Which anthologies do you all find useful for general service playing and for particular occasions (weddings, funerals, etc.)?

Are things like the C.H. Trevor collections for manuals worth having? (e.g. the one for memorials and thanksgivings or the one for funerals and remembrance)

Thanks,
T.

I have the two volumes of Wedding Music (ed. AMT) which have just about everything one needs for a church-based ceremony. I was asked last night for the Imperial March from Star Wars which sadly isn't in those books...

I still use those CH Trevor volumes, had them years.

I would avoid the Cramer French two volume anthologies, so many misprints!!

Occasionally, the Mayhew volumes are worth it, even though some of them are barely better than a quick improvisation. I have the Lent and Easter collection which I dip in and out of.

[/b]I use the Mayhew volume 'The Essential Organist' for my occasional voluntaries for weddings, etc - it has all the most popular pieces which are often asked for.

The Oxford Book of Wedding Music is also quite a useful one - with a handful of more contemporary items in there which can be a welcome change.

I recently bought '50 Victorian Organ Pieces' (published by Mayhew) which has organ works in there which are all tuneful, most of them very accessible, and of different lengths - many of them would be suitable for different occasions and aren't too taxing. IMHO, a worthwhile investment.

Below are a few others which I've found good:
Fanfares and Processionals (Novello) - mostly contemporary pieces, but great when something loud and exuberant is needed.
Toccatas, Carillons and Scherzos[b] (Dover) - whilst these are mostly works for concert use, there are some which are great for weddings (eg.Mulet Carillon Sortie, Dubois Toccata, Widor No.5...) all together in one volume.
Organ Music for the Xmas Season (Dover) - I bought this mostly for the Dupre Noel Variations (cheaper to buy this volume, than that work alone) but there are some other great items in there.
Oxford Book of Ceremonial Organ Music[b] - again, old and new items but some particular gems like the Murrill Carillon.

Yes, I like these volumes.

Dover also publishes an anthology of wedding music, but I can't remember the exact title right now.

For Christmas music, I like The Oxford Book of Christmas Music, which includes some good pieces for Advent.

I tend to find most CHT volumes very useful. The manuals-only ones, particularly the "Old English" series, are very useful if ever you're called upon to play a funny little instrument with either an odd pedalboard or none at all. I use the Oxford Book of Wedding Music a lot, and it comes in both three and two stave versions.

Does anyone use the Cloisters books? These can be quite useful (manuals only).

Yes, the "Old English" series has a lot of little gems in it. I'd also recommend his Progressive Organist series.

I'm not going to comment on the Cloisters books!

What about the buff, purple, beige, etc albums? Some fine transcriptions and some other gems too! Unlike "Gems for the organ"....

I also agree that the Mayhew wedding book is good. A pupil of mine showed me her copy of the Oxford Christmas book, and I thought that very worthwile too.

The thing about C. H. Trevor is that he put a lot of effort into finding attractive music that was both of good quality and accessible to those with a limited technique. He did the organ world a real service by providing amateur players with a repertoire of genuine organ music (no arrangements!) that coaxed them away from the sentimental and/or insipid fare that many older organists played when he was active.

What I don't much like is his habit of routinely suppressing all ornamentation and of sometimes cherry-picking extracts from longer works. For example, nearly all the "chorale preludes" by J. G. Walther are actually movements extracted from chorale partitas (i.e. sets of variations on chorale tunes).

Of course, Trevor's target clientele were people who were quite likely not to be able to play ornaments well (they do take years of practice, after all), so one can see why he omitted them, and heaven knows there's nothing wrong with cherry-picking favourite variations from partitas. I think what I object to is not so much what he did as the fact that he was not up-front about it. Suppressing information is no way to promote understanding.

But, reservations or not, it's still well worth acquiring anything he published.