I have been playing Stanley for years. I love his clarity and spirit.  My postlude is the “Vivace” from his Voluntary in C major, Opus V, No. I. It’s the last part of this video (Allegro 5:08 in), player unidentified.

I played the D minor in a solo organ recital I gave at St. Paul’s Cathedral in Detroit in the 80s. I remember my audience being small and including some U of M organist snobs. I went out for a drink with them afterwards. In our chat we discussed the slight breath I put between manual changes in the third movement.

I seem to recall that most of them either vocally disapproved or didn’t commit themselves. But one of them, a blind organist whose name escapes me, said clearly that he preferred the most subtle breath between the sudden manual changes.

I still play it that way.  I’m listening to the way the player on the video above does it. He’s not consistent. Sometimes he jumps quickly sometimes he takes a breath.

I think that the breaths should shorten as the sections themselves become more fragmented.

Incidentally all of Stanley’s voluntaries for organ set appear to be available in free sheet music online over at IMSLP page  (link to the Stanley page).

I seemed to remember that Stanley was a blind composer. His Wikipedia article confirms this. I must have put together the fact that it was a blind musician who seemed to appreciate how I interpreted Stanley’s voluntary. Interesting but not that big a deal.

Stanley is of course English and his style is part of the heritage of the Episcopal church. I’m feeling like it would fun to do several English composers this summer. I have been working on some Mathias whom I quite like. I never heard of anyone but Episcopalians (Ahhhnglicans) talking about Mathias.

I have owned his “Variations on a Hymn Tune (Braint)” Op. 20 for years.

I have been rehearsing the Introduction (marked Impetuoso), Theme and First Variation for the last week or so. Usually the big challenge is registering repertoire(picking the pipes to use) on my small organ.  I have to keep exercising my wits and come up with solutions that don’t do violence to the music.

Also looking at organ pieces by the English composers: Roy Douglas (“Jubilate”)

and Arnold Cooke (“Postlude”).

All of these pieces require a bit more than week to learn. Hence the reason I am goofing off with them.

Recently purchased a bunch of used organ music from my old teacher, Craig Cramer.

I would like to work on some of them soon including:

“Pastorale” by Daurius Milhaud

“Prelude and Fugue in C minor” by R. Vaughan Williams

“Rubrics” by Dan Locklair

“Fantasia and Toccata in D minor” Op. 57 by Charles V. Stanford

“Preamble (For a Solemn Occasion)” by Aaron Copland

Some other pieces I am keeping on the top of the stack are the “Complete Gospel Preludes for organ” by William Bolcolm.  “Trivium” by Arvo Part, and “Fantasia super ‘Salve Regina’ ” by Anton Heiller.

The last piece is one of a few I purchased at a wonderful used music shop in London. It is stamped “Free Library of Philadelphia” and obviously comes from a library sale. I remember being fascinated to purchase an American library copy used at a little London music shop.

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I used to be a part owner in a book shop. I am a bibliophile. But the internet has totally changed how I do it. I seem to be able to find almost anything online.  I now skip used book sales occasionally which I never used to do. I still have a warm place in my heart for used book  stores and independent book stores. Unfortunately I love them from a bit more of a distance than I used to.

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