Revd Dr Peter Thompson will give the next organ recital on Sunday 25 November 2018 at 4.15pm in St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, Armagh.
Peter is the Cathedral's Assistant Organist and has supported the organ recital series in the past. Speaking ahead of this year’s recital, he said, “2018 is the centenary, both of the ending of the First World War, and of the death of Sir Hubert Parry. To mark both these anniversaries I will play a selection of Chorale Preludes by the English composer Parry, on hymn tunes associated with Remembrance, including St Anne, ‘O God our Help in Ages Past’, Eventide, ‘Abide with me’, and Rockingham, ‘When I Survey the Wondrous Cross’. The first and third of these are amongst the most popular Georgian hymn tunes in use today, and connect with Armagh’s Georgian Festival”.
Continuing with the Georgian theme, Peter added, “I will play a pair of voluntaries by the famous John Stanley, and the less well-known John Travers. Bach’s magnificent Prelude and Fugue in C minor BWV 546 is almost contemporary with these English voluntaries. Regarded as one of Bach’s grandest and most majestic works, it is often associated with Remembrance-tide events”.
The programme will conclude with three of Vierne’s ‘Vingt-quatre pièces en style libre’, a collection of pieces which is a French contemporary of the Parry Chorale Preludes, having been published at the onset of World War I in 1914. The third of the pieces chosen from this collection is the magnificent ‘Carillon de Longpont’, dedicated to Vierne’s brother who was killed in 1918, a mere few months before the Armistice.
The Dean of Armagh, the Very Revd Gregory Dunstan, said, “Peter’s recital comes towards the end of a month’s Remembrance of the Armistice in 1918, and on the evening of Georgian Day. His sensitively-chosen programme will remind us of the enormous relief at the end of the First World War, and of the enduring grief in the lives of so many who survived.”
Admission to the recital is free with a retiring collection most welcome towards the further endowment of the Cathedral choir through the Archbishop’s Choir Fund.
For further information, please contact:
St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral: Tel. 028 37523142