By
John Bladen and others
-
The organ recordings marked ‘JB’ were played by myself on
the organ of Christchurch Fulwood in
Warning! I have no formal composing training and each of the compositions were written in under 2 hours! I do however like improvising and many of the pieces are just improvisations that have been written down. Also, see the home page for information on my limited experience of flute playing!
A lightweight, cheerful and very pleasant fugue.
A delightfully simple but nevertheless tricky fugue that was always my Dad’s favourite.
Even though I must have played it a dozen times or more, I still love playing this piece! One of Vierne’s earlier works, this piece really shows off the energy of the organ. Best heard live – and on a better instrument!
This can best be described as liturgical fairground music. Enjoy it!
This is the last composition by Cesar Franck, and is one of my favourite pieces. It was recorded the day after Christmas Day 2001 - partly to try out my newly acquired Sony ECM-MS907 microphone and partly to avoid a freezing cold walk in the snow with the rest of the family! Apart from several retakes of the third section, it was completely unrehearsed, and I’m not happy with the end of the middle section. However I enjoy listening to it, which is why I have included it here. Peter Hurford (my favourite organist) once said that if you enjoy listening to a recording you’ve made, it’s the sign of a good recording. I do intend to rerecord the piece when I have rehearsed it properly. I think I would omit the badly tuned swell mixture next time – and preferably find a page-turner to save the ‘whip crack’ sounds at page turns! Sorry about the file length, but at lower bit rates the organ sounds even more shrieky that it does already.
This was one of my first ever compositions (Sept 2001), which I wrote when trying out various scoring programs. I guess it is part German and part French in style, and though a relatively simple piece has proved to be quite popular, even with people who aren’t normally organ music enthusiasts. The middle section was intended to be a fugue, but degenerated into a simple imitation when I found that fugues were actually quite complicated things to write!
One school afternoon during our A levels this piece was born. And if I remember correctly, a small but nevertheless significant amount of alcohol was involved. The piece was created by Adrian Cook almost in entirety. However, I contributed the ghastly D major section in the middle in an attempt to return to a world I recognized - and promptly had my hands pushed clear of the piano. The piece is said to be an acquired taste – one that clearly hadn’t been acquired by Mr Andrew Parnell (organist at St Alban’s cathedral at the time) when he informed us that the music department was for music so just what did we think we were doing? He also showed distaste for the impact this piece had on the new school piano. Nevertheless he tolerated the piece, and in the course of a year it matured and became a regular feature of the music department at St Alban’s School. In order to make the score readable, many (if not most) notes present in the original have been omitted.
Minuet from Flute
Sonata No 4 in C major by J S Bach
mp3 (JB) (snippet)
OK – I’m still very much a beginner so I’m a bit embarrassed about my flute playing – but there it is! This was part of some test recordings when experimenting with different acoustics and microphone positions. I’ll record the whole thing next time I have the microphone out.
This was an attempt to arrange the fugue from the famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor by Bach for solo flute. I’ve heard that it has been arranged for solo violin, though I’ve not heard it or seen the score, and the violin has the advantage of being able to play more than one note at a time! Though tricky to play in places, this version works quite well except for the last couple of bars of thick organ chords, when the flute is unable to do anything to rival the intended power of these chords. I suspect that the only option is to completely change the ending.
Variation on Twinkle twinkle little star by John Bladen mp3 (synthesiser) score
This is an improvised descant that I play when my young kids sing this song – which is most of the time. Everyone seems to like this piece!
When attempting a flute recording to send to a friend, my 18 month old son insisted on banging his brick cart, full of bricks, against the radiator downstairs. When I sent the recording I apologised for the banging in the background. My friend suggested that I composed a piece called ‘Conversation No 1 for Flute and Brick Cart’ and so before breakfast that day, that is what I did. At the start the brick cart bangs a crazy rhythm. Then the flute plays a flowing melody. The brick cart comes back in and interrupts the flute, knocking out notes as it goes. Gradually the flute and brick cart adapt their parts until they manage to play along together. They perform a dialogue, then a duet, before coming to a gentle conclusion – or what would be a conclusion if it weren’t for the resumed impatience of the brick cart – now rattling it’s bricks in fury. The flute scolds the brick cart from on high – as a bird scolds a cat. The original brick cart rhythm returns, now with cymbals mimicking the bricks sliding in the cart. The flute dashes for the finishing line and finishes with a triumphant arpeggio. But the brick cart is there – waiting to have the last say! For those of you that don’t know – that is precisely what it is like having young children around the house!
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Updates: This web site is brand new and much more
music will be uploaded as soon as possible. If you wish to be advised of
updates, please send an email to js.bladen@ukonline.co.uk
with the subject ‘Music Update Request’.
Playing mp3’s: Many of the mp3 files are at a high bit
rate to achieve acceptable sound quality and if you have a slow connection you
are advised to save the files to hard disk prior to playing them to prevent
interruptions due to insufficient connection bandwidth. You can however preview
the files without saving them to disk first provided you recognise the
limitations.
pdf files: Please download Adobe Acrobat Reader
from www.adobe.com. All pdf files are
designed for A4 paper. They should work adequately on
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Copyright
information: All mp3 are
free of charge and may be freely distributed provided (a) no charge is made and
(b) the performer information is not detached from the files. All score pdf
files are currently free of charge and may be used for either personal use or
performance, provided (a) they are not redistributed and (b) no composer,
author or copyright information is removed from the files.
Performance: If performing from the scores, please
send an email to js.bladen@ukonline.co.uk
with the subject ‘Score Performance’ describing the event (e.g. recital /
church service etc).
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