I want to give a pupil of mine some suggestions as to what organ music he might like to look at. We are ok with Bach and he has a selection of other baroque music. He has nothing from the late 19th or 20th centuries, and this is the gap I want to start filling.

He has a limited technique and the use of a small 2 manual instrument, so the Elgar Concerto is straight out the window as is any Messiaen! Coming down the (difficulty) scale a little I would aslo discount any Howells as I think it will be a long time before he could begin to tackle music of that complexity.

I am hoping some of you will suggest some specific composers and/or some collections of 20th century music that you use yourself or for teaching. The sort of music that comes to my mind includes the Flor Peeters 'Chorale Preludes' and maybe some Whitlock. Unfortunately I don't think you can buy the shorter Whitlock pieces these days other than in a comprehensive and expensive (£30) collection. My own collection was largely built up about 40 years ago, so I am no doubt unaware of some more recent music that is worth playing. Thank you in advance for your ideas.

Rheinberger's Trios are suitable for beginners, being much easier than Bach's Trio Sonatas. Copies are available second-hand for a few pounds.

There is much pleasing and tuneful material in the Mendelssohn Sonatas of no great difficulty.

Barry Williams

Have a look at the exam syllabuses for the various bodies that do organ exams; eg ABRSM, Trinity/Guildhall etc. Back in the days when I was a learner, I used others in the B and C lists in particular for repertoire broadening purposes.

The Roger Davis Organ Tutor has many good pieces.

The Ann Marsden Thomas Graded Anthology books have a range of pieces, although perhaps not always the best examples (personal opinion).

The Vierne "24 pièces en style libre" are a must, aren't they. Expensive, but there are so many good pieces among them.

A few available here: http://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/Vierne.php
All available here: http://icking-music-archive.org/ByComposer/Vierne.php

However I do recommend actually buying the books - they will be useful for a lifetime.

I also like the Langlais organ/harmonium books (can't remember the title offhand.

These books are indeed useful, but I have two major reservations about them.

Firstly, the proof-reading was very poor so you need to keep your eye open for misprints, of which there are a number. This is all the more regrettable, given that they are aimed at less experienced players.

Secondly some early English voluntaries in these volumes seem to be variant versions (taken from a contemporary manuscript, I would assume) of pieces better known in their printed versions. One such is the first two movements of Maurice Greene's well-known Voluntary in G major (the slow introduction and Cornet movement), which are given in F major with a Flute stop replacing the Cornet. Whilst I am all for having alternative versions available in print, I do not think that these volumes are the place for them. I would much rather that pupils grew up knowing the pukka versions.

On the subject of useful repertoire for the player of modest ability, I always recommend Carl Piutti's Chorale Preludes op.34. Bärenreiter have recently re-published these in three volumes (some unfortunately transposed - I assume to fit modern German chorale books). Every player should have the first volume. The music is attractively Romantic (though possibly a little gooey for some tastes) and mostly easy (nothing above grade 6 standard). They make good sight-reading exercises for the more experienced player too. Volumes 2 & 3 offer more of the same, though the best pieces are in vol.1 and one volume is probably enough for anybody. There are two drawbacks: (1) the pieces are mostly very short, so only of limited use as voluntaries unless you play them in groups and (2) the proof-reading was dire, so watch for the misprints.

Pachelbel's music is generally straightforward and very good quality - an old edition is available free on the net.

Telemann's chorale preludes are all pretty easy and attractive enough and likewise the 20 fugues, but are all for manuals only.

Lots of people recommend the "Little Organ Book in Memory of Hubert Parry", an anthology of pieces by Parry's contemporaries. The pieces are quite good, though I must admit that none of them quite floats my boat.

My reservations about the Marsden Thomas books concern the choice of pieces. Many of them seem to me (especially the later ones) quite uninspiring. I would prefer her to have gone for the more obvious choices. I presume she was trying to avoid overlapping too much with pieces in other collections, but it would have been helpful if young organists could have had a representative collection of well-known and appealing pieces. Like the piano collections of the "famous masterpieces".

I'm surprised, though, that you have found lots of misprints: I can't remember having found any and I've used the books - or some pieces in them anyway (mainly those set for ABRSM exams) with many pupils.

Re. the Greene Piece: I don't understand why she's printed that version either, but I'm sure I've seen it in another book - one of the Trevor volumes? In any case, which is the Pukka version? (I certainly prefer the cornet one in G.)

As for other suggestions: Easy Dupré: the Tombeau to Titelouze one, the 79 chorales (albeit very short), the 3 Elevations, especially the magical one in E, the Inventions.

Peeters seems to be very out of favour these days - perhaps he wrote too many chorale preludes. What about the Aria.

You can try Musicroom. com and filter the organ music by popularity or skill level.

Pachelbel's Magnificat Fugues are good fun, and one or two of the Fantasias (e.g. G minor) are good, but some of his chorale preludes are very dry, aren't they.

I like the CH Trevor publications: the 2 Graded collections revised by Gower, the 4 volumes of Seasonal chorale preludes (though he has taken a few liberties with these) and, of course, the Early English Organ Music volumes.

I avoid anything published by Kevin Mayhew (though there are collections of French, German music etc that are worth looking at).

I have to say that my experience with any of the Cramer volumes is that there are a number of misprints.

I'm glad you mentioned the Dupre Tomb de Titelouze volume. It is an excellent collection, specifically designed so that pieces get gradually harder. In a similar vein, I'd also recommend a new publication by UMP called Organworks!, a collection of pieces gathered by David Titterington. Again, the pieces get gradually more difficult, but are in a very contemporary, but tonal idiom.

I must confess that the Little Organ book is a favourite stanby book of mine that a collect on the way out of the door if I need some emergency pre-service music! Your observation is correct I think, none of it inspiring, but all pretty tuneful and attractive. I will also confess to have a couple of Mayhew volumes for the same purpose (prepares to be shot down!!). The Faure collection and the Lent to Easter volumes have been useful for similar reasons.

"Lots" may be overstating it a bit, but there are certainly quite a few. Here is a list of what I found in vol.2:

- Page 12: the grace notes in bars 4 and 16 should have naturals.
- Page 17, bar 12: the left-hand F should be sharp.
- In the Adagio from the Bach-Vivaldi concerto in A minor, the first two As in the left hand in bar 6 should be Cs, in bar 13 the first two notes of the left hand should be an octave lower and at bar 23 the last note in the left hand should also be an octave lower.

There may be other, less obvious ones: in John James’s Cornet Voluntary I can't help wondering whether the last trill should be above the next chord.


Well, the G major version is the one Greene published, so I am assuming that it's more authentic than the F major version. However, I admit I don't know anything about the provenance of the latter so I could be wrong.


I have to agree about the chorale preludes. They do tend to be formulaic and a lot of them are rather uninspired. The worst are the ones that degenerate into endless running semiquavers over a pedal cantus firmus. Some of the chorale fughettas are no more than dutiful note-spinning too. I like the ones in stile antico counterpoint, but many find that style is too undemonstrative to be interesting. I must admit that I wouldn't inflict many of them on pupils as I doubt they would be rewarding to work at for any length of time. They are nice to sight-read occasionally though.

"Here is a list of what I found in vol.2:

- Page 12: the grace notes in bars 4 and 16 should have naturals.
- Page 17, bar 12: the left-hand F should be sharp.
- In the Adagio from the Bach-Vivaldi concerto in A minor, the first two As in the left hand in bar 6 should be Cs, in bar 13 the first two notes of the left hand should be an octave lower and at bar 23 the last note in the left hand should also be an octave lower.

There may be other, less obvious ones: in John James’s Cornet Voluntary I can't help wondering whether the last trill should be above the next chord."

This is seriously worrying. even alarming, in a book edited by a leading organ teacher. It is even more worrying that the ABRSM permit such faulty editions to be used in examinations, especially as some of the examiners appear to be non-organists.

Barry Williams

Here are some others which could be of use:

REGER, Max: 30 Short Chorale Preludes - I've found this an invaluable collection of pieces, not very difficult.

DUPRE, Marcel: 8 Short Gregorian Chorale Preludes - Similar to Tombeau de Titelouze but probably easier and can be played on manuals only.

NIBELLE, Henri: 50 Pieces sur des Themes Liturgiques - Not cheap, but I've found this a brilliant book to have, and makes a great change to the usual stuff.

LANGLAIS, Jean: 24 Pieces - worth having, some are rather odd and I don't think I'd play them again, but there's some really wonderful pieces too - especially the Prelude Modal or Priere pour les Morts.

REGER, Max: 9 Pieces, Op.129 - not nearly as difficult as the other collections of pieces.

STANFORD, Charles - 6 Preludes and Postludes (2 sets)

WHITLOCK, Percy - since he was mentioned, perhaps the Three Reflections, particularly the first? There are a couple of easier ones in the Seven Sketches, and maybe the Folk Tune, but a great deal of his music is much more difficult than it sounds!

My two pence worth.

Thank you all - I am greatly enjoying your contributions and shall try to find time later on Sunday to round up the thread.

I seem to remember someone telling me about the works of Hugo Distler as being suitable for a less advanced technique. Possibly worth investigating, though I have no first hand knowledge.

Ordered!

I read the review of this in OR and thought it sounded interesting. What grades do the pieces span please?

Watch it, the reviewer is a regular on these forums, PM me if you'd like further details!

I'd say the pieces start at about grade 5/6ish, the manuals only piece and the Francis Jackson one in particular. The Patterson Improvisation one is very hard, the Locklair 8ish, but needing a good sense of rhythm. The one that has really intrigued me, and is on the list for learning, is the one called Pedals. Something a little different.

Has anyone used the new tutor by Christopher Tambling? I wonder what the repertoire book is like.

Yesterday I spent an hour or so browsing the rather limited amount of organ music that Banks (York) stock these days and, looking for some of the pieces/collections mentioned in this thread, I could not find the new Tambling tutors, the David Titterington 'Organworks' collection nor the Nibelle '50 pieces....' Shame really, as I would have liked to look through them.

One collection they did have was Vol 1 of the Carl Piutti 'Chorale Preludes' published by Barenreiter. The majority of them looked very short to me, but I have already ordered a copy elsewhere so perhaps I should reserve judgement. There were several other Barenreiter organ albums on the shelves, and I particularly liked the look of the 'Jazz Inspirations for Organ' volumes. They had volumes 1 and 3 in stock but not volume 2. Has anyone tried these?

In the end I bought a copy of the Marcel Lanquetuit 'Toccata' which I heard on a Broadcast Evensong about a year ago. I believe the current asking price for this is £25.50, but I paid £16.16 as Banks had failed to up-date the price on the copy plus I get the normal teacher's discount. I nearly bought the 'Toccata in F' by Jules Grison as it wasn't all that expensive. Can anyone recommend it?

Finally, I noticed just how much the cost of several items I bought some years ago has rocketed. I paid 55p (yes, 55p only) for the Dupre 'Trois Elevations' and these are now £12.25. I paid £1.50 for 'Le Tombeau de Titelouze' and this is now £29.00! More recently I paid £22.26 for the Bonnet 'Douze Pieces' and this collection is now marked at £44.00 no less. Who in their right mind would pay that?

Well, I did warn you! They do need playing in groups if you're going to play them publicly There's some very nice music in there, though. Sort of Brahmsian, but more immediately approachable (i.e. less depth!)


Is this the one with the fist section in F minor? Have to admit I don't play it, but I have looked at a free copy on the net and thought it looked a little trite. I doubt it would have staying power (for the player; I doubt the audience would mind).

French music has always been ridiculously expensive. Is it as expensive over there?

Parts of this rather sadden me. As a teenager, Banks was almost a second home in the holidays, train ride across Yorkshire, but always left with a clutch of CDs, a bag of organ music, and some ideas to take back for our Bandmaster. It was (and probably still is), one of the few places where is normally a genuinely broad selection to browse and buy. In my experience, the only places that come close are Foyles in London, and Blackwells in Orxford (since Duck/Pinker closed!)

However, on to your selections:

-French music is still absurdly expensive, though at least they appear to have stopped printing it on large sheets of toilet paper. They also seem to have stopped using that silly extra large siz that neither fits on the stand, nor in your bag. I play the Lanquetuit, though its hard work on tracker organs. Yes, all Dupre is expensive, excpet the pieces published by the Americans. There are one or two companies like Fitzjohn and Bardon who operate over the internet that have quite good selections of French reprints at a fraction of the cost. The one I recently use by Driffil, a Toccata in F minor, is very reasonable, despite some clunmsy and poor comb binding.

-The Jazz books are useful, I have all three volumes, though I have found the number of pieces I could use has steadily decreased as the volumes wore on. I use quite a bit in Vol1, a few odds in book2, and so far have only used one out of book 3. IN book one, smoochy CP on Slane, and a set of fun variations on a German hymn tune.

-Don't know the Piutti, Grison or Tambling

Though, as a shop generally, Blackwell's is only a mere shadow of what it was in the 60s and 70s. (Ah, happy memories!)

The Grison work mentioned is rather tricky in places, but as usual working out a good fingering system irons out most of the creases. The most difficult part is in the centre, where Grison gives the option to miss it out - I've not heard this section in a recording yet!

My copy has just arrived, but on a quick glance I'm unlikely to be interested in playing any except, possibly, the Jackson. I suppose I'm getting old and lazy!

Has anyone played any of them yet? Any audience response?

Stephen - I have ordered a copy too, but my music shop uses the good old fashioned messenger on horseback method to send and collect orders so it will another month or so before I can add anything to your observation!

Yes, 'Pedals' went down very well, though you can argue that it ain't worth doing if they can't see how hard your feet have to work!