E Power Biggs Concert Organist

Organ, Volume 3 of the Encyclopedia of Keyboard Instruments, includes articles on the organ family of instruments, including famous players, composers, instrument builders, the construction of the instruments and related terminology. It is the first complete reference on this important family of keyboard instruments that predated the piano. The contributors include major scholars of music and musical instruments from around the world.

A top-selling organ music book. Edited and arranged by E. Power Biggs (1906-1977). Includes a biographical sketch of the very influential Mr. Biggs. Titles: * Adagio for the Glass Harmonica or Musical Glasses (W.A. Mozart) * All Glory Be To God On High (Festival Prelude for Organ) (J.S. Bach) * Andante from Concerto No. 3 in B-flat * Prelude on Ave Verum Corpus (W.A. Mozart) * A Christmas Pastorale from The Christmas Concerto (G. Valentini) * The Cuckoo (L.C. d’Aquin) * The Emperor’s Fanfare from Sixth Double Concerto (A. Soler) * The Faithful Shepherd (Pastorale) (George Frideric Handel)* The Fifers (F. Dandrieu) * Firework Music (Suite from the Music for the Royal Fireworks) (George Frideric Handel) * Fugue in C Major, The "Fanfare" Fugue (J.S. Bach) * God’s Time is the Best (Sinfonia to Cantata No. 106) (J.S. Bach) * I Stand at the Threshold (Sinfonia to Cantata No. 156) (J.S. Bach) * Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring (from Cantata No. 147) (J.S. Bach) * The Musical Clocks (from a Suite of Twelve Pieces) ( F.J. Haydn) * Offertoire for Easter (On the Melody "O Filii et Filiae") (F. Dandrieu) * Sheep May Safely Graze (In G) (From Cantata No. 208 -- The "Birthday Cantata") (J.S. Bach) * The Shepherds At The Manger (From the Piano Suite "The Christmas Tree) (F. Liszt) * Sinfonia, Chorale and Variation (From the Easter Cantata -- No. 4 -- "Christ Lay in Death’s Dark Prison) (J.S. Bach) * Slow Movement from Concerto in D Minor (A. Vivaldi/J.S. Bach) * A Solemn Prelude (From Cantata No. 21 -- "Sighing, Weeping, Sorrow, Need) (J.S. Bach) * The Trophy (F. Couperin)

Each part starts with a brief description of the political and religious climate of the period and the way such factors affected the compositions and the organ-building of the time.

From the 1920s to the 1940s, Leo Sowerby created popular secular works while his sacred compositions led admirers to call him the “dean of American church musicians.” Yet in time, Sowerby’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Canticle of the Sun and the rest of his corpus lost favor with the A-list symphonies and prominent musicians who had once made him a fixture in their repertoires. Joseph Sargent’s biography offers the first focused study of Sowerby’s life and work against the backdrop of the composer’s place in American music. As Sargent shows, Sowerby’s present-day marginalization as a composer relates less to the quality of his work than the fact that today’s historiographical practices and canon-building activities minimize modern church music. Sargent’s re-evaluation draws on a wide range of perspectives and composer’s music and writings to enrich detailed analyses of musical works and a career-spanning consideration of Sowerby’s musical language and aesthetic priorities.

For centuries, pipe organs stood at the summit of musical and technological achievement, admired as the most complex and intricate mechanisms the human race had yet devised. In All The Stops, New York Times journalist Craig Whitney journeys through the history of the American pipe organ and brings to life the curious characters who have devoted their lives to its music. From the mid-19th to the mid-20th century, organ music was wildly popular in America. Organ builders in New York and New England could hardly fill the huge demand for both concert hall and home organs. Master organbuilders found ingenious ways of using electricity to make them sound like orchestras. Organ players developed cult followings and bitter rivalries. One movement arose to restore to American organs the clarity and precision that baroque organs had in centuries past, while another took electronic organs to the rock concert halls, where younger listeners could be found. But while organbuilders and organists were fighting with each other, popular audiences lost interest in the organ. Today, organs are beginning to make a comeback in concert halls and churches across America. Craig Whitney brings the story to life and up to date in a humorous, engaging book about the instruments and vivid personalities that inspired his lifelong passion: the great art of the majestic pipe organ. Hear the sounds of some of the pipe organs featured in ALL THE STOPS

The Encyclopedia of Organ includes articles on the organ family of instruments, including famous players, composers, instrument builders, the construction of the instruments, and related terminology. It is the first complete A-Z reference on this important family of keyboard instruments. The contributors include major scholars of music and musical instrument history from around the world.