Cathedral Organists Past and Present a Resent

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Excerpt from Cathedral Organists Past and Present a Resent: Or the Succession No complete or adequate record of past and present Cathedral Organists of the United Kingdom has hitherto been published. The following pages have, therefore, been compiled to supply this want. The idea of this book originated in a somewhat imperfect list of Cathedral Organists, which I had gathered from various sources for my own private use. It afterwards occurred to me, however, that an amplification of this material, including short biographical notes concerning those Organists of whom any information could be obtained, might, if published, prove useful as a work of reference to Church musicians and to those interested in the history of this branch of the art of music. The assistance of the majority of the present Cathedral and Collegiate Organists, and, in some cases, that of the Cathedral Clergy and Chapter Clerks, was accordingly asked, in searching their registers and other documents for further information on this subject, and it is greatly owing to the ready and generous manner in which these gentlemen have responded to my inquiries, that I have been enabled to obtain so complete and authentic a record. It is difficult to state definitely when the office of Organist in our Cathedrals began to assume an independent and personal character, but, speaking approximately, it may be said to date from about the period of the Reformation. In the early services of the Church very little practical skill was required for the accompaniment of the plain-song upon the primitive organs then in use, and the duties of Organist were apparently shared, in the majority of cases, by certain of the members of the Choral Establishment in turn. So that, although, in the early records, frequent mention is made of the "Organista, " "Pulsator Organorum, " "Lusor ad Organa, " &c., , these, and other distinctive titles applied to the player upon the organs, refer merely to the person filling that office for the time being. At Hereford, in the thirteenth century, the Organist was called "Clerk of the Organs", at Exeter, at one period, he held the title of "Clerk of the Chapel", and at St. Paul's he was appointed by the Præcentor "to keep the table and instruct the boys." In tracing the history of Cathedral Organists an important distinction has to be drawn between Cathedrals of the Old foundation and those of the New Foundation. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.