'This Endrys Night' - A Christmas Paean

The fifth work in the collection is "'This Endrys Night' - A Christmas Paean," composed by George Oldroyd (1887-1956). Oldroyd was briefly Organist of St. Alban's, Holborn, and then spent many years at St. Michael's, Croydon. His compositional style features lush harmonies and many changes of color. A critic once said that even his church music was written in the galant, "Palm Court Style."

'This Endrys Night,' which is dedicated to 'Dr. W. N. McKie, Organist of Westminster Abbey," features the great melody that is often sung to the words, "Behold, the great Creator makes," and really is a thing of beauty in itself. Oldroyd directs that: "This piece should gradually build up," and I tried to do that as best as I could. I found this very tricky - not because it's a hard piece, but not having toe pistons, and having to push SO many buttons to get all the subtle changes I wanted, was driving me crazy. I finally managed to get the registration changes OK, and while I hope I maintained the "scherzo-like feel" of it, I felt that it could have gone faster - which it did, until I pushed the buttons, not to mention the monitor (!), as often as I did... ;-)

This piece REALLY wants the big reeds and the 32' Ophicleide at the end!