The
wonderful 15th century church of Fotheringhay
in Northamptonshire, received a new organ in 2000, built by
Vincent Woodstock. It is a modest instrument of some 15 stops
distributed thus:
GT:
8 8 8 (Dulciana), 4 2 IV 8
SW:
8 4 2,2/3 2 1,3/5
Ped:
16 8 16 (Bassoon)
Conceptually
it is difficult to quantify the instrument, and although much
is written about it in the booklet, none of it concerns the
basic concept. Superficially it seems stuck in the ‘neo-classical
plus swell box’ mould typical of the artistic crisis which
the vast majority of British organ builders have found themselves
in for twenty years or more. Here the inevitable swell box
(balanced!) houses just a cornet décomposée! However, I’m
happy to report that on the basis of this recording, the conceptual
fuzziness proves less important than the fine tonal qualities
of much of the instrument. I was especially delighted with
the principal chorus; there is a real singing quality to the
principals, and the mixture seems very intelligently composed
and voiced. The latter stop is calm and never threatens to
tire the ear. The plenum is underpinned by an excellent fractional-length
pedal reed. The trumpet seems to have too much of a solo characteristic
for such a modest scheme. Archer doesn’t use it in the plenum
at all (tellingly one suspects), except in the Dialogue
sur les Grands Jeux of Couperin where the mixture of course
isn’t employed. It proves a pleasing solo stop in the English
Voluntaries. The flutes have some real beauty. Perhaps most
impressive though, is that Vincent Woodstock has made a winding
system which creates a vocal quality I’ve barely heard from
a modern British builder! Congratulations!
Malcolm
Archer, recently appointed organist of St
Paul’s
Cathedral, plays a programme of English, German and French
music dating from between the late 16th and late
18th centuries. His playing is neat and well-controlled,
with some very nice ornamentation. The most successful tracks
are the English voluntaries and the Ritter Sonatina, long
championed by Gustav Leonhardt, which is presented with a
pleasing idiomatic freedom. However in order to become a really
first-rate player of this literature Archer needs to become
far more aware of the natural grammatical accents inherent
in baroque music. His approach can be nicely summarised with
a brief analysis of the Buxtehude Ciaconna. Firstly the pedal
ostinato is played rather too legato to shape the bar effectively.
Secondly his touch is not sophisticated enough for him to
avoid the placing of accents on the smaller note-values, especially
when the movement is in semiquavers. Here the feeling is very
much of six impulses in the bar instead of three - or even
one depending on how you look at it. The - unnecessary - manual
changes, as throughout the disc, occur with a shortening of
the last note before the change, frequently resulting in an
accent on a weak part of the bar. I have also some small textual
issues; Mr Archer should consult Michael Belotti’s Buxtehude
edition.
Elsewhere
the grammatical problem presents itself in other guises. During
the third variation of the Sweelinck for instance the non-decorated
right hand (playing the theme) becomes almost completely legato
while the left hand plays the semi-quavers in contrast to
the articulation of the theme at the outset. (Track 8, 2’56).
Other issues I must mention are the strange added manual change
for the third material in the famous E flat Prelude of Bach,
and the rallentandos at the end of each section of the fugue
which destroy the relationship between the time-signatures.
Why, incidentally in 2005 does the English organ fraternity
still insist on its silly tradition of giving the E flat Fugue
its turn-of-the 20th century nickname based on
an erroneous association with Croft’s hymn tune?
In
general the surprisingly fine organ makes this an interesting
release, and Archer’s playing, whatever my small gripes, presents
it well enough; he is after all an excellent musician, and
rightly one of the most highly respected figures in English
Cathedral music.
Chris
Bragg
Malcolm Archer, organ
