In Green Pastures

Harold Edwin Darke was born in London, October 29, 1888, he studied the organ with Parratt and attended the Royal College of Music, where he studied composition with Charles Villiers Stanford. He had a world-wide reputation as one of the finest organists of his era. He held positions at Emmanuel Church, West Hampstead (1906) and at St. James's Paddington. For fifty years from 1916 to 1966, he was organist of St. Michael's Cornhill, London. His weekly Monday lunch time recitals there became an institution. During the second war he deputised at Kings College, Cambridge for Boris Ord from 1941 to 1945, who was on war service. Darke was president of the Royal College of Organists 1940-41 and a member of the teaching staff at the R.C.O. from 1919 to 1966, in which year he was appointed C.B.E. He died at Cambridge on November 28, 1976.

Today was a record-breaking hot day, so, let's have a "cooling peace." This work, "In Green Pastures," is not an advertisement for a cemetery, nor is it a retirement home for tired bovines.

Instead, it is the sort of "pastoral" piece that Darke, and other English composers of the period (1950's) excelled it.

The harmony is colorful and creative, and the melody material is always graceful and engaging.

The piece comes from the collection, "An Easy Album" , published by Oxford University Press in 1956. While the pieces in the book are not "hard," I think it's a bit misleading to call them "easy!" ;-)

Photos of Harold Darke, as well as some of St. Michael's Church, Cornhill are attached below.