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Songs Of Praise Performed on the Wurlitzer Don Thompson
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To hear samples of the tracks on this cd,
click on the track names below.
(The player will continue to play each sample in
sequence after your selection - click the pause or close button on the player to
stop it)
1 Bless This House
2 The Holy City *
3 Deep River *
4 The Lost Chord *
5 Jerusalem
6 Ave Maria
7 How Great Thou Art *
8 Were You There
9 Amazing Grace
10 What a Friend we have in Jesus
11 The Old Rugged Cross *
12 In a Monastery Garden
13 The Lord's Prayer
14 Now At The Altar
15. Joyful Joyful §
16 Von Himmel Hoch §
17 Now Thank We All Our God §
Performed on the Wurlitzer consoles at The Auditorium Theatre, Rochester NY, and
(*) The Organ Grinder, Toronto Canada, with (§) Postludes performed on other
organs
ABOUT THE MUSIC
While many of the items on this CD are not actually hymn tunes, they are all
inspirational in one way or another. The Holy City and Were You There are very
much associated with Easter. The Old Rugged Cross, How Great Thou Art, Amazing
Grace, The Lords’ Prayer and Ave Maria are all sung in churches. The tune called
Evan is used in at least three different denominations for hymns – Now From The
Altar of My Heart, O That The Lord Would Guide My Ways and The Lord’s My
Shepherd. Deep River is a negro spiritual. Joseph Scriven wrote the poem What a
Friend to comfort his mother who was far away from him in Ireland. In A
Monastery Garden contains a Kyrie Eleison.
What is often referred to as Sullivan’s “immortal” Lost Chord contains in the final stanza the words “It may be that only in Heaven I shall hear that grand Amen.” Parry’s music for Jerusalem was a setting of William Blake’s poem. Oddly enough, this was my school hymn in England yet the poem was actually an attack on the church in England at the turn of the nineteenth century! The poem refers to the legend that Jesus went to England with Joseph of Arimethea when it asks “And did those feet in ancient time walk upon England’s mountains green?”
Finally, included at the end of the CD are three of Don’s favorite dramatic hymn tune postludes: Paul Manz’s bouncy Joyful, Joyful, Garth Edmunson’s fiendishly difficult treatment of the Advent hymn From Highest Heaven to Earth I Come, (Von Himmel Hoch) with its rapid runs from one end of the keyboard to the other, and Virgil Fox’s spirited arrangement of Bach’s Cantata 79.
ABOUT THE ORGANS
Both Wurlitzer theatre organs on this album date from 1928. The organ of The
Organ Grinder (a restaurant in Toronto in the seventies and eighties) has three
manuals and 12 ranks (or sets) of pipes, many of which came from a theatre in
Milwaukee. The rest were added in 1975 by Dave Junchen, leading the organ to be
described as a “Junchen special” and had a good ensemble sound. It was played by
Don Thompson for five hours a night, five nights a week, for seven years.
The organ in the Auditorium Theatre, Rochester, NY is universally recognized as being one of the finest Wurlitzers ever made. It was originally installed in the Rochester RKO Palace Theatre in 1928. When the theatre was demolished the Rochester Theatre Organ Society (RTOS) relocated the organ in its new location in the 2500 seat Auditorium on January 21, 1967. RTOS generously gave permission for this recording to be made and released on the original LP.
The three hymn tune postludes were recThe three hymn tune postludes were recorded on three different organs. Joyful, Joyful was played on Don Thompson’s own Allen Renaissance 311 organ. Von Himmel Hoch was recorded in St. Paul’s Church in Toronto on the 4 manual 137 rank Casavant organ and Now Thank We All Our God was played on the 4 manual 97 rank Casavant , with its trumpet en chamade in St. James Cathedral, also in Toronto.
ABOUT THE ORGANIST
Don Thompson’s full resume can be found at www.donthompson.org. Suffice it
to say that his first church organ job was in 1948 and he is still playing
weekly at two churches.