Crown Imperial

[ardcarp]

Walton's royal piece transfers brilliantly to the organ, and isn't that hard to play. (One can really milk the lugubrious middle-section tune, especially when it comes around the second time.) However there is something which has annoyed me for ever, and that is Herbert Murrill's arrangement. It's perfectly fine in all respects except that he gets the opening phrase WRONG. He write quaver/semiquaver rest/semiquaver followed by the correct minim, in other words dit-di DAAH. Walton wrote two semiquavers/semiquaver rest/semiquaver before the minim, i.e. dit-dit-di DAAH. As this is the main recurring motif of the piece I really can't understand why he got it wrong. Was it because in his day the organ wouldn't do a clean repetition of the latter?

Anyway, may I humbly suggest to any organist (a) who might consider playing Crown Imperial this weekend and (b) hasn't noticed the mistake have a quick listen to the original?

https://www.edition-peters.com/resources/0001/stock/pdf/9780193366138_a.pdf

[Serial_Apologist]

Walton's royal piece transfers brilliantly to the organ, and isn't that hard to play. (One can really milk the lugubrious middle-section tune, especially when it comes around the second time.) However there is something which has annoyed me for ever, and that is Herbert Murrill's arrangement. It's perfectly fine in all respects except that he gets the opening phrase WRONG. He writes quaver/semiquaver rest/semiquaver followed by the correct minim, in other word dit-di DAAH. Walton wrote two semiquavers/semiquaver rest/semiquaver before the minim, i.e. dit-dit-di DAAH. As this is the main recurring motif of the piece I really can't understand why he got it wrong. Was it because in his day the organ wouldn't do a clean repetition of the latter?

Anyway, may I humbly suggest to any organist (a) who might consider playing Crown Imperial this weekend and (b) hasn't noticed the mistake have a quick listen to the original?

https://www.edition-peters.com/resou...93366138_a.pdf

Maybe it was because Murrill thought the rapidly repeated note would get swallowed up in a church's acoustics.

[ardcarp]

Well, I've played it more times than I care to remember on all sorts of organs and in all sorts of acoustic and there doesn't seem to be a problem. In any case, I prefer to know that I'm playing what Walton wrote! BTW as an aside, I think Murrill in E is an excellent set of Evening Canticles. It doesn't seem to appear on cathedral music lists very often these days. A shame.

[Vox Humana]

I have always assumed that Murrill simplified the rhythm to cater for organs with sluggish actions and/or Romantic pipe voicing with slow-speaking diapasons, but, for all I know, he may have just thought Walton's repetitions un-organistic. I really haven't a clue. I always restored them without a problem.

[ardcarp]

I always restored them without a problem.

ditto

[edashtav]

Maybe it was because Murrill thought the rapidly repeated note would get swallowed up in a church's acoustics.

Yes, indeed, SA.

Murrill also produced a piano duet arrangement. I have not seen a copy but recorded performances suggest that the original initial rhythm was not ‘ironed out’ when Herbert made a version for a more percussive instrument.

[Vox Humana]

But why does that have to be because of the acoustics? Why couldn't it be because of the two instruments' different actions?

[edashtav]

But why does that have to be because of the acoustics? Why couldn't it be because of the two instruments' different actions?

Both play a part.

[ardcarp]

https://imgur.com/a/ZpdirIW

This was my attempt to add a photo. It sort of worked. Pity it's sideways!

[Keraulophone]

Walton's royal piece transfers brilliantly to the organ, and isn't that hard to play ... However there is something which has annoyed me for ever, and that is Herbert Murrill's arrangement. It's perfectly fine in all respects except that he gets the opening phrase WRONG.

That has also annoyed me though it's easily corrected! However, there are other arrangements which employ the correct rhythm, notably that by Sir William McKie published in the year of QE2's Coronation. Another more simplified arrangement by Robert Gower can be found in the OUP volume he edited, A Walton Organ Album (1996). Richard McVeigh did another one for the Platinum Jubilee, taking the Murrill version and adding a number of orchestral parts which he had removed. He plays it here on his comprehensive Hauptwerk set-up: https://youtu.be/xPsb0tqmkMY
.