Organ Antiphony: Cecilia McDowall in conversation

The College promotes an awareness of today’s music through the examination syllabuses, and some of Cecilia McDowall’s organ works have been set for study at ARCO in 2024-5.  The composer reveals her influences, inspirations and motivations in a fascinating interview with RCO Chief Examiner Stephen Farr, who gave the first performance of her First Flight in 2021.

RCO Journal Volume 16, 2023

The 2023 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 organs of Lincoln Cathedral before 1702, how new organs were commissioned in 19th-century France, the surviving sources of Franck’s Trois Chorals, the solo organ works of South African composer Stefans Grové, and Cecilia McDowall in conversation with RCO Chief Examiner Stephen Farr.

New discoveries in Cesar Franck’s Trois Chorals

Richard Brasier investigates the sources that are known to have survived of Franck’s Trois Chorals, comparing sketches, engravers’ copies, and fair copies to reveal a wealth of interpretative details.  This article has benefitted from the comprehensive work the author has done to produce a complete edition of Franck’s organ works for Lyrebird Music in recent years.

Building an organ in nineteenth-century France

Drew Cantrill-Fenwick traces the processes whereby an organ was build for La Madeleine, Paris, by an increasingly influential Aristide Cavaille-Coll.  His archival research allows us to see, stage by stage, the construction history of this much-lauded instrument.  The project was a multi-disciplinary affaire in which the influence of the artisan was replaced by that of the scholar, the administrator, and the politician.

Afrika Hymnus: the solo organ works of Stefans Grove

The recent centenary of Stefans Grové’s birth has been a catalyst for Herman Jordaan to investigate Grové’s monumental Afrika Hymnus, where the compositional materials, timbres and resonances, often removed from organ conventions, are stimulating and rewarding for the player and listener alike.  The author puts the music in the context of the environment and cultures of his native South Africa, and has prepared recorded music examples to accompany the article.

Organs, liturgy, and spaces at Lincoln Cathedral before 1702

Magnus Williamson recounts the archival and archeological detective work that has taken place at Lincoln Cathedral, in conjunction with the Byrd quatercentenary.  By bringing the building in line with post-Restoration practice in 1702, the Dean and Chapter also ended a spatial arrangement which had once generated the rich pre-Reformation tradtions of organs and voices in ‘alternatim’.  The characteristics of the building, and their musical implications, are probed in detail.

The organ works of Francis Pott

Tom Winpenny has recorded much of Francis Pott’s music, and this richly illustrated article on the organ works of Francis Pott is filled with an interpreter’s insights. Pott’s compositions are ‘revelatory creations of intellectual rigour and profound humanity,’ says Winpenny, and in his commentary and music examples we become absorbed in Pott’s preoccupations and motivations.