrie, Gott Vater in Ewigkeit», BWV 672
¬ Chorale prelude «Christe, aller Welt Trost», BWV 673
¬ Chorale prelude «Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist», BWV 674
John Christopher Pepusch (1667-1752)
¬ Voluntary in C major
› Largo
› Flute
› Slow
› Full organ
Participants
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William Whitehead William Whitehead’s solo organ-playing career took off when he won First Prize at the Odense International Organ Competition in Denmark, 2004. Trained at Oxford University and the Royal Academy of Music, London, his teachers have included David Sanger and Dame Gillian Weir. Valuable inspiration was gained in his year as Organ Scholar of Westminster Abbey, where he played for services and occasionally conducted the choir. This led to becoming Assistant Organist at Rochester Cathedral, where he accompanied the Cathedral Choir and helped to found the new Girls’ Choir. William now combines a career as a concert organist, teacher and writer. He has given recent solo concerts in Berlin Dom, the Laurenskerk Rotterdam, Westminster Cathedral, the Toulouse les Orgues Festival, and Treviso, Italy. He is regularly to be heard with groups such as the Dunedin Consort, the Academy of Ancient Music and the Gabrieli Consort, with whom he recently recorded a Handel Organ Concerto. He has made a number of solo recordings, including the award-winning Dances of Life and Death (music of Alain and Duruflé), complete Organ Sonatas of Mendelssohn, and English repertoire on the historic Abraham Jordan organ in Southall, London. As a teacher, he has held posts at both the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College of Music, and now teaches organ students at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He is currently curating a major international project to complete Bach’s Orgelbüchlein with new compositions.
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Notes about the organ
Church of Santa Luzia
According to the register of expenses for the years 1839 to 1841, we find that remunerations were given to the singers and organists, which straight away implies that the Church of Santa Luzia already had a pipe organ, probably of some considerable age, before it was replaced by the arrival of the instrument from the dissolved Convent of São Francisco. This second organ was acquired in 1834. However, it was only moved to the Church of Santa Luzia in 1842, according to the register of Father Joaquim António Português who, on 15 January of that year, noted down in the Accounts Book, an extra sum to pay for it to be transported definitively to the church: “50,000 réis which I gave to the man who arranged for the São Francisco organ to be brought to this parish, since he had received nothing, owing to the decease of Brother António das Dores, who was to have dealt with this.”
In the course of the 20th century, this instrument was subject to frequent maintenance work, paid for by donations from various members of the parish. According to the Accounts Book, on 20 December 1902 the organ was repaired for the sum of 300$00 (réis?), the expense being met by Mr. Augusto Camarrinha, resident at Pará; in 1936 and 1940 320$00 and 150$00 (escudos), respectively were spent, for repairs on two further occasions (Matos 1996: 88). In 1950, at the time of work done to the floor and gallery, and again in 1963, repairs, inadequately carried out, were undertaken by António Gomes Jardim, who was from Ribeiro da Janela.
It has not been possible to identify the maker of the organ. Manuel Valença describes it as a “positive organ made in England with very specific characteristics – just one manual, with seven stops throughout the range and three divided, considered, of its type, one of the best in the Diocese “ and Christopher Kent, of the Music Department of Reading University, England, records it as having been made in England, dating it, following an inscription found on the pipes, to 1815-1820. He adds that it is “one of the famous organs, like certain others of the same make, which are to be found in England.”.
It was restored in 2013 by Dinarte Machado.
Manual (GG, AA, C-f´´´)
Open Diapason 8’
Stop Diapason (GG-b)
Stop Diapason (c’-f’’’)
Bourdon 8’ (GG-b)
Principal 4’
Flute 4’ ( c’-f’’’)
Fifteenth 2’
Cornet (GG-b)
Sesquialtera (c’-f’’’)
Trumpet ( f’-f’’’)