Roderick Williams – My Top Five Favourite Organ Works

Choir and Organ’s guest presenter, Roderick Williams, tells us about his passion for organ music and the pieces that he most likes to share.

Bach and his fellow German organists produced hundreds of "chorale preludes" like this one – small pieces based on a traditional hymn tune.

Bach was especially brilliant at matching the tone and feel of his preludes to the words of the hymns he used.

This one (Liebster Jesu) reads “Blessed Jesus, at your word we are gathered all to hear you. Let our hearts and souls be stirred now to seek and love and fear you.”

I used to play this when I (briefly) learned the organ; I think it was on the Grade 4 or 5 syllabus and that’s as far as I got. But I love its humility and inner part-writing.

Here is an extract from Bach's Chorale Prelude, Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, BWV 731, played by Peter Hurford at the Arp Schnitger Organ of the Ludgeri-Kirche, Norden, Germany.

Most of the organ music I know is from hearing it as a choirboy or choral scholar as we processed in or out of services.

This one had us all singing along with the pedal part. It’s a classic "French-style" toccata featuring, as it does, fast and furious finger work in the higher parts ("toccata" comes from the Italian word "to touch") and a thunderous, majestic tune underneath, in the pedals.

It’s a format that sounds particularly well on French organs with their sparkling "upper-work" and clamorous reed stops.

Widor's Toccata has been popular with brides in Britain, ever since it was chosen as recessional music at the wedding of Princess Alexandra and the Hon. Angus Ogilvy at Westminster Abbey in 1963.

Here is an extract from Widor's Toccata (Symphony No. 5), played by Thomas Trotter at the organ of Saint-François-de-Sales, Lyon, France.

I requested this for my wedding day while I was waiting for my bride to arrive.

I’ve always loved it and I knew it would calm my nerves.

The hymn tune "Rhosymedre", which is named after the village in North Wales where it was composed, processes gently through the middle of the musical texture while, around it dances a willowy, gracious accompaniment, like flowers adorning a church on Easter Day.

Here is an extract from Rhosymedre, from Vaughan Williams's Three Preludes on Welsh Hymn Tunes, played by Timothy Bond at the organ of the Church of St. Wolfgang, Schneeberg, Germany.

I was actually looking for some Gothic organ music as a background for some Hallowe’en high jinks at home in my village and found and fell in love with this piece.

All through it runs a musical motive created by the letters in Bach’s name (in Germany, "B" denotes B flat and "H" is B natural).

The resulting curious, sinewy musical idea doesn’t easily suggest any music key or chord shape, but it has been used as inspiration by many composers.

Liszt makes the most of it by catapulting us through every key and none through this crazy, roller-coaster ride where you never quite know what’s coming next.

Here is an extract from Liszt's Prelude and Fugue on the name B.A.C.H., played by Marie-Claire Alain at the Cavaillé-Coll organ of Orléans Cathedral.

Also a favourite from my choral scholar days at Magdalen College, Oxford.

On special days the organ scholar might play the last section of this and the hairs would stand up my skin.

All of Messiaen’s trademark ingredients are here… fragments of birdsong, hints of plainchant, moments of stasis, violent outbursts and infectious rhythms inspired by Indian classical music.

Towards the end, Messiaen gives us his version of a French toccata – exuding a kind of fierce joy that is almost unbearable to witness. The last few chords are the embodiment of the word "Majesty". Wow!

This is an extract from Dieu parmi nous, from Messiaen's La Nativité du Seigneur, played by Olivier Latry at the organ of Notre-Dame de Paris.