Laudate Dominum (1961) - Peter Hurford: David Briggs at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, NYC 😎 скачать в хорошем качестве

Laudate Dominum (1961) - Peter Hurford: David Briggs at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, NYC 😎

Suite: Laudate Dominum (1961) - Peter Hurford: David Briggs at the Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York 😎 Regrettably I never had the good fortune to be a student of Peter Hurford, but many of my organist contemporaries at Cambridge benefitted from the inspired and informed teaching of this very great organist and pedagogue. His influence in the music world was profound, not only because of his award-winning recordings of the complete Bach on the Decca label, but also in the far wider sphere. In 1962 he founded the International Organ Festival at St Albans, which immediately became one of the most revered organ competitions (in both interpretation and improvisation) in the world, and still flourishes. His book ‘Making Music on the Organ’ remains one of the most important and practical tomes on organ playing available, cogently mixing musicality, musicology and common sense. I benefited enormously from attending some of Peter Hurford's masterclasses (mainly at St Catherine’s College, Cambridge) and remember his didactic clarity, particularly in terms of how to articulate and how a good mechanical action is very helpful indeed. I always remember him saying, in a large Bach Prelude and Fugue, how your ear has to be in two places at once - not only at the keys, attending to the detail, but also half way down the church (or at the back of the concert hall), because you are not just playing for yourself, but principally for the benefit and enjoyment of others. He was at the forefront of the organ reform movement in the UK and a close ally of Ralph Downes, who was the consultant both at St Albans in 1962 and also at Gloucester in 1971. The Hurford's were frequent visitors to Gloucester during my time as Director of Music - our next door neighbors in Miller’s Green used to be close friends of the Hurford’s in St Albans. I always remember PH saying to me, one day, in his delicious Somerset accent: “You take my tip, my boy, try and do things that nobody else has done”. That phrase has always resonated very strongly with me, for better or for worse! The Suite Laudate Dominum dates from 1961 and indeed was dedicated to late Ralph Downes, the well-known Organ Consultant, Organist of the Brompton Oratory, longtime Organ Professor at the RCM and designer/Curator of the Royal Festival Hall Organ in London. There are six quite short movements and it is one of about twenty pieces I have enjoyed resurrecting during the pandemic, not having played it since I tried to bluff my way though, as a crafty teenager! It’s a quintessential piece of positive neoclassicism - beautifully written with not a single wasted note - and the sort of piece which never fails to lift your mood. I sincerely hope you will enjoy it.