Anne Page tells me she has gone out and bought a new pair of Organmaster shoes in order to do full justice to the Introduction and variations on ‘God preserve the Emperor’ by E T Chipp, which she will play this Saturday as the finale to her Bloomsbury recital. Dr Chipp (1823-1886) is another of those splendid organists who have been almost totally forgotten, but in their day cut quite a figure.
“The Chipp variations are all quite hard,” says Anne, “and have a quite astonishing pedal part, for the time they were written. They never let up – not a rest in three whole pages, and you have to be awfully mobile, going into chromatic double octaves at one point. Chipp was obviously a fluent manual and pedal player, with quite a big stretch in both hands. He uses the full range of the modern pedalboard, and the piece was obviously written for an instrument in something close to equal temperament.”
Anne has recorded 2 or 3 of Chipp’s Sketches for the Historic Organ Sound Archive, and first came across him via friend and colleague José Hopkins, currently organist at Haslingfield in Cambridgeshire. José was involved in the rebuilding of the historic organ at Haslingfield, where Anne made recordings. This organ is very closely associated with Chipp, who himself brought it to St Mary’s Ely, when he was appointed to Ely Cathedral. There’s lots more on the organ’s history under its entry in the NPOR.
Though Chipp was obviously a disciple of Mendelssohn* both Anne and José are of the opinion that he wrote good music in his own right – interesting enough for José to have written a short book about him, which will be on sale at Anne’s recital. (I’ll definitely get the book, but I’ll leave the Variations to Anne for now.) Full details of both below.
Anne Page’s website is here, and find recordings on her YouTube channel.
*and in return Mendelssohn appears to have been a fan of Dr Chipp – Mendelssohn gave him a glowing reference, probably after Chipp gave one of the first performances of his (Mendelssohn’s) Organ Sonatas.
Recital details:
BLOOMSBURY CENTRAL BAPTIST CHURCH, 235 Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2 8EP
Saturday, 26th July 2014 at 4:00pm
ANNE PAGE (Cambridge)
Programme:
Jeanne Demessieux (1921-1968) Repons pour le Temps de Paques
Jehan Alain (1911-1940) Introduction et Variations – Scherzo – Choral
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) Joie et clarté des Corps glorieux
JS Bach (1685-1750) Prelude and Fugue in G major BWV541
ET Chipp (1823-1886) Introduction and Variations on ‘God Preserve the Emperor’
Admission free – retiring collection – buffet afterwards
More on E T Chipp:
Musicologist David Byers writes about the life and times of E T Chipp here – scroll down the article to find the relevant section, where you will also find a facsimile of the reference given to Chipp by Mendelssohn.
Details of José’s book:
Edmund Thomas Chipp – a life that led melodious days
José Hopkins
ISBN 9780957635807
£10
