The Oxford Book of Christmas Organ Music

On retirement from a teaching career spent successively at St Paul's Boys' School, Barnes, Radley College, Oxfordshire, and Glenalmond College, Perthshire, (where he was also a Housemaster and Senior Tutor), Robert Gower worked as Organist at St Barnabas Catholic Cathedral, Nottingham, before moving briefly to the most northerly parish in the Church of England at Berwick-upon-Tweed. Returning to Scotland so as to be nearer to family, he is now Director of Music at Dundee Parish Church. Robert's commitment to English 20th-century repertoire is reflected through his founding and leadership of the Percy Whitlock Trust between 1981 and 2016 and in his longstanding Chairmanship of the Gerald Finzi Charitable Trust, from which he retired in 2022. He enjoys transcribing music for organ (with a wide range recently embracing both Leroy Anderson and Maxwell Davies) and in liturgical composition, completing a three-year cycle of responsorial psalms for the Church Music Society.

This volume of thirty-seven pieces is a major new resource ... Most organists will already own some of the commonly used pieces, but it is practical to have them all in one volume. And there are more than enough unusual choices to make the book worth having. Kudos to both compiler and publisher for the best organ anthology (in both quality of selections and production) I have seen in quite some time.

• Chorale Prelude on 'In dulci jubilo' ; Chorale Prelude on 'In dulci jubilo' ; Sinfonia from the Christmas Oratorio ; Aria 'Schlafe, mein Liebster' ; Chorale Prelude on 'Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland' ; Chorale Prelude on 'Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme' ; Chorale Fantasia on 'Wie schon leuchtet der Morgenstern' ; Chorale Prelude on 'In dulci jubilo' ; 'Walking in the air' ; Three Versets on 'Away in a manger' ; Chorale Prelude on 'Es ist ein Ros' entsprungen' ; Toccata (on 'Veni Emmanuel') ; Pastorale from the Christmas Concerto ; Noel ; Offertoire sur Deux Noels ; Hallelujah Chorus ; Pifa (Pastoral Symphony) ; Fanfare on 'Antioch' ; The Holy Boy ; Chorale Prelude on 'Resonet in laudibus' Carol ; Cradle Song ; Interlude on the Coventry Carol ; Prelude on 'Forest Green' ; Die hirten an der Krippe ; Prelude on 'Whence is that goodly fragrance?' ; Chorale Prelude on 'Vom Himmel hoch, da komm' ich her' ; Prelude on 'O little town of Bethlehem' ; Prelude on 'Greensleeves' ; Prelude on 'God rest you merry, gentlemen' ; Prelude on 'The holly and the ivy' ; Prelude on 'This endris nyght' ; Finale on 'Hark, the herald angels sing' ; Prelude on 'Irby' ; Chorale Prelude on 'Den die Hirten lobten sehre' ; Prelude on the Sussex Carol ; Pastorale 'Gesu Bambino'