Mr. Edwin H. Lemare, organist of St. Margaret’s, Westminster, London, gave a recital at St. Bartholomew’s Church, New York, the last of February, playing several of his own transcriptions and original compositions, besides Bach’s “D- minor Toccata and Fugue.”
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The organ-blower in a London church recently fell asleep during the service, of which fact the audience soon became conscious by the vigorous blowing of his own organ.—Ex.
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Dr. Gerrit Smith, the organist, is giving a series of “Lecture-Recitals” at his studio in New York during Lent.
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Among the documents preserved at Ely is a statement in detail of the cost of erecting an organ in the year 1396, just five hundred years ago. In the opinion of Dr. Hopkins, this is the earliest record of the kind which has come down to us, and he prints a copy of it in his valuable tract on the mediæval church-organ. The amount of the bill was £4 8s. 5d., equal to about £130 in modern money. Twenty stones of lead are set down; four white horsehides and ashen hoops for the bellows; a carpenter’s wages for eight days while making them; twelve springs; sixteen pairs of hinges, called “jemewes”; with sheep-skins, quicksilver, glue, nails, etc. The important item, “fetching the organ-builder and his board,” is put down at forty shillings! —Ex.
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It is the organist’s fault that the church-goers are often played out. Don’t lay everything to the preacher.—The Magic Flute.
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Mr. Clarence Eddy has been playing in the far West during the past month, his concert tour extending to the Pacific coast.
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Probably the only blind girl in the world who leads a church-choir is Miss Katherine J. Dugan. She conducts the music at St. Aloysius’s Church, St. Johnsbury, Vt. Miss Dugan is a graduate of the Perkins Institution for the Blind in Boston, having graduated two years ago with honors. Last year she took the post-graduate course. In conducting she uses a baton as any other leader would. Her music is, of course, an exact duplicate of the choir’s, only the characters of hers are raised, and she reads by feeling them. Miss Dugan is a bright, attractive girl, who is popular at St. Johnsbury, and quite modest about her peculiar distinction.—Woman’s Journal.
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The rector of a country parish in Texas, who was revising his sermon on Sunday morning, was waited upon in his study by his organist, who asked what he should play. “I don’t know,” said the rector absent-mindedly; “what kind of a hand have you got?”—The Indicator.
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Church organists in the Pine Tree State are very mercenary. They are always looking after the Maine chants.—Boston Score.
We will inchoir into this.—Steubenville Herald.
Give him a good blowing up, and pump hymn for the facts.
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Mr. Frederic Maxson gave an organ-recital at the Drexel Institute, Philadelphia, in the latter part of February. The principal numbers were a “Sonata” by Wolstenholme, part of Widor’s “Fifth Symphony,” and a “Fantasia” by Lux.
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The old saying that “a man who hesitates is lost,” said Dr. F. G. Shinn the other day at the January meeting of the Royal College of Organists, is extremely well illustrated by the organist who attempts to extemporize without possessing ideas, adequate knowledge, or facility, and who frequently is inclined to make the hair of his congregation curl in a particularly unusual manner. How can we best study extemporization? It may be studied best by analyzing the combination of difficulties presented, and grappling with each separately.—Ex.
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The following epitaph was once placed on a headstone in a Welsh cemetery:
“Under this stone lies Meredith Morgan,
Who blew the bellows of our church-organ;
Tobacco he hated, to smoke most unwilling,
Yet never so pleased as when pipes he was filling.
No reflection on him could be cast,
Though he made our organ give many a blast.
No puffer was he, though a capital blower;
He could fill double G, and now lies a note lower.”
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Mr. Walter C. Gale gave three organ-recitals in March at All Soul’s Church, New York City. Among the works performed were “Sonata in D-minor,” opus 30, Merkel; “Fantasia in D-minor,” Schellenberg; “Sonata in D-minor,” Ritter; “Fantasia and Fugue in G-minor,” Bach; “Sonata in E-flat,” Fink; “Prelude and Fugue in A,” Bach; “Sonata in A-minor” (No. 4), Rheinberger; and “Fugue in E-flat,” Albrechtsberger.
