Ripon Summer Organ Festival



Ripon Cathedral's Harrison Organ

 For those who like organ music, there is a treat which spreads itself out across July and August. Come to Ripon cathedral at 7.30pm on a Tuesday night (you can have a really good meal in one of the bistros on Kirkgate or in the market square beforehand) and enjoy a feast of music! The recital which really intriques me, this year, is on 9th August when Josephine Peach and Edmund Aldhouse will play a programme of music for piano and organ. Not two instruments we necessarily associate with one another! The programme includes works by Stanford, Jongen, Messiaen and Vierne for either piano or organ - it will be interesting to compare the way the same composer writes differently for the two instruments - and a rare Concerto for organ and piano by Flor Peeters. I don't recall ever hearing a concerto for both together. 

The other recitals are 19th July - John Scott (St Thomas, Fifth Avenue NYC) 
                                26th July -  Edmund Aldhouse (Ripon Cathedral)    
                                2nd August - Andrew Bryden (Ripon Cathedral)
                                9th August - Josephine Peach and Edmund Aldhouse
                                16th August - James Lancelot (Durham Cathedral).

Please come along and support the appeal for the restoration of one of the best instruments in the country! Tickets £8 in advance, £10 on the door.

(Sadly, I have blogged too late to advertise Robert Quinney's recital which introduced the series on 12th July. Quinney is sub organist at Westminster Abbey and was the organist for the recent Royal Wedding!)

http://www.riponcathedral.org.uk/news.php?passnews=73

Reflections on Holy Week

Every year churches hold special services and events which move through the stories of Jesus' last week in Jerusalem, His death on the cross and His resurrection. Sometimes, at points, it is really a bit more than one can bear. This year, for example, I went to hear an absolutely wonderful performance of Dupre's Le Chemin de la Crois given by Edmund Aldhouse at Ripon Cathedral on the evening of Good Friday and, had it been only the music, I would have coped. However, Dupre's evocative music was accompanied by the poems of Paul Claudel which inspired the composer. These were beautifully read by Loretta Williams and Simon Hoare - each one evoking a particular station of the cross and the emotions and spiritual and theological ruminations associated. Andrew Aspland had put together a visual display of a number of artists' depictions of the stations of the cross. Between the poetry (too cloying and overwrought for my taste), the art (which was deeply insighful and harrowing) and the music which led me to one of the most profound senses of journeying with Chirst I think I have ever experienced, I and a number of others, came out of the cathedral feeling we had reached a point of almost unbearable pain. That is surely where the cross of Christ leads us.

Among other vividly remembered moments from this year's Holy Week was a wonderful Tuesday evening service at Copt Hewick - a delightful little church at the centre of a tiny village. Just before we began, around twenty people arrived, including some children. Together, in that beautiful, quiet, glory-filled place overlooking the village, we meditated on the almost inexpressible idea that Christ being lifted up on a cross has power to transform our lives today.

Maundy Thursday saw us at Sharow church where the vigil after the service of Holy Communion found a tiny number of us sitting in darkness, thinking and praying and listening to the sounds of the world about us as darkness fell and we knew that, as the disciples had all crept away from Jesus, so we would creep home sooner than we needed to.

Easter Sunday saw the joy of two good sized congregations at Sharow who had clearly come to rejoice! One of the Scottish Roman Catholic bishops had been reported as denouncing secularism. We reflected that we had every cause to celebrate Jesus' resurrection - His intimation that there is life with God beyond death and a future and purpose in this life for those of us who remain when a loved one dies. We really wished the bishop had said, 'Hey everyone, we're rejoicing today and you're really welcome to come and join us if you'd like to!' The first Christians were undoubtedly known for what they were for and not what they were against. They clearly had powerful experiences of a Jesus who had transcended death. Whenever will the church re-learn the lessons that the early church learned - people are passionate about positive expressions of what we experience not about censorious judgements against unexamined and supposed evils? At the dawn service (up at 5.30am, bacon sandwiches at 7.30am!) the children and young people who had slept in church overnight told the story of God's actions in the world through drama and art. They helped us all greet the resurrection morning with a sense of hope and joy. One of my strong images of the whole week is of our priest, Peter Clement, followed by lots of children and parents, at first light, bringing the Easter candle into church and pausing to sing ' The light of Christ, thanks be to God' three times as we processed. John Coulston's singing of the glorious, ancient Easter anthem, the Exultet, was deeply moving in its simplicity and directness.

So why, or perhaps how, does all this matter?  Why do we put ourselves through all this pain; does the joy outweigh it? I suppose the answer to both those questions is 'Sometimes it feels worthwhile and other times it is a struggle which leaves us feeling curiously detatched, unmoved and barren.' I have been doing this for 23 years since I first experienced the liturgies of Holy Week during my student days as a member of the Ichthyan Singers, a Christian choir in Cambridge. We led Holy Week services in parishes, prisons and hospitals around the country. I also remember a profoundly moving Holy Week at Christ Church, Swindon where I was a placement student and we all got up in time to cycle to an ancient chapel in the park where the sun rose and shone through the East window just as the eucharistic prayer was said...and so it goes on down the years. What is the point? Well, I can only say that from the experience of walking through Holy Week, I have drawn images, metaphor, language, insight and, above all, strength to help me in moments of profound crisis and grief. I have found a poetry and wisdom that has enabled me in my nursing, my ministry and my personal life to grieve and to celebrate, to experience and speak of death, fear and desolation and to recognise healing, hope and signs of new joy. Holy Week observance is not for the faint hearted; it is a discipline that Christians enter into simply because they love Christ, but is also a profound means of finding courage to live life with intergity, joy and hope even when circumstances are full of pain and struggle.     

La Nativite du Seigneur





Edmund Aldhouse, Ripon Cathedral, Monday 20th December 2010

Organ recitals at Ripon Cathedral are always something to look forward to but Assistant Director of Music, Edmund Aldhouse treated us to a particularly memorable evening, last Monday, which certainly has to be up there in my top twenty best ways to prepare for Christmas. Edmund performed all nine movements from Oliver Messiaen's cycle on the birth of Christ, La Nativite du Seigneur. What I love about this work is that it doesn't simply set out to depict the story of Christmas; it is a truly profound meditation on the whole mystery of the incarnation by a devout and mature Catholic. It is a theological treatise in music. The music shows Messiaen's range of writing for the organ and powerfully blends his sources of inspiration drawn from Indian music, bird song and mystical catholicism. I found the two most Christic movements, The Word and God Among Us, almost unbearbly moving in their portrayal of God who created the universe coming among us, His presence with us today in the church, and the hope of ascension in which the descent of incarnation is reversed to become the ascent of Christ lifting all things to the Creator. Messiaen wrote, 'The eternal outpouring of the Word is impossible to express'. In The Word, he gives us an almost endless melody evoking 'the image of God's goodness' based on the Johannine Prologue and a much less known passage in the Wisdon of Solomon (chapter 7). Here, Wisdom is described as a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty, a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God; 'Although she is but one, she can do all things and while remaining in herself, she renews all things.' Music and foundational text intertwine to evoke a breath-taking, subtle and haunting image of the second person of the Trinity.

The texts which inspired the nine movements were wonderfully read by Loretta Williams and Simon Hoare and the perfomance was thoughtfully illuminated by images put together by Andrew Aspland. This will be the first of other multi-media events in which different art forms are employed together to help us access the theological depths of a work of art. Thank you to all involved, but especially to Edmund Aldhouse for adding something very special to this year's celebration of Christmas.

Something to look forward to:

Music for Good Friday
Friday 22nd April 2011, 7.30pm
Ripon Cathedral
Edmund Aldhouse
Marcel Dupre
Le Chemin de la Croix
The story of the Passion with organ music, readings and images.

http://www.riponcathedral.org.uk/

PS. Can anyone tell me how to find an acute accent? I can find the grave at alt 0232 but not the accute!