Jeremiah Stephenson discusses and illustrates ways in which the piano accompaniments in the vocal scores of Viennese Mass settings by composers such as Haydn, Mozart and Schubert can be adapted in order to make them effective and practical when played on the organ.

In this fourth film in a series of short films on improvisation, Stéphane Mottoul, Organist at the Church of St Leodegar, Lucerne, Switzerland, improvises six contrasting movements of a Classical French Suite, and discusses the characteristics of the French Baroque language in contrast with the German style of the time.

The College’s bi-annual magazine for members contains features, details of forthcoming events and courses, and general news and views from the RCO.

As musicians, we get plenty of instrumental guidance, but we need to go beyond the music and into our minds if we are to successfully cope with playing under pressure. This is a skillset of its own, and in this webinar we look at developing a toolkit to create our best performance on stage.

What’s it like attending the big RCO Summer Course? StopPress Editor Morwenna Campbell-Smith describes her first encounter as a beginner organist, and then attending again twelve years later as a more experienced player.

The 2024 edition of the College’s research publication, The Journal of the Royal College of Organists, can be downloaded here as a complete edition. It explores the world of publishing in Grand siecle France, looks at Bach’s deft handling of thematic material in pedal parts, and marks anniversaries regarding Franz Schmidt, and Charles Villiers Stanford and Walter Parratt. And in one of his last articles before his death in 2024, Francis O’Gorman looks at the meaning that destroyed organs can hold.

2024 is an anniversary year for both Sir Charles Villiers Stanford, and Sir Walter Parratt, a close friend and colleague of Stanford. This article by Andrew McCrea mainly looks at Parratt, a famous organist and teacher, through the Stanford association, and argues that inspecting Stanford’s dedications to Parratt can enrich our understanding of these two national figures.

The RCO Cinema streaming service is a partnership between the RCO and film-maker Fugue State Films, designed to make high quality films about the organ and its music available to the widest possible audience around the world.  

Francis O’Gorman was a master at examining the organ from various cultural perspectives. Earlier articles for the RCO looked at the organ as it is portrayed in nineteenth-century literature, on which Francis was a world-leading expert. In this, one of his last articles, Francis takes us on a personal journey which probes the meanings that destroyed (and revived) organs can hold.

Still playing at 93 years of age, Robert Hoare, a blind organist, had lost his ARCO diploma certificate. In recognition of his remarkable career, the RCO created a replacement.