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Mahon Rachel CANADIAN ORGAN MUSIC ON THE ORGAN OF COVENTRY CATHEDRAL RACHEL MAHON CANADIAN ON THE ORGAN OF Healey Willan (1880–1968) Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue (1916) ORGAN MUSIC COVENTRY CATHEDRAL 1 Introduction [3:58] 2 Passacaglia [8:53] 3 Fugue [5:35] Gerald Bales (1919–2002) Petite Suite (1965) 4 Introduction [1:24] RACHEL 5 Intermezzo [3:24] 6 Finale [1:50] Ruth Watson Henderson (b. 1932) Chromatic Partita (1995) 7 Chorale [0:46] MAHON 8 Variation I [0:53] 9 Variation II [0:58] 10 Variation III [1:25] 11 Variation IV [0:32] 12 Variation V [1:32] 13 Variation VI [1:25] 14 Variation VII [0:50] 15 Variation VIII [1:14] Rachel Laurin (b. 1961) Symphony No 1 for organ, Op 36 (2008) 16 Prelude [6:19] Delphian Records and Rachel Mahon gratefully acknowledge the 17 Scherzo [6:31] support of the Canada Council for the Arts. 18 Aria [6:36] 19 Toccata [6:47] Recorded on 2-4 April 2019 Cover photograph © Bo Huang delphianrecords at Coventry Cathedral Design: John Christ @ Total playing time [61:03] Producer/Engineer: Paul Baxter Booklet editor: John Fallas 24-bit digital editing: Matthew Swan Location photography: Will Campbell-Gibson @delphianrecords 24-bit digital mastering: Paul Baxter Delphian Records Ltd – Edinburgh – UK Page turners: Kerry Beaumont, www.delphianrecords.co.uk @delphian_records Corinne Hepburn Notes on the music Beginning on the evening of 14 November Provost of Coventry Cathedral a cheque The Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue, would return in later works. After the stately 1940 and continuing for more than ten hours to pay for a major part of the cost of a new hailed by some as one of the most important exposition of the E flat minor theme (already into the following morning, over 500 organ. It is so fitting, then, that a Canadian organ works of the century, had a strange familiar, of course, from the Passacaglia, Luftwaffe bombers launched an attack of organist, Rachel Mahon – the granddaughter genesis. Stung by a casual remark that only a albeit transformed), a bustling counter- unprecedented scale on the city of Coventry. of two of Willan’s choristers – should record German mind could compose a work of such subject demands to be heard alongside it, Houses, shops, factories and – perhaps most his music and other Canadian works on this complexity and stature as a passacaglia, until a pedal entry re-establishes order. Then shockingly – the city’s medieval cathedral fine instrument, paid for in the main by Willan started to write. It was summer, and a stretto in the tonic major leads to a grand were reduced to piles of rubble by a Canadian contributions. when freed from teaching and playing he culmination – the passacaglia theme on full combination of high-explosive and incendiary would take an odd little train that slowly organ. It is a magnificent finish to a masterly bombs. Perhaps just a little pool of molten Pride of place on this recording is rightly rattled its way up to a cottage on a lake north work. The French organist Joseph Bonnet metal and some charred wood might have given to Healey Willan’s masterpiece, the of Toronto, where his family was holidaying. was happy to describe it as the greatest such shown the knowledgeable a trace of the Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue. As the train clattered along, he wrote this organ work since Bach himself. remains of the cathedral organ, which was Born in 1880, Willan had a career as an lengthy and complicated work: a couple of completely destroyed. The decision to organist and choirmaster in England, but came sections each way, he used to say! It was an A personal coda to my observations on this replace the cathedral was immediate and to Canada in 1913 to take an organist’s post at incredible background to such a beautifully work may also begin to suggest some of the determined. A striking modern building arose a large Toronto church, as well as a teaching cogent piece of music. Willan followed an manifold connections, personal and musical, in 1962, next to the shattered remains of the position at the Royal Conservatory of Music. outline he had gleaned from Bach and several which thread through a recital programme old – a positive sign of recovery and renewal. He quickly became part of the musical scene, others, including Rheinberger and Reger. such as this. Circles and chains, as and would go on to compose two symphonies, He also owned a copy of a Passacaglia and metaphors, lie beneath the surface of our Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the Canadian a piano concerto, an opera, many songs, and Fugue by John E. West, an editor at the lives and history, and the links they picture are College of Organists (later, from 1959, the choral and orchestral works of all types and publishing house Novello, for whom he especially rich here, with Rachel Mahon’s Royal Canadian College of Organists), under lengths. Meanwhile, unhappy at that church, worked as a proofreader. move from Canada to the United Kingdom the leadership of its President Healey Willan, he made a large financial sacrifice, and moved only the latest of several migrations between had started to collect money from its to the much smaller church of St Mary Willan introduced several striking new those two nations which play their part. members, their friends and the public, to Magdalene. There, with the rector – an old elements to the traditional form. There is My own links to Healey Willan go back to my provide funds for the rebuilding of British friend from England – he established a High a sort of delicate cavatina with the theme youth in England, when I first started to play instruments damaged in bomb attacks. Church musical tradition that came to have an above a countermelody, supported by a his organ music. Later, after I myself came A decision was later taken to donate the whole enormous influence in both Canada and the throbbing accompaniment. There is a sinister to live in Canada, I sang many of his choral of this fund to the new Coventry Cathedral. United States. For this church he wrote Dead March; later a gentle Serenade; and a works, listened to his choir and made music So it was that in 1952 Healey Willan, in fourteen settings of the Missa Brevis and peaceful Chorale gives a short respite before with both Rachel Mahon’s parents and England for the first English performance many of the Evening Canticles, besides the Fugue. For this last of the work’s three grandparents. On Willan’s death, I had the of his choral work An Apostrophe to the a series of unaccompanied motets, many broad sections Willan followed a structural honour of succeeding him as organist at the Heavenly Hosts, was able to hand to the of which have achieved great popularity. plan that he had used before and to which he Church of St Mary Magdalene. Before this, Notes on the music whilst compiling a listing of Canadian choral The Petite Suite is typical of his style. Her Chromatic Partita presents a striking air of unrest: semitones grind against one music, I had spent many happy hours The interval of a perfect fourth is omnipresent, combination of old and new. Though hymn-like another, as if searching to establish superiority. working with the composer to produce allied to a strong rhythmic pulse. And the in its phrasing and textures, the opening Gradually themes emerge, clad in differing a complete catalogue of his compositions, edginess of the harmony seems a perfect ‘Chorale’ features rapidly shifting tonalities organ colours and textures, but there is still and this work continued after his death, as, match to the modernity of the new Coventry which confirm its purely instrumental a feeling of expectancy. A second section helped by his daughter, I took on the task Cathedral, completed just three years before conception, and impart an air of foreboding. increases in speed and adds further colours. of clearing and sorting his manuscripts. One the present work was published in 1965. The subsequent movements gradually The opening theme reasserts itself before the day, opening a cupboard in an upstairs room The ‘Introduction’ shows these features increase in animation, and introduce us to movement subsides to a gentle close with of his house, we were nearly overcome by clearly in its energetic, headlong motion. many of the colours of the organ, while, a procession of peaceful chords. a pile of dusty old papers. Amongst several The ‘Intermezzo’ gives us a lovely melody refracted through the recognisable shapes of interesting sketches, we discovered a fair over a gentle pacing bass line, and stands earlier dance forms, the chromaticism of the The ‘Scherzo’ arrives, bristling with quiet yet copy of the Introduction, Passacaglia and as evidence of Bales’s knowledge of Bach’s title is ever present. The work culminates in a at times almost menacing energy. Fleet of foot Fugue in the much more approachable key arias. The ‘Finale’ bursts with energy: a clear texture which we shall meet again in this recital both figuratively and (for the organist) literally, of E minor, instead of the rather forbidding melody presented in chords shines through the – of rapid alternating chords over a melodic it is a veritable moto perpetuo. Am I being published E flat minor. Markings indicated surrounding figuration. The work is deservedly pedal line, typical of the final movements of fanciful in hearing a few echoes of some earlier that the copy had been played from. I wish popular among Canadian organists. many organ pieces – and lands at the very end scherzi in French organ music, despite the that I had known of its existence when I was on a scorching discord.
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