1984 Harrison organ at Westminster Abbey, London, UK

We tug on the rope of opportunity during our next Pipedreams broadcast, and rejoice in the tintinabulation of bell music. Organ composers are not alone in finding the sounds of bells and chime themes irresistible. Our timeless collection embraces the French Baroque, the British Cathedral, and even the hills of Hollywood, where such diverse artists as George Wright, Simon Preston, George Thalben-Ball and Thomas Murray celebrate with clangorous abandon the creativity of Louis Vierne, Percy Faith, Frederick Delius, Edward Elgar, and many others, fourteen composers all told, who have written carillon compositions which will jangle your chimes. Church bells, tower bells, carillons, winter sleighrides and even a Brazilian vacation are conjured up this weeks music for the King of Instruments. “Ring Those Bells!” a clangorous collection, this week on Pipedreams.

Some people just enjoy a challenge. On our next Pipedreams program, we visit with one such challenged individual, a former organist at Westminster Abbey who’s now a full-time recitalist. Just to say he’d done it, Christopher Herrick went and recorded and performed in concert the complete works of Bach. But that was just a beginning. He’s scoured the world in search of interesting instruments and we’ll hear him play wide-ranging repertoire on organs from around the world. There’s no doubt HE sets off Organ Fireworks. It’s not just concert sparklers, but the whole range of musical opportunity explored by a recitalist and recording artist who has travelled the world to find just the right sound for his successful Hyperion recordings. From London’s Temple Church to the Town Hall of Wellington, New Zealand, you’ll be delighted by Christopher Herrick’s Organ Fireworks, this week on Pipedreams.

This week’s program redirects Richard Wagner’s focus to an instrument which sounds as lofty as any of as his own artistic ideas. Unlike Bach, Wagner never composed for solo organ but LIKE Bach his music adapts well to transcription. Listen to and enjoy your favorite overtures, choruses, arias and scenes convincingly transformed by such keyboard greats as Thomas Murray, Simon Preston, Carlo Curley and Anthony Newman. Hold onto your horses. It’s opera without singers, pipes without preludes and fugues, and an atypical anomally as some of the grandest 19th century music is magically transformed in a manner possible only in the realm of the King of Instruments. This week we discover a surprise in every measure when we find Wagner at the Console.

One thing he never lacked was grace and charm. This week, we explore the work of a prodigiously talented yet short-lived minor English master. Whether writing for cathedral or parish use, or for his later involvement as a municipal organist, Percy Whitlock’s gentle and engaging personality made many friends for him. His compositions were conservative for his time but each possess a rich emotion and sly wit. After one hundred years, we remember him still, with A Percy Whitlock Centenary Tribute.

If this music makes you think of weddings and beautiful brides, you’re right on target. This broadcast is a collection of preludes, processionals and other pages in praise of matrimony and the emotions and circumstances which lead us to the altar. Whether it be Handel’s Hornpipe or Mendelssohn’s familiar Wedding March, a Salute to Love by Elgar, or Duke Ellington’s In a sentimental mood, you’ll be amazed by the various ways composers have dealt with love and its ramifications. Trumpet tunes and blessings, salutes to love and lullabies, it’s all part of the package when two people tie the knot at a June wedding, and we provide the music appropriate to a chapel or cathedral creating Matrimonial Magic.

…birds and bees, squirrels and wolves bring smile as we listen to the sounds of this fanciful bestiary.

…music and conversation featuring internationally touring British recitalist Christopher Herrick, in celebration of his 40th anniversary as a recording artist.

…on the occasion of the bicentennial of his birth, we enjoy some intriguing scores that Robert Schumann composed in 1845…originally not for the pipe organ!

…a sampler of instruments old and new (and performers youthful and mature) as prelude to the Spring 2012 Pipedreams Tour in the UK.

…choirs and organists share a bountiful repertoire drawn from many years of the British holiday tradition.

…music and conversation feature internationally-touring British recitalist Christopher Herrick, in celebration of his years as a recording artist.

…music and conversation featuring internationally touring British recitalist Christopher Herrick, in celebration of his 40th anniversary as a recording artist.

…the Christmas festival is rich with pictorial implications that composers have interpreted with intriguing ingenuity.

…we get the month off to a right and proper start by putting our left foot forward!

…a ring of words and music, crowned by Ernst Krenek's imposing setting of mystical poems of John Donne.

…a survey of recordings of choral and organ works by the famous Michigan-born, Chicago-based, nationally acclaimed Leo Sowerby, one of America's major minor musical masters.

An iconoclastic sampler of American-made compositions for the King of Instruments.

In bold and beautiful music, we hear this London church’s famous instrument “at home” and enjoy the renowned Abbey Choir “on tour” in Minnesota.

Hardly profound but certainly sonically stimulating playthings from the organist’s bench.

A celebration of British contributions to the organ’s repertoire over five centuries.

Words and music from Englishman Simon Preston, one of the world’s most articulate and virtuosic ambassadors for the King of Instruments.