Mayfair Organ Concerts
St George’s, Hanover Square
11 March 2025
St George’s, Hanover Square 300^th Anniversary
The 1725 audition for the first organist

Johann Christoph Pepusch (1667-1752) Lesson in D (Two Aires)
William Croft (1678-1727) Voluntary IX in d; Voluntary X in D;
Handel (1685-1759) Fugue in B flat; Fugue in a (HWV607/609)
Francesco Geminiani (1687-1762) Duo in F
Thomas Roseingrave (1690-1766) Voluntary & Fugue in f; Fugue in d.

This recital celebrates the 300th anniversary of St George’s, Hanover Square. The church was consecrated on 23 March 1725. It was designed by the architect John James, the son of the head of the Holy Ghost School in Basingstoke where a plaque in his honour has been unveiled. He was architect for two other London churches with an organ interest, St Mary’s Rotherhithe and St Lawrence Whitchurch. The 1725 Hanover Square organ was built by Gerard Smith, nephew and successor of the famous ‘Father’ Smith. Its case remains as the central part of the current organ. A panel of Pepusch, Croft, Handel and Geminiani choose Thomas Roseingrave as organist, noting that he was best able to improvise a fugue on the given subject. This recital includes music by the four assessors and concludes with fugues by Roseingrave.

Johann Christoph Pepusch was born in Berlin and arrived in London in 1704. He was one of the founders of the Academy of Ancient Music. He was Director of Music at the Cannons estate of the Duke of Chandos, briefly working with Handel, and later organist at The Charterhouse. He is best known for arranging the music for Gay’s Beggar’s Opera. His one known organ piece is a curious 13-movement Voluntary lasting about 20 minutes. This two-movement Lesson in D is a much shorter unpublished piece from a 1735 manuscript. It was probably intended for harpsichord or a domestic chamber organ.

William Croft is one of the most influential organist composers of the post-Purcell era. A pupil of John Blow in the Chapel Royal, he was organist of St Anne’s Soho and replaced Blow as organist of Westminster Abbey. His Funeral Sentences were sung at Handel’s funeral and at every British state funeral since then. His St Anne hymn tune (for O God, our help in Ages Past) is still well-known. The first of these two powerful Voluntaries is in the English High Baroque style of Blow and Purcell while the second is an early example of what was to become the ubiquitous two-movement English Cornet Voluntary. Both are in the highly ornamented style of Blow and Purcell.

Handel needs no introduction. He settled in England in 1712 after time in Hamburg and Italy, and quickly became a key figure in London musical life. At the time of the 1725 audition, he had just comleteded the operas Giulio Cesare, Tamerlano and Rodelinda. These two fugues were probably composed around 1716 but were not published until 1735. The opening of the Fugue in B flat is, like Bach’s “St Anne” fugue, the opening of Croft’s St Anne hymn tune which Handel also used in his Chandos Anthem O Praise the Lord, composed while he was at Cannons. The sombre Fugue in A minor uses an angular theme with a chromatic second part which soon dominates the intense texture.

Francesco Geminiani studied with Scarlatti and Corelli in Italy, moving to London in 1714. He was a renown violinist, composing three popular sets of Concerto’s and several treatises, including his famous Art of Playing on the Violin. This little Duo in F is found in a Dresden manuscript, dated 1740, and was probably intended for a pair of flutes or violins.

Thomas Roseingrave was born in Winchester in 1691, where his father was organist, before being appointed to St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. The Dean and Chapter gave him a grant to study in Italy, where he became a friend of the Scarlattis and a devotee of the works of Palestrina. Domenico Scarlatti made a great impression on him and, on his return to England, Roseingrave did much to promote Scarlatti’s music. He soon acquired a reputation as a teacher and a virtuoso organist although his playing drew mixed comments – Hawkins found it ‘harsh and disgusting, manifesting great learning, but void of eloquence and variety‘ whilst Burney wrote that he ‘had a power of seizing the parts and spirits of a score and executing the most difficult music at sight beyond any musician in Europe‘. In 1725 he was appointed as the first organist of St. George’s, Hanover Square, a position which he held until he retired in 1737 through mental ill-health, apparently caused by his love for one of his female pupils whose father would not let her marry a musician. The Vestry of St. George’s continued to pay him half salary until his death in 1766. He was buried in his family’s grave in St Patrick’s Cathedral, Dublin. He composed six cantatas “of considerable interest but uneven merit” and music for organ, harpsichord and flute.

His 1728 set of Voluntarys and Fugues made on Purpose for the Organ or Harpsichordis the earliest printed collection of English organ fugues. Most of the Voluntaries are in fugal form, although the first one played today (No 2) is not. It is clearly linked to the following fugue (No 3), which is also in the remote key of F minor. The more powerful Fugue in D minor (No 5) also demonstrates Roseingrave’s rather quirky and idiosyncratic style which seems to owe much to the harmonically intense style of Purcell and Blow.

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Andrew Benson-Wilson specialises in the performance of early music, ranging from early 14th and 15th century manuscripts to late Classical composers. His playing is informed by his experience of historic organs, an understanding of period performance techniques and several internationally renowned teachers. He has recorded the complete organ works of Thomas Tallis. One of the two CDs was Gramophone’s ‘Record of the Month’. The Organists’ Review commented that his “understanding of the historic organ is thorough, and the beautifully articulated, contoured result here is sufficient reason for hearing this disk. He is a player of authority in this period of keyboard music.”

Andrew’s recitals have ranged from the enormous 1642 Festorgel in Klosterneburg Abbey and the famous 1562 Ebert organ in the Innsbruck Hofkirche, to a tiny 1668 chamber organ in a medieval castle in Croatia and the 1723 ‘Bach’ organ in Störmthal, Leipzig. One reviewer wrote that his recital in St John’s, Smith Square was “one of the most rewarding organ recitals heard in London in years”. Recent London recitals have included Christ Church Spitalfields and the farewell concert in for the Handel chamber organ before it moved from St George’s, Hanover Square to the Handel House Museum.

Andrew’s little book, The Performance of Early Organ Music (a gentle introduction to techniques of performance) is a required text in a number of Universities. He is also a reviewer, formally writing for Early Music Review magazine, and now on his website http://www.andrewbensonwilson.org. He is an elected member of The Royal Society of Musicians of Great Britain and the Council of the National Early Music Association.

Future London recitals include The Grosvenor Chapel (5 August, 1:10; the 1512 Tabulaturen etlicher lobgesang by Arnolt Schlick); Christ Church Spitalfields (8 September, 7:30, John Stanley); and St Lawrence Whitchurch (19 October, 3pm) to celebrate the 30th anniversary of Andrew’s opening recital on the Goetze & Gwynne organ, based on the 1716 Gerard Smith original.