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Martin How comments:-
I never thought the day would come when I would extol the virtues of the digital organ. But the day has arrived and truly I don’t know what I would do without my Johannus home organ, or, for that matter, without my Yamaha Clavinova. Many days of lockdown in 2020 owing to Coronavirus COVID-19 have been happily spent – and I hope usefully spent at home.
Does organ music have to be thought of only in terms of either voluntaries for Church use or items for recital programmes? May I suggest that we develop more the idea of home use – personal use? When you read a book, you are not, presumably, thinking ‘ought I really to be reading this aloud to someone’? Surely not. It is meant for yourself to read. Cannot music be the same? What better comfort and relaxation can there be than half an hour at the home organ before supper – maybe with a glass of something poised on the special ledge of the organ console?
Some of these pieces are very much of the meditative style and certainly the composer values them for his own personal use at home – on the digital organ. Of course, other pieces are designed more for public use. Yes, the style tends to look back, but this is surely permissible in one’s later years.
Mind you, if you don’t like so-called ‘chromatic harmony’ or long, held ‘pedal notes’, then look away now!
