Description
From the Oxford Organ Library
Perfect as a showpiece voluntary, Herbert Murrill’s vibrant 1949 Carillon for organ is a miniature toccata that sets agile passagework above purposeful chords, with flashes of brilliance from the pedal department too. Its varied metres and busy textures propel the music to a triumphant conclusion.
English composer and administrator Herbert Murrill studied at the RAM (19258) with Bowen, Marchant, and Alan Bush. As organ scholar at Worcester College, Oxford (192831), he undertook further studies with Harris, Walker, and Allen. While he was still at university his opera Man in Cage was produced for a run at the Grafton Theatre, London (1930). He worked as a school music teacher, organist, and choirmaster until 1935, when he became musical director for the Group Theatre (Westminster Theatre, London). He joined the BBC in 1936, became music programme organizer in 1942, did war service in the intelligence corps (19426) and then returned to the BBC to become assistant head of music (1948) and finally head of music (1950). In addition, he was a professor of composition at the RAM from 1933 until his death. As a composer his affinities were Francophile and mildly middle-Stravinskian, both influences tempered by an English kind of neo-classicism.
