The Five Pieces were written in 1961 & published by Novello in 1962.
I have been reading how the Brutalist architectural movement in post-war Britain influenced composers; amongst them, clearly, was Arthur Wills.
If a piece shows that influence then it is this….or is it? In this I hear the massiveness of the Romanesque nave of the great “Ship of the fens” & can see a procession make slow progress down its length.
Maybe this is Romanesque through the prism of Brutalism? Whatever the answer this is, most certainly, another instance of the building as muse.
Vision returns us to the lush acoustic of Blackburn & the fiery brilliance of the Walker/Wood organ. The pedal reeds certainly are influenced by the eclat of the French school & the brilliance of the mixture work harks back to the work of L'Association des Amis de l'Orgue (The Association of the Friends of the Organ) and the Orgelbewegung.
Here for reference is a recording by Arthur on his freshly recast Ely organ in 1976:
https://youtu.be/Ixm5vFDErw0?si=-1YG7uA31522_LJh