Only one inanimate object has been habitually described as having lungs or as being capable of a kind of mechanical breathing. That the organ lends itself to imagery and metaphor has not gone unnoticed: Francis O’Gorman takes this subject on by investigating a range of nineteenth-century and early-twentieth-century poetry.

In a review of Timothy Day’s I Saw Eternity the Other Night, about the evolution in modern times of an English singing style, David Wright gets inside the multiple frameworks—economic, social, cultural—which help to invent and regulate traditions.

The 2018 edition of the College’s annual research publication, The Journal of the Royal College of Organists, can be downloaded here as a complete edition.

A biographical sketch of the Dutch composer Kendrik Andriessen, with a discussion of his organ works.

‘Francis Grier’s remarkably individual music combines influences from diverse traditions with the experiences of a fascinating career inspired by some of Britain’s most distinguished organists,’ says Tom Winpenny, in this article which summarises Grier’s career as Cathedral organist, leading chamber musician, and composer. Winpenny discusses how Grier’s organ writing is often inspired by the experience […]

Sir Herbert Brewer (1865–1928) was Organist of Gloucester Cathedral from 1896 until his death, and Simon Carpenter’s recent research for a University of Gloucestershire MA (from which this article is derived) examined his place in British music history, his educational philosophy, and the effect he had on the careers of his teenage articled pupils. The […]

Guillaume-Gabriel Nivers (c.1632–1714) was by far the most sophisticated of the French organ composers of the 1660s and 70s. His keyboard music, with that of Nicolas Lebègue, provided the foundation for the great flowering of the late seventeenth century (principally Jacques Boyvin, François Couperin, and Nicolas de Grigny) and the novelties of the early eighteenth […]

Writing in 1784–5 in his Ideen zu einer Ästhetik der Tonkunst, Carl Friedrich Daniel Schubart(1739–91) stated, with reference to the Sechs Trio für die Orgel mit dem obligaten Pedale: ‘Playing these [sonatas] … is the preserve of great masters; they are so difficult that there are scarcely two or three people living in Germany who […]

John Varley Roberts remains one of the less well-remembered church organists of the Victorian and Edwardian periods. And yet his influence, especially as a choir trainer, was both considerable and enduring at a time when organ and choral music in the Anglican Church was undergoing a significant transformation. This study – part of a bigger piece of work on Roberts – considers his attitude to the organ.