The organ sonatas of Henry Hiles and Edward John Hopkins both have important connections to the College of Organists which, in November 1893, became the Royal College of Organists. Hopkins was a founding member of the College of Organists when it was established in 1864 by Richard Limpus, organist of St Michael’s Cornhill, and dedicated his sonata to the college. In the inaugural address of the college in March 1864 it was announced that there would be a ‘periodical distribution of prizes for Church composition’. Hiles won prizes for the following three organ works and two anthems. One of the adjudicators for the first competition was E. J. Hopkins.

Both composers demonstrate a practical approach to the instrument that in many respects requires a more advanced technique than typically expected for sonatas of the period.
These two sonatas join the tradition of works that could be convincingly played on both medium and large instruments and allow for creativity in registration. They are also pieces that could have served in a concert programme. The English organ sonatas had an important pedagogical role jointly inherited from Mendelssohn’s very practical and popular approach to the instrument and the continued European legacy of the lesson-sonata tradition whereby in learning a piece you also learned the instrument and vice versa.The third Sonata da Camera of Albert Lister Peace and the sonata of William Wolstenholme demonstrate contrasting approaches to the instrument as the English organ sonata repertoire developed around the turn of the twentieth century. Peace writes in a style that remained both practical and elegant while Wolstenholme presented a work that demanded a more advanced technique. Both pieces typify different aspects of the English organ literature during an industrious period for organist-composers, many of whom also wrote sacred choral works.

Content:

Henry Hiles (1826-1904)
Sonata

Edward John Hopkins (1818-1901)
Sonata