When The Diapason published an overview of "Harpsichord
and Organ Duos" by Bruce Gustafson and Arthur Lawrence (April, 1974), the
authors noted "Unfortunately . . . this ensemble has not yet attracted
many 20th-century composers. . ." but they were able to cite four works
specifically composed for two harpsichords.

Andrew Pennells died
on October 26, 1999, at the age of 37. He was Managing Director of J.W. Walker
& Sons Ltd, England. Born on January 6, 1962 to parents John and Margaret
Pennells, he won a scholarship in 1973 to Culford School. During vacations he
helped at the Walker factory, showing a great interest in the technical aspects
of the operation. In 1978 at age 16 he began a four-year apprenticeship with
Klais Orgelbau of Bonn, Germany, which included three months study each year at
the School for Organbuilding in Ludwigsburg.

The Development of Musica Poetica

Since the rediscovery of Quintilian's texts in the early
Renaissance, many humanist writers have suggested a link between oratory and
musical composition. With his treatise Musica poetica, Joachim Burmeister
coined the term musica poetica for study of rhetorical relationships in music.
This discipline, musica poetica, rationally explained the creative process of a
composer, the structure of compositions, and the mechanism through which music
moved the listener.

This article first takes up the question of the authentic title
of Bach's last published work. Thereafter, this paper demonstrates a relation
between the theme of the unfinished fugue of this composition and the
well-tempered tuning "wohltemperirt".

Robert Rayfield died on October 18, 1999 in Bloomington,
Indiana at the age of 79, Professor Emeritus of Music at Indiana University.
See "Nunc Dimittis" in the December 1999 issue, pp. 6-7.

Martin Pasi and Associates of Roy, Washington, has recently
completed an organ of 33 stops for St. Augustine Catholic Church in Spokane,
Washington. Installation of the firm’s Opus 11 followed a major
renovation of the church that substantially enlivened the acoustics of the tall
cruciform structure. Built with mechanical key and electric stop action, the
organ features a detached console, allowing flexibility in the placement of
choir and instrumentalists. The sound, while room filling, is rich and gentle on
the ear.

The Spalding Town Carillon

Mr. Ted Crampton of Spalding, England, wrote me with the
story of the carillon in his home town. Spalding is a prosperous agricultural market
town of 21,000 inhabitants in eastern England, a few miles from the east coast.

Part 1 was published in The January issue of The Diapason.

In 1872, a young German philosopher, in his first book, laid
down what has become both the frame and vocabulary of modern aesthetics. The
opening sentence of Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy neatly defines
the eternal polarity of all art.

We shall have gained much for the science of aesthetics, once
we perceive not merely by logical inference, but with the immediate certainty
of vision, that the continuous development of art is bound up with the
Apollonian and Dionysian duality--just as procreation depends on the duality of
the sexes, involving perpetual strife with only periodically intervening
reconciliations.

Part 2: From the War Years to a Rebirth of Classic Organ Architecture