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25.01.2022 Hope that some of you can tune in tomorrow morning - Sunday at 11AM - for another livestreamed Mass at St Fidelis Parish, Moreland. Once again, Emily Tam will be cantor and I will be organist. The two organ pieces which I'm scheduled to play - an OFFERTOIRE IN B MINOR by Théodore Dubois at the start of Mass, and a MARCH IN B FLAT MAJOR by Clément Loret at the end of Mass - are works that I hope to include on my next CD. If this CD goes ahead (current plans are for recording sessions in the last week of November), it will be devoted to French church music of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Loret's march appears never to have been recorded by anybody else.

24.01.2022 Don't forget to tune in to Facebook at 11AM tomorrow morning if you want to watch the livestreamed Sunday Mass from St Fidelis Parish, Moreland, with Emily Tam as cantor and with myself as organist. Once again, here's the planned selection of music: ++++ ORGAN PRELUDE: Chant élégiaque, Op. 55 No. 3 - Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911)... OPENING HYMN: The Church's one foundation - Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876) OFFERTORY: Cantilène Mélancolique - Déodat de Séverac (1872-1921) COMMUNION: How rich are the depths of God - Christopher Willcock SJ (b. 1947) FINAL HYMN: Now sing, my soul - Sir Hubert Parry (1848-1918) ORGAN POSTLUDE: March in B flat - Clément Loret (1833-1909) ++++ With luck, all three organ solos can be included on my planned next CD, for which (coronavirus and other acts of God permitting) recording sessions will take place during the last week of November.

23.01.2022 So now I know why CD copies of PAX BRITANNICA have achieved about the same sales levels as a Bangladeshi snowmobile franchise. I should presumably have issued PAX BRITANNICA, instead, on ... cassette. As former prime minister Paul Keating said about Tony Abbott: "God help us. God help us."

23.01.2022 In case of interest. An OFFERTOIRE by the 19th-century Frenchman Alexis Chauvet.

22.01.2022 In case of interest, another little organ video of my playing on my home digital organ. This one is of a piece called LA VIERGE AU ROUET ("The Virgin [presumably the Blessed Virgin Mary] at the Spinning-Wheel") by Jean-Marie Plum, a Belgian composer. Plum didn't live very long; his dates were 1899-1944. But he lived long enough to be influenced - as this work's very end shows - by Ravel's and Gershwin's luscious harmonies. As usual, everything was recorded in one take. As usu...al, it was recorded on my smartphone. https://youtu.be/wKxCG-2RsJ8

22.01.2022 The website of Ars Organi has now had an overhaul. There are two new pages, one of them facilitating purchase of the CDs, the other supplying some great organ-related quotes down the centuries. https://www.arsorgani.com/buy https://www.arsorgani.com/organ-quotes

21.01.2022 Livestreaming for tomorrow's Mass at Moreland in northern Melbourne - where I'll be playing the organ - is still going ahead. It will be starting at 11AM on Sunday, local time. Which means, for other time zones, the following: SYDNEY / CANBERRA / BRISBANE / HOBART: Sunday, 11AM ADELAIDE: Sunday, 10:30AM PERTH: Sunday, 9AM... LONDON: Sunday, 2AM (aaargh) NEW YORK CITY / WASHINGTON DC: Saturday, 9PM DETROIT: Saturday, 9PM LOS ANGELES / SAN FRANCISCO: Saturday, 6PM Hope that some of you can tune in. I plan on including short organ solos by Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (of course), Marcel Dupré, and Samuel Scheidt. St Fidelis Parish, Moreland

21.01.2022 Mirabile dictu, despite the Stage Four shutdown here in Melbourne - masks to be always worn outdoors, and no travel more than five kilometres from one's home without a work permit - I have now been granted a work permit to remain as Sunday organist at St Fidelis Parish, Moreland (approximately 25km from where I live). At a time when the coronavirus has caused me to forfeit several other forms of employment, I am delighted to be able to help out this Sunday, with - once again ...- Emily Tam as cantor. Here's hoping that some of you can tune in via Facebook and/or YouTube. The planned music for next Sunday morning's 11 o'clock Mass is as follows: +++++ ORGAN PRELUDES: Interlude XX - Dom Gregory Murray (1905-1992); Andante in A flat - Abbé Cyprien Boyer (1853-1926) OPENING HYMN: Christ, o Lord, the prince of ages - Sir John Goss (1800-1880) ORGAN OFFERTORY: Prière-Choral - Déodat de Séverac (1872-1921) COMMUNION HYMN: Shepherd of souls, in love come feed us - Georg Neumark (1621-1681) CLOSING HYMN: Glorious in majesty - Trad. arr Jeff Cothran (1948-1992) ORGAN POSTLUDE: Fughetta in D - Johann Ernst Rembt (1749-1810) Here's a French recording of the slightly Bach-like organ offertory. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWTtk0vpCjQ

20.01.2022 Today at 1pm, St Michael's Uniting Church in the Melbourne CBD ...

19.01.2022 My Ars Organi website has had, as of today, an Extreme Makeover. I hope that this will improve sales of my CDs. Do have a look around if you can. www.arsorgani.com

19.01.2022 ORGAN AUSTRALIA has reproduced the review of PAX BRITANNICA which appeared in the USA last year, and which was initially published by the New-Jersey-based FANFARE magazine. (In that guise, the review bore five stars!)

18.01.2022 Please tune in, if you possibly can, on Thursday, August 13 (from noon to 1PM) for my next lecture, under Monash University's auspices. My lecture - deriving from a chapter in my doctoral thesis - is called "'Sir Charles Snarls': Stanford's British Reputation Between the Wars." +++++ ABSTRACT: The last years of Sir Charles Villiers Stanford’s life (he died in 1924) were predominantly unsatisfying for him. Political factors including, most devastatingly, the War of Irish Ind...ependence exacerbated the misery of Stanford’s physical decline, a decline unaccompanied by any enfeebling of his creative powers. Publishers snubbed him; Arthur Bliss and Peter Warlock truculently mocked him; his dreams of living to see a performance of his final opera, THE TRAVELLING COMPANION, came to naught; and with what seems typical ill-luck, the advent of electrical recording technology soon rendered obsolete the acoustic gramophone discs on which he conducted almost an hour’s worth of his own music. This talk attempts to trace the contrast between the respect which his newspaper obituarists (in Ireland as well as in England) accorded him, and the ill-disguised scorn which he mostly inspired elsewhere. +++++ Here are the log-on details: ID: 93614356780 Password: 95906552 Hope to see some of you there at noon on the 13th.

17.01.2022 St Fidelis Parish, Moreland will once again be livestreaming its 11AM Mass (with Emily Tam as cantor and with myself as organist) this Sunday. The planned music for the Mass is as follows: +++++++++ ORGAN PRELUDE: En forme de canon - Théodore Salomé (1834-1896)... OPENING HYMN: Christ be our light - Bernadette Farrell (b. 1957) ORGAN OFFERTORY: Andantino in E minor - Louis Andlauer (1876-1915) COMMUNION HYMN: Love is His word - Anthony Milner (1925-2002) CLOSING HYMN: Now sing my soul - Sir Hubert Parry (1848-1918) ORGAN POSTLUDE: Grand choeur en forme de marche, dans la tonalité grégorienne - Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911) +++++++++ Hope that some of you can tune in via Facebook for the event.

15.01.2022 The July-August 2020 issue of AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE (based in Cincinnati) contains a review of PAX BRITANNICA by the noted organist Robert Delcamp. My playing is, according to this review, "clean and musical if somewhat businesslike." I can live with that. Here's the whole review (a fair amount of which is a reworking of my CD booklet notes): +++++... A program of organ pieces from the Victorian and Edwardian periods by familiar and unfamiliar British composers. British organ music from this pre-1914 era does not have a good reputation; it is thought to be simply thirdrate Mendelssohn or little more than sentimental drivel. To dismiss all of it out of hand is to overlook much of great value by significant composers of the period. As for the hearts-and-flowers sentimentalism that tends to irk our cynical 21st century minds, one might remember GK Chesterton's admonition that "the miserable fear of being sentimental is the meanest of all modern terrors". Stove's selection displays a variety of moods and emotions, from the ebullient jocularity of Brinley Richards and WT Best, the meditative contemplations of William Woldstenholme, C Hubert Parry, and Charles Pearce; the sunny optimism of Stanford, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor; and Alfred Rawlings, to the sorrowful elegies of Alexander Mackenzie and Charles Stephens. Most of these pieces are under five minutes, the longest being the fine three-movement sonata by Charles Grey, which should be better known. Stove plays on a 3-manual, 33-stop 1997 Kenneth Jones organ at Trinity College at the University of Melbourne. I wish he would have used an instrument from one these periods--I am sure there are many examples in Australia. His playing is clean and musical if somewhat businesslike. Notes on the music, specifications and photos. So, Evensong has just ended, the fire is up, the lights are dim, the chair is cozy, the tweeds are warm, the sherry first-rate, and all is Pax Britannica. +++++

14.01.2022 THE NEW YORK TIMES has amazed me and delighted me by having included a link to the Ethel Smyth track from my PAX BRITANNICA CD, to accompany its August 7 profile of the composer by one David Allen. You might need to create an account with the NYT in order to see this profile - creating an account can be done for free - but lo and behold, the Spotify-derived playlist (near the bottom of the webpage) includes PAX BRITANNICA's second-last piece, one of Dame Ethel's few organ works. https://www.nytimes.com//m/ethel-smyth-prison-chandos.html

13.01.2022 To my great pleasure (and, I'll admit, my astonishment), I learned today that my latest application to the Australian Cultural Fund for crowdfunding had been accepted. Just as my 2019 application to the same body was also accepted. This time, as many of you will know, I'm hoping against hope that it will be possible for various colleagues and myself to record - during the last week of November - my third, and I imagine final, CD. Whereas PAX BRITANNICA dealt with (obviously) ...Continue reading

09.01.2022 Hope to see some of you at my next organ recital, 1pm on 13 February.

09.01.2022 Don't forget: my next organ recital (admission free) will be taking place at St Michael's Church - corner of Russell and Collins Streets in central Melbourne - on Thursday the 13th, from 1pm to 2pm. Hope to see as many of you as possible there. Program: (1) MARCHE DES TROMPETTES, from THÉSÉE - Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632-1687)... (2) PRAEAMBULUM AND FUGUE - Antonio Caldara (1670-1736) (3) AT EVENTIDE, Op. 182 No. 6 - Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (1852-1924) (4) CHORALE PRELUDE "GOTT IST MEIN LIED" (GOD IS MY SONG) - Carl Piutti (1846-1902) (5) CHORALE PRELUDE "CHESHIRE" - Gordon Slater (1896-1979) (6) ALLEGRO CON SPIRITO - Alfred Rawlings (1860-1924) (7) SOUVENIR, Op. 65b - Marcel Dupré (1886-1971) (8) BENEDICAMUS (MODUS PLENO ORGANO PEDALITER) - Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) The Rawlings work can be found on my CD, PAX BRITANNICA. Copies of this CD will be available for purchase.

06.01.2022 Planning to remain as much as possible away from Facebook between now and Easter. I can always be reached via this webpage: www.arsorgani.com/contact

04.01.2022 Today I received in the mail the latest issue of a British magazine (THE ORGAN). It has, to my astonished delight, a very enthusiastic review of PAX BRITANNICA. Originally I had assumed that no review would appear there at all. For some incomprehensible reason, the first review copy which I mailed to the periodical's London office - late last year - never arrived. Then the second review copy was delayed for ages because, naturally, of COVID. The first issue of THE ORGAN to a...ppear after the second review copy reached London had no coverage of the CD. So I assumed that the assigned critic simply didn't like what he or she heard and didn't consider the CD worth even attacking. Surprise. THE ORGAN's editor Robert Matthew-Walker (a former pupil of Darius Milhaud, no less) reviewed PAX BRITANNICA himself. Better still, he greatly enjoyed it. "This very well-produced disc is deserving of a place in any self-respecting collection," begins the article. Yay!

03.01.2022 For anyone who had hoped to see my Charles Villiers Stanford lecture yesterday, but was unable to log in for it, I've now recorded it and uploaded the presentation to YouTube. In case of interest. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gut6zJHqPQ&

03.01.2022 Happy to report that the St. Louis chapter of the American Guild of Organists broadcast the Sterndale Bennett piece from my PAX BRITANNICA recording last April. https://www.agostlouis.org/episode-219-april-19-2020/

03.01.2022 Stanford was born in Dublin on this very day in 1852, so here's the Stanford track from my PAX BRITANNICA 2019 CD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mehoy2Ul1pU Further information about the CD is here.... https://www.arsorgani.com/buy

03.01.2022 John Maidment has given PAX BRITANNICA the sort of glowing review which a mere organist can usually do no more than dream about. In the May 2020 issue of the OHTA [Organ Historical Trust of Australia]'s magazine, we find the following verdict: "The works are described in extensive (and very welcome) programme notes, written by the performer, who plays on the Kenneth Jones organ at Trinity College Chapel [University of Melbourne], very well recorded indeed by Thomas Grubb in a fine acoustic ... It is very pleasing that such neglected repertoire is explored here and Robert Stove has served the task eloquently." Yep, I can live with that, to put it mildly. Thanks so much, John.

03.01.2022 Don't forget: once again, the 11AM Mass from St Fidelis Parish, Moreland will be livestreamed via Facebook on Sunday, with Emily Tam as cantor and with myself as organist. The planned music is as follows: +++... ORGAN PRELUDE: Cantabile in F - Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens (1823-1881) OPENING HYMN: In faith and hope and love - Richard Connolly (b. 1927) OFFERTORY: Ave Maria - Camille Saint-Saëns (1835-1921) COMMUNION HYMN: Gift of Finest Wheat - Omer Westerndorf (1916-1997) CLOSING HYMN: Now thank we all our God - Johann Crüger (1598-1662) ORGAN POSTLUDE: Grand Choeur en forme de marche dans la tonalité grégorienne, Op. 52 No. 1 - Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911) +++ Do please tune in if at all possible.

01.01.2022 Just a reminder, hoping that some of you will be able to tune in tomorrow morning at 11AM to the livestreamed Mass from St Fidelis Parish, Moreland. Once more Emily Tam will be cantor; once more I will be organist. The planned music is as follows (these organ pieces being ones which I'd like to include on my next CD if that's viable): +++++... ORGAN PRELUDE: Andante in A flat major - Abbé Cyprien Boyer (1853-1926) OPENING HYMN: Lord be my vision - Trad. Irish ORGAN OFFERTORY: Elegy in F minor - Alexandre Guilmant (1837-1911) COMMUNION HYMN: Christians, let us love one another - Trad. French RECESSIONAL HYMN: Christ be with me, Christ within me - Trad. Irish, arranged Sir Charles Villiers Stanford (!) (1852-1924) ORGAN POSTLUDE: Grand chœur dans la tonalité grégorienne - Alexandre Guilmant +++++ Originally I'd intended a different postlude. But I simply wasn't able to get my initial choice of postlude up to speed - literally - in time for this weekend.