Music
A choir school was established at the church in 1843, which provided music for daily choral services. The choir was widely recognised for its excellence, and choristers sang at the Coronations of Edward VII (1902), George V (1911), George VI (1937), and Elizabeth II (1953), as well as at Victoria's Jubilees (1887 and 1897). Amongst its alumni is Laurence Olivier. The school closed in 1968, at which point the boys' voices were replaced by sopranos.
The present-day choir maintains the exacting standards of its predecessors, and is now led by Organist and Director of Music, Paul Brough.
The repertoire for choir and organ stretches from before the Renaissance to the 21st century and includes several pieces commissioned for the church, most famously Walter Vale's arrangement of Rachmaninoff's Liturgy of St John Chrysostom and All-Night Vigil for Western-Rite Mass and Evensong respectively. Rachmaninoff heard Vale's adaptations during his two visits to the church, in 1915 and 1923, and pronounced his approval of them. They are still sung on Palm Sunday.
All Saints' organ is a superb four-manual Harrison and Harrison instrument with 65 speaking stops, built in 1910 to a specification drawn up by Walter Vale. It retains the best of the pipe work of its predecessor, the original and considerably smaller Hill organ. Though as big as those found in most cathedrals, it is perfectly tailored to All Saints' smaller dimensions - powerful, but not excessively so, sounding intimate when played quietly, and monumental when loud. Harrison rebuilt it in 1957, replacing the tubular pneumatic action with electro-pneumatic. Electrical blowers replaced the hydraulic blowing plant.
The tonal changes made to 10 stops in 1957 - like those made to many other organs at that time - altered the tone of the instrument, to a very limited extent, to a more 'classical' sound. Therefore, when the organ next required major restoration work, the decision was taken to try to restore the sound nearer to that of 1910: to return it to an 'Edwardian Romantic' organ. The completed restoration was celebrated with two inauguration concerts in March 2003.
Organists have included Richard Redhead, the first organist and remembered today as the composer of Rock of Ages and Bright the Vision, Walter Vale (1907-1939), William Lloyd Webber (1939-1948), John Birch (1953-58), Michael Fleming (1958-68) and Harry Bramma (1989-2004), many of whom wrote music for use at All Saints and beyond.
- Directors of Music (selected)
- Richard Redhead 1839 - 1864
- Christopher Edwin Willing 1860 - 1868
- William Stevenson Hoyte
- Walter S. Vale 1907 - 1939
- William Lloyd Webber 1939 - 1948
- John Williams 1949 - 1951
- Garth Benson 1952 - 1953
- John Birch 1953 - 1958
- Michael Fleming 1958 - 1968
- (James) Eric Arnold 1968 - 1988
- Murray Stewart 1988 - 1989
- Harry Bramma 1989 - 2004
- Paul Brough 2004 - 2013
Read more about this topic: All Saints, Margaret Street
Famous quotes containing the word music:
“Great music is that which penetrates the ear with facility and leaves the memory with difficulty. Magical music never leaves the memory.”
—Thomas Beecham (1879–1961)
“I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ‘em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.... Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
—Harper Lee (b. 1926)
“Let us describe the education of our men.... What then is the education to be? Perhaps we could hardly find a better than that which the experience of the past has already discovered, which consists, I believe, in gymnastic, for the body, and music for the mind.”
—Plato (c. 427–347 B.C.)