Another item from the vault

Here is a little experiment. I've been thinking about how to present some of my organ tracks with visual stuff, if only to break the monotony of having upload mp3s to Box, and then wrestling with embedding them here (it's become easier of late, for reasons I don't know). I thought I'd have a go at making a little slideshow to accompany a short piece by an ancestor of mine, John Lugge.

Lugge was organist at Exeter Cathedral in the early-seventeenth century. His family was accused of recusancy, which made his position as a Vicar Choral awkward. Lugge's major claim to fame is that he wrote some of the earliest English music for an organ with two manuals.

Nowadays, we regard two manuals as the most basic aspect of the organ.  Lugge's music was groundbreaking because it exploited a technological change in the disposition of the instrument. The technological change was the positioning of the keys for two divisions of the organ in the one keydesk -- previously one played the Great organ from a dedicated keyboard, and then span around to play on the Chair (or Choir) organ, facing down into the chancel. This was one of the items in the recital I played at Christ Church, Brunswick, in August 2005. The vicar and people were good about allowing the event to happen, and it was a good afternoon of music-making.

I've gathered a collection of images from Exeter, and added a small group of photos from Christ Church at the end.

Enjoy!