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 Proms
Organ Restored
The Royal Albert Hall's massive
organ has been restored in time for the 2004 Proms season.
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Last
Night of the Proms Collection
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The newly-restored
Royal Albert Hall organ is heard again by Prommers for the
first time since 2001 in concerts throughout the 2004 season.
It was featured from beginning to end, with Bach’s
Toccata in D minor on the First Night. On the Last Night
of the Proms it will be featured again with Barber’s
Toccata festiva for organ and orchestra.
Between are
many other solo works, three world premieres and many giants
of the choral and orchestral repertoire with prominent parts
for organ – ranging from Saint-Saëns’s
‘Organ’ Symphony to Janácek’s Glagolitic
Mass – played by the world’s leading organists.
This organ is
the largest in the country with 9,999 pipes and 147 stops
and it has a rich history. It was the biggest, most ambitious
and expensive instrument in the world on its completion
in 1871. A total of £7500, 4% of the entire budget
for the construction of the Royal Albert Hall, was set aside
for its creation and some of the pipes were so big they
had to be installed before the rest of the building.
It has been
played by such greats as Marcel Dupré, Anton Bruckner
and Camille Saint-Saëns, and has been prominent in
the Proms since they moved to the Royal Albert Hall in 1941.
It has undergone £1.7m of refurbishment in the past
few years which should ensure that Prommers of the future
will continue to enjoy it for many decades to come, while
organists can rest assured that it won’t fail them.
Many of the
world’s leading organists make important contributions
to the 2004 Proms season. Martin Neary led the way with
the first piece of the season when he played Bach’s
famous Toccata in D minor. Full orchestra takes over for
the Fugue in the famous arrangement by Sir Henry Wood first
heard by Prommers in 1929. Dame Gillian Weir makes a welcome
return for Saint-Saëns’s much-loved Symphony
No. 3 for organ and orchestra. She has given more than 14
Proms since her debut on the First Night in 1965 when, still
a student, she played the Poulenc Concerto under Sir Malcolm
Sargent (Prom 39).
Simon Preston,
famous for writing ‘Salieri’s music’ in
the film Amadeus, is one of the world’s most distinguished
organists. After a dozen previous Proms concerts, which
have included many of the great organ favourites, he takes
centre stage at the Last Night of the Proms for a performance
of Barber’s formidable Toccata festiva for organ and
orchestra, with its virtuoso cadenza for pedals (Prom 74).
A particular
organ highlight is the world premiere of a specially-commissioned
new work by Judith Bingham given by the BBC Symphony Chorus
and Thomas Trotter, for whom it was written. Trotter also
performs James MacMillan’s 14-minute organ piece Le
tombeau de Georges Rouault, which was also written with
him in mind, alongside Janácek’s exquisite
setting of the Lord’s Prayer Our Father for choir,
solo tenor, harp and organ, and a work by leading Czech
organist and composer Petr Eben, in celebration of his 75th
birthday (Prom 48).
Other organ
highlights include one of the UK’s fastest rising
young organists, David Goode, in
Janácek’s monumental Glagolitic Mass with the
London Philharmonic Orchestra under Kurt Masur (Prom 16).
Naji Hakim, Olivier Messiaen’s successor as organist
at La Trinité in Paris, gives a special Late Night
Prom in which he plays two of his own works for solo organ
alongside a selection of Messiaen (Prom 34), and Timothy
Bond gives the world premiere of the Voluntary on Tallis’s
Lamentations by Benjamin Britten. Britten left this short
work in America when he returned to the UK during the Second
World War and it remained unnoticed until recently. Bond
also plays the organ part in Britten’s War Requiem
(Prom 22). Catherine Ennis plays Taverner’s solo organ
work In nomine, the work on which Sir Peter Maxwell Davies
based the Fantasia heard in the same concert (Prom 14).
Copyright © 2004
by Carol Fisher. All Rights Reserved
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