March in E flat

Ernest Alfred Dicks F.R.C.O. (1865 - 1945) was for many years Organist and Choirmaster at St Luke's Church, Cheltenham and Music Master at Montpelier Hall, Cheltenham.

This work comes from a volume published in 1909 entitled "Twelve Short Voluntaries for the American Organ or Harmonium".

The term "American Organ" was coined to distinguish the suction-powered variety of reed organ (originating in America) from the pressure-powered harmonium (originating in France).

The term "harmonium" is actually a patented name. It dates from 1840 when the French instrument maker Alexandre Debain built the first reed organ to contain more than one rank of reeds. Although the instrument's tone colours were controlled by organ-like drawstops, Debain was keen to identify his creation as a new instrument and not as an organ.

This music is very much of the period of the Style T Estey, having been published just 16 years before the Organ Expressions sampled Estey was built. The 12 pieces in Dicks' publication are typical of music composed for reed organs around the turn of the 20th century. It puts the Estey through its paces rather well.