Prelude on the hymn tune "Melcombe"

Recently I looked back into a volume of two-stave hymn preludes which I bought more than 40 years ago - in my very early days as a young parish church organist. I hadn't opened this book for a very long time.

This little gem shows off the three Bourdon 8 stops (one on each manual) of the Arlesheim Silbermann sample set. I added a few 16-foot pedal notes at the end.

Alec Rowley (13 March 1892 – 11 January 1958) was an English composer and writer on music.

He studied at London's Royal Academy of Music with Frederick Corder, and later taught at Trinity College in the same city. He frequently performed and broadcast piano duets with Edgar Moy, and was widely known for his compositions for amateur forces. He wrote many pieces for solo piano and solo organ.

He was for many years the organist of St Alban's Church, Teddington and was a contributor to 'The Rotunda', the house magazine of Henry Willis & Sons Ltd.