The mighty Auckland Town Hall Organ thrums and thunders under the fingers and feet of Wellington organist Michael Stewart.
Michael Stewart Photo: Wellington Cathedral of St Paul
Michael Stewart is the organist and Director of Music at Wellington Cathedral of St Paul, the Music Director of The Tudor Consort, and Deputy Music Director of the New Zealand Youth Choir.
Ronald DELLOW: Joie de vivre
Ronald Dellow Photo: SOUNZ
Ronald Dellow was a well-known figure in Auckland church and choral music. He was one of New Zealand’s first professionally trained church musicians. In 1954 he established the New Zealand Recorder Society and he was the director of the Cambridge Summer Music School for over two decades. He was also director of the Bach Cantata Society which is now Bach Musica and still going strong.
He died in 2004.
BACH: Trio Sonata in Eb BWV525
One of the set of six trio sonatas that Bach wrote as exercises for his eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann – they remain some of the most difficult pieces written for organ. As Kerry Stevens wrote in his programme notes for this concert, "the hands and feet are each given different musical lines moving in counterpoint, and the melodies sparkle using the organ's most piquant sounds."
Olivier LATRY: Salve Regina
Olivier Latry is the Titular Organist at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and has visited an performed in New Zealand on a number of occasions.
His Salve Regina has seven movements corresponding to the seven lines of the Salve Regina hymn. He asks the organist to sing each line before its corresponding movement.
Latry first performed this work as an improvisation at the University of Texas in 1990 but later wrote it down for others to play.
COUPERIN: Mass for the Parishes, excerpts
François Couperin’s father Charles was the organist at the Church of Saint-Gervais in Paris and in those days in France, church organist positions were handed down father to son. Charles died when François was only 11 ... too young to assume the full duties of course, but he did take on more of the role bit by bit through his teen years. A fine organist then by the age of 21 when he published two organ masses: one for use in abbeys and convents and another for parish use.
The French organs of Couperin’s time had very distinctive tone colours from stops that were largely left out of English style organs. This Klais organ has five such stops though, so an authentic performance of Couperin’s music is possible.
Michael Stewart plays a selection of pieces from the Parish Mass: Plein jeu, Petite fugue sur le Chromhorne, Tierce en Taille, Dialogue en trio du Cornet et la Tierce, and Dialogue sur les Grande Jeux.
RADIOHEAD arr Stewart: Pyramid Song
Michael Stewart accompanies himself as he sings one of his favourite songs by the British band Radiohead.
FRANCK: Grande Pièce symphonique in F# minor Op 17
César Franck was organist for over 30 years at St Clotilde in Paris, where he had a magnificent Cavaillé-Coll organ installed.
However, he didn't actually compose much organ music, although his twelve pieces are significant. in that they laid the foundations for a new style of French music.
This work is the precursor to the organ symphonies of Widor, Vierne, Dupré and others
Recorded by RNZ Concert
Producer: Tim Dodd
Engineer: Adrian Hollay
