Organ matters - Organs matter!

On the programme tonight, my guest will be the author Stephen Bungay. Stephen is well known for his book on the Battle of Britain, as well as one on El Alamein. His most recent book "The Art of Action" has been shortlisted for one of the national Business Book Prizes. He is also a great music enthusiast so in addition to discussing his books, the musical focus will be on Elgar. Stephen entitled the theme "Elgar and the Eternal Feminine" - or more prosaically The Women in Elgar's Life and the way they inspired his music. We even make the front of the Meridian website... http://www.meridianfm.com/index.php
Regrettably we are not playing any of his organ works as none of them were obviously inspired by a woman.

107.0FM or www.meridianfm.com "Listen Live"

I will be presenting another Classical Meridian this Wednesday (November 23rd) between 8.00pm to 10.00pm

My guest will be the international Concert Pianist, Adolfo Barabino. Adolfo lives in East Grinstead (listen to the programme to find out why), and is a particular authority on Chopin. The programme will include a lot of Chopin - nocturnes, mazurka, studies an impromptu, the barcarolle -  many played by him, some played by Alfred Cortot and Ignaz Friedmann. In addition there will be a piece by Arvo Part, and the first movement of the Brahms F minor Sonata, played by Radu Lupu.

I spent 3 hours with Adolpho on Sunday discussing and listening to music, with the odd excursion to the piano for him to illustrate a point. It was thoroughly interesting and stimulating, and I hope we can communicate some of that excitement and interest during the programme - whether on the way he believes Chopin played, the finer points of pedalling, competitions, and uneven temperament.

If you live within 5 miles or so of East Grinstead you can listen on 107.0FM. If you live further afield, listen live on the internet www.meridianfm.com - press the Listen Live button.

Includes Haydn Organ Concerto in C 1st movt, Dupre Prelude and Fugue in B, Finale Vierne's 6th Symphony, 2nd and 3rd movts Saint Saens 3rd Symphony + piano, symphonic and choral music.

Thank you for your comments, and apologies for not replying sooner, having been away. I had Simon Austin, the Director of the Sussex Cantorum on the programme last week. A lot of the music was unaccompanied singing but there were two lovely organ contributions - from Ian Curror on the Worth Abbey organ.

This week - Wednesday 16th, 8pm, I'm playing some CDs that are new - or at any rate new to me. The organ cognoscenti may know the ones I am going to play, but they include the Barenboim recording of the Saint Saens 3rd Symphony, Dupres Prelude and Fugue in B, the finale of Vierne's 6th Symphony, and the first movement of Haydn's Orgna Concerto in C - plus other piano, orchestral and choral music - www.meridianfm.com

I post this with some trepidation, but would look for any advice or thoughts that people might offer. I present a classical music programme on my local community radio on alternate wednesday evenings. My particular loves are the piano and the organ, so both get a disproportionate amount of air time. Community radio is very poor so we can't do accurate listening figures, so don't know how many listeners we might ever have. The station is available on FM within 5 miles, but worldwide on the internet. One of the problems is that the normal musical output is pretty ghastly, so if you hear the station most hours of the day (for the musical, rather than local content), you would rapidly move on. Any thoughts ?

A month ago I had the organist D'Arcy Trinkwon as my guest for the full 2 hours. If you're interested in hearing the programme, please go to http://81.137.247.189/meridianfmaudio/ . Scroll down to Sept 14th and the first hour is at 2100 and the second at 2200. there are constraints with the news and local advertising, so please bear with it.

This Wednesday at 2000 - www.meridianfm.com - press the Listen Live button, I am doing my third programme of the year celebrating the bicentenary of Liszt's birth. At about 2030 I am playing Sposalizio (a Lemaire transcription from the 2nd Book of Annees de Pelerinage), and around 2040 will play the Weinen Sorgen variations. Both are played by Peter King on the organ of Bath Abbey. Also on the programme are a couple of Richter performances, the tone poem Prometheus, and Argerich playing the B minor sonata from about 2130.

If you would like to listen - fantastic: you will increase the listening figures by a considerable %age. If not, and you have any ideas as to how get more people listening to great music, I'd love to hear