Suite Ancienne, Op. 58

Frederick William Holloway was born in 1873, he died on 20 January 1954, aged 80. An FRCO at 19 and Assistant Organist at Crystal Palace at twenty, he was organist of St Paul's, Herne Hill 1892-1909 moving to All Saints, Dulwich where he remained for a remarkable 41 year span up to 1950 combining this for part of the time (1932-49) with the conductorship of the Crystal Palace Choral and Orchestral Society. He was actually rehearsing the Choral Society when the Palace caught fire; everyone escaped but Holloway's organ and all his music perished. His works were numerous being mainly for voices, piano and organ. The organ music included two symphonies in E Minor (Opus 40) and C Minor (Opus 47), the Cantilena, Concert Toccata Opus 33 and the Suite Arabesque Opus 57 and many miniatures.

Many, probably most, instrumentalists of the past composed music for their own use. Fewer do so now possibly because recital tours are more hectic nowadays. It is relatively rare for others besides the performer-composer to play these pieces however and probably this was, generally speaking, always the case.

"Suite Ancienne" is the "foil" to "Suite Arabesque." It's definitely for the concert hall, and if you are looking for "serious literature," this probably isn't going to be your thing! In some ways it's less "creative" than the Arabian set, but, at the same time, in some ways is more "endearing."

It was published by Novello in 1913 as "No. 21" in their "Original Compositions for the Organ - New Series."

Here are the individual timings for the four movements:

Prelude Chorale - 0:00
Courante en forme de Canon - 2:47
Duo - 7:10
Finale alla Fuga - 10:14

Performance and musical notes, as well as the timings for the individual movements are given in the First Comment.

The score is attached below, as well as a photo of Frederick William Holloway, courtesy of our member, "Dabchurch." THANK YOU, David!