Current guidance from the Church of England allows for the organ to be played for communal church services, which recommenced earlier this month.  However there can be no group singing or chanting while worshippers are present, though a single singer or cantor is permissible.  This month’s Learning during Lockdown explores options for suitable organ music when the staples of the organist’s repertoire—hymns, mass settings, and choral accompaniment— are excluded.

Charles Tournemire’s (1870–1939) L’Orgue Mystique is a cycle of solo organ pieces composed for use in the Roman Catholic liturgy. Tournemire wanted to do for the Roman Catholic Mass what Bach had done for the Lutheran Mass with his Orgelbüchlein. The completed work is subtitled ’51 Offices of the liturgical year inspired by Gregorian chant and freely paraphrased’, and Westminster Cathedral have begun a performance of the complete cycle (13 hours of music in its entirety) in a liturgical context: Martin Baker, Peter Stevens, Jonathan Allsopp and Adrian Gunning are among the organists taking part.

The sound of the Choir of King’s College, Cambridge has become fixed in the public consciousness as the quintessence of English cathedral singing: epitomised by The Festival of Nine Lessons and Carols each December. However the assumption that this singing style continues a tradition inherited from the Middle Ages could hardly be further from the truth. It took a revolution in social and musical attitudes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, for the “terrible roughness” of cathedral singing up to then to be transformed, as Timothy Day shows in his book I Saw Eternity the Other Night – King’s College Cambridge and an English Singing Style, just published by Allen Lane.

The Royal School of Church Music is running a workshop to give church musicians the chance to bridge the gap between worship styles and find ways of combining organ and band in church music. It includes practical teaching and the opportunity to work with a live band, and will be held at St Michael’s Chester Square, in London, on 4 November 2017.

Croydon Minster is inviting all Choirmasters and Music Directors to join them in their Hymnathon on 1st and 2nd July, when they will be singing non-stop through the entire New English Hymnal, to support the organ appeal.

Bishop of Leeds the Rt Rev Marcus Stock launched the new Diocese of Leeds Organ School with a service at Leeds Cathedral last month. The new Organ School is a partnership between the Diocese of Leeds Music Department and The Royal College of Organists.

The Diocese of Leeds Music Department will host a workshop day for parish musicians, school music leaders, organists, choirs, cantors and clergy in June, based in Leeds Cathedral. Participants will have the chance to play the Cathedral’s superb organ, rebuilt by Klais of Bonn in 2010, and admission is free.

‘To accompany hymns well is our bread and butter’, said Daniel Moult, at the start of our RCO workshop on hymn playing last year, ‘but also quite an art.  So take pride in your hymn playing – have your own hymn book marked up with your pedalling, cues, and notes.’

In this second video on hymn playing, Daniel Moult considers advanced techniques such as ways to decorate a hymn, reharmonisations and hymn extensions.