Early life
Born in Bletchley, Buckinghamshire, Christopher Herrick was a boy chorister at St Paul's Cathedral and attended its choir school; he sang at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953 and later that year went with the choir on a three-month tour of America which included a private concert in the White House and a meeting with President Dwight D. Eisenhower. At the age of 12, he was inspired to learn the organ after Sir John Dykes Bower, organist of St Paul's, asked him to accompany him to the cathedral organ loft to turn pages for him for a BBC recording. His response to Herrick's aspiration to become a concert organist was not encouraging: 'Well... I suppose it might be just possible to be an organist giving concerts, with no permanent church appointment - but even Thalben-Ball has a city church.' He later attended Cranleigh School, where he was able to continue his organ study.Student days
From 1959 to 1962, he held an organ scholarship at Exeter College, Oxford, where he studied music. Following this, he obtained a Boult scholarship to study at the Royal College of Music. His interests expanded to the harpsichord. 'The harpsichord had also fascinated me, and Millicent Silver became my professor [...] From a historical point of view, of course, everything about her approach was wrong. But the experience of working with her gave me a vivid taste of an unknown world.' He studied organ privately with Geraint Jones at the time he was discovering the German mechanical instruments with straight pedal boards. He studied conducting with Sir Adrian Boult.Professional career
Malcolm Russell, one of London's principal suppliers of harpsichords, was an early neighbour, and Herrick was able to acquire a Dulcken harpsichord on permanent loan. This led to the formation of the Taskin trio (violin, viola da gamba, harpsichord), playing baroque music on period instruments. He has performed Bach's complete Well-Tempered Clavier on the harpsichord at London's South Bank.He was assistant organist at St Paul’s Cathedral from 1967 to 1974. He became an organist at Westminster Abbey in 1974, and was sub-organist from 1979 to 1984, playing at royal and state occasions and giving over 200 solo recitals there in that time. In 1984 he embarked upon a solo career as a concert organist and toured worldwide. He gave the solo organ concert in the centenary season of the Proms in 1994.
My life has been dedicated to playing this curious keyboard giant, of which no two are the same. And no two acoustics are the same. As a regular concert organist, you must accept that your life will not be like a pianist touring with or ordering the Steinway of your choice. If you can't cope with being versatile, you miss what the organ is about: in its physical nature (in the buildings and design), in its construction (from trackers to electro-pneumatics and back again), in its repertory. [...] It's the easiest of all to produce sound, and a lot of it. But it's also the most difficult to bring to life, to make it rhythmical and melodic: to make it sing and breathe.|||Christopher Herrick
He has recorded the complete organ works of J. S. Bach on Metzler organs in Switzerland; on 16 CDs. It was a gradual undertaking:
I was asked by Hyperion to record Bach's trio sonatas, and the company's director, Ted Perry, even wrote to me saying, "No complete Bach, Christopher." He didn't want it. The Bach idea crept up on him, as it did on us, and finally he said, "The world needs this, Christopher."|||Christopher Herrick
In 1998, he was invited to perform Bach's complete organ works at the Lincoln Center Festival in New York; he played fourteen concerts on fourteen consecutive days on the Kuhn organ in Alice Tully Hall. A critic from The New York Times wrote: 'Mr Herrick was at the peak of his considerable form, combining precision with panache, interpretive freedom with sheer joy in virtuosity. The playing was, in a word, triumphant.'
In 1984 he met Ted Perry, the owner-director of Hyperion records and proposed an album of virtuosic repertoire, on the Harrison & Harrison organ of Westminster Abbey. This has led to the Organ Fireworks series, virtuosic and spectacular music, well-known and rare, recorded on great organs all over the world, which is on its 12th volume. A contrasting series called Organ Dreams, of more tranquil repertoire, has reached its 4th volume.
Other recordings include Louis-Claude Daquin's Noëls on the restored 1739 Parizot organ in St Rémy, Dieppe, and 2 CDs of music by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck on a copy of the 17th-century organ of Stockholm's German church, now in Norrfjärden in northern Sweden. He utilised historically informed performance practice, including original fingerings, not using the thumb very much, which caused some difficulties: "only when I went in for physical therapy did I finally adapt." He has also recorded Josef Rheinberger's suites for organ, violin and cello.
In 2007, he commenced work on a five year project to record the complete organ works of Dieterich Buxtehude.
He lives in Kingston-upon-Thames where he is able to play the large Frobenius organ of Kingston Parish Church. Aside from organ playing, he has conducted the Twickenham Choral Society for nearly 30 years.
Sources
- Stanley Webb: 'Herrick, Christopher', Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 2007-05-06),
- Malcolm Bruno: Interview with Christopher Herrick, Choir & Organ (May/June 2002)
- The Wall Street Journal, Personal Journal, Time Off/Backstage: Christopher Herrick (29 October 2004)
Notes and references
External links
- http://www.herrick.musician.org.uk/ - personal website
- Hyperion records: Christopher Herrick
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Last updated on Tuesday March 25, 2008 at 17:42:27 PDT (GMT -0700)
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