Edwin Lemare (1865–1934) was among the greatest recitalists of his day. He was for a time Organist of St Margaret’s, Westminster, where tradition has it that friction with the clergy (the result, no doubt, of his treating services as concerts) caused him to emigrate to America, where his playing commanded fees previously unimagined by organists. His many organ arrangements of orchestral music are Lemare’s most enduring legacy—one thinks of his Wagner transcriptions and in particular that of the
Vorspiel to
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg—but he wrote a considerable number of original compositions, of which his
Andantino in D flat, generally referred to as ‘Moonlight and Roses’, is the best known. Dating from 1884, Lemare’s
Marche moderne, Op 2, contains in its opening pages more than an echo of
Die Meistersinger. The central trio section, marked cantabile, is of a lighter character: its restatement, on Full Organ, begins the magnificent coda.
from notes by Relf Clark © 2006
