My Old Kentucky Home

As I continue to indulge in the astonishing resources of the Melbourne Town Hall Sampleset, I looked to the world of transcriptions from the early 20th century. On his travels, Lemare performed a wealth of his transcriptions and arrangements. I was delighted to find, in his "encores" collection, this arrangement of "My Old Kentucky Home" which he dedicated to his "friend, Dr. Clement M. Carter"

It is amazing that so many of his Encores are paraphrases of beloved traditional melodies, quite different than the encores we might think of at a modern organ recital. No doubt, he performed this in such a way that there would not be a dry in the house! I attempt to pay homage to that!

Edwin Henry Lemare (1865 – 1934) was an English organist and composer who lived the latter part of his life in the United States. An incredibly accomplished performer, he leaves a legacy of phenomenal orchestral transcriptions: He sincerely believed in letting concert audiences in mid-sized American towns hear important orchestral works from Europe that would otherwise go unknown in locales with no resident symphony orchestra

Originally installed in 1929 by Hill, Norman & Beard and restored/expanded by Schantz in 2001, the Melbourne Town Hall organ is the largest in the southern hemisphere. With 175 Speaking stops, this instrument fills the hall with sound and is a fine example of the symphonic organ which became such an important part of musical life in the early 20th century. One of the challenges of filling a large space with sound, in the days before amplification, was scaling of pipework: these large instruments have a huge array of stops, but are "choral organs" - many ranks working together to build up texture.

this amazing instrument was sampled by Inspired Accoustics https://www.inspiredacoustics.com/en/products/mth#features and I have had my eye on this for some time. (Consider trying it out - IA offers a free 10-day trial!)

additional info in first comment...