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This is a collection of practical repertoire for organists playing at funerals, memorial services, and services of thanksgiving. Covering a broad range of music for players of intermediate ability, it includes a mixture of established repertoire, attractive new arrangements of well-known works, and newly commissioned pieces.
About the author
Julian Elloway studied piano at the Guildhall School of Music and subsequently specialized in piano accompaniment with Paul Hamburger. After university he worked in Brighton as a choir conductor and repetiteur, especially with the University of Sussex Choir, New Sussex Opera and Brighton Festival Chorus, and as Director of Music at St Paul's, West Street, Brighton. He then became Music Editor at OUP. He now works as a freelance musician and music editor.
Summary
This is a collection of practical repertoire for organists playing at funerals, memorial services, and services of thanksgiving. Covering a broad range of music for players of intermediate ability, it includes a mixture of established repertoire, attractive new arrangements of well-known works, and newly commissioned pieces.
Additional text
Here we have 28 pieces, including Elgar's 'Nimrod' (Enigma Variations), Louis Vierne's Berceuse and Handel's 'Ombra mai fu' (the Largo from Serse) . . . Bach is well represented [with] his alternative canonic arrangement of Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier [and] his chorale prelude Nun danket alle Gott, which is perhaps the trickiest piece in the book . . . As I played through I was pleasantly surprised to find some delightful choices: among others Satie's Gymnopédie no 1, Brahms's 'How lovely' (the German Requiem chorus edited musically to 68 bars) and Schubert's Andante from the 'Death and the Maiden' String Quartet. The collection is said to be for players of a moderate level of competence; nearly all are scored for manuals and pedals. I suspect many organists will be glad to have a clutch of appropriate contemplative pieces in one book rather than several.
