Terence Charlston looks at recent editions from the newly founded publisher Lyrebird Music.  In this review article he not only reacts to the editorial mission and accomplishment but also stimulates our engagement as keyboard players with the interpretative challenges of the virginalist repertoire.

The public were quick to show their appreciation of all the music that underpinned the services marking the passing of Her Late Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. We look at the contributions made in particular by organists, choral directors and composers, including those associated with the RCO from its earliest days.

Andrew McCrea discusses how to approach the organ repertoire question of the CRCO written paper with particular reference to Stanford’s Six Short Preludes and Postludes, Op.101 and Op.105, the set repertoire for July 2022–January 2023.

The most substantial of Purcell’s organ works, the Voluntary for Double Organ has been described as ‘an exuberant product of the English Baroque’.  This paper by Desmond Hunter reviews aspects of the notation and considers several issues concerning the work’s performance, set against the background of a more general discussion of the genre.

A presentation by Margaret Phillips, with Andrew McCrea, on English organ music from 1730-1830.

Magnus Williamson, Professor of Early Music at Newcastle University, presents a film on Tudor organs and organ music, featuring the Wetheringsett organ built in 2002 by Goezte & Gwynn.

Graham Barber performs and discusses the organ music of organist and composer Francis Jackson, born in 1917.

Tom Bell introduces the organ music of two English composers for organ who lived hundreds of years apart: Orlando Gibbons, and contemporary composer Alan Gibbs.

Like any cultural or technological artefact, the organ represents its time and the people who built it. A new feature length documentary by Fugue State Films traces the history and development of the organ and its music from c1550 to the present.