Organ club Visit to Bournemouth Masterclass with James Parsons
St Peter's Church
St Peter's church is a Victorian church with a Harrison and Harrison organ restored by Rushworth and Dreaper in 1976. It is a three manual organ with a moveable console. It was a special radio link so that it can be played at the West end of the church or in the vestry.
The concert started off with James Aiken playing the A minor concerto James Parsons listened to the piece then asked James to play the piece as if he were playing the French Horn tongued - the notes more detatched.
Next was Daniel Latter, and he was asked to play it with a Big voice with a little voice coming through.
Catherine Lamb was asked to stop moving all over the place and the piece sounded a lot better.
David Coran was asked to play some bits more dramatically with the loud bits louder and the soft bits softer.
We could only listen to snippets because we were running out of time.
Then we had tea downstairs, and I asked Catherine if I could play on the organ. She said yes, so I played Toccata and Fugue in D minor and Pachabels Canon and had a twiddle on all the different stops.
I really enjoyed the comments James Parsons made to the organists, I hope it might make my playing a bit better. I have been trying to move around a bit less.
The organ has 51 stops and lots of generals. Some of the stops I had not heard of before. The organ had lots of coupled drawstops. I tried out all the stops. The organ had a synthesized 32 ft stop.
Listen to me play the organ - Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor 2.6Mb