English Fayre

Info & track listings

This recording takes the listener on a tour of late nineteenth and twentieth century English organ music, as befits the instrument found in Winchester Cathedral. The programme opens with the first of the two cornerstones of the organ repertoire featured on this recording, Willan’s Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue in E flat minor.

Healey Willan (1880-1968) was born in England, and after beginning his career in London, emigrated to Toronto in 1913. The Introduction Passacaglia & Fugue was written three years later, and was dedicated to Sir Walter Alcock the then organist of Salisbury Cathedral.

Clearly written with the Salisbury Father Willis organ in mind, the mysterious nature of the opening four bars is rudely interrupted by the dramatic fantasia, that forms the Introduction. This in turn leads to the extraordinarily colourful and resourceful Passacaglia, which takes the listener on a tour of many wonderful textures and colours. The Fugue takes up the first five notes of the Passacaglia’s theme, and builds to a mighty climax on full organ, finally resolving into the major key.

Reginald Goss-Custard’s Chelsea Fayre dates from 1913. Goss-Custard (1877-1956) was organist of St Margaret’s Westminster and then later Alexandra Palace. He toured extensively in North America, where he was known for his recitals of Richard Wagner’s music. The personality of this delightful gavotte possesses a sentimentality that evokes the England of another era.

Simon Bell has been Assistant Director of Music at Winchester Cathedral since September 2008, where his post involves accompanying the choir in services, television and radio broadcasts and tours, and directing the choirs on a regular basis. A graduate of Leeds University and the Royal College of Music, he previously held posts at Southwell Minster, Westminster Abbey and St Albans Cathedral.