I am very glad I was able to assist Jeffrey Tucker in putting up the Oreste Ravanello book, because I think it is WONDERFUL --- not the deepest music in the world, but people in the pews LOVE praying to this music. And it is relatively easy to put together at rehearsal.
Jeffrey Tucker continues to do the world AMAZING services, and no one pays him back for it! He gives of himself constantly. He will be rewarded in Heaven.
Here is the Oreste Ravanello Book Jeffrey Tucker made available.
Is there some magic to the name Jeffrey? Both Jeffrey Tucker and Jeff Ostrowski deserve to be remembered in all our prayers. I hadn't been over to the Chabanel site for some time and was pleasantly surprised by new treats.
When I mentioned the Ravanello to my singers the other night, one looked at the others and said, "Girls, we better 'suit up' because I think she's got plans for this."
What is interesting is that there is no St Jeffrey, so far as I know. There is an expression "St Jeffrey's Day" or "St Geoffrey's Day" which means "the twelfth of Never."
But it's probably a variation on some English name for which there IS a saint...
They have such beautiful voices that they inspired the other high school students, and I literally had about 60 students sign up and want to take choir next semester (not kidding) — and our high school only has 300 kids!!
Thank you, thank you for posting the Ravanello et al collection online. I have been looking for 15 years, I kid you not, for the sheet music of ECCE PANIS ANGELORUM by Polleri (whoever he was: anybody know?). Have had the piece's opening phrases haunting me for much of that time, with no hope of being able to recall what the work's title was, much less who wrote it. One remembers music so much better than one remembers lyrics. Then I realized that it probably began with the words "Ecce panis angelorum", so I looked up the motets beginning with those words, and there it was.
Hi RJ - Giovani Battista Polleri (1855-1923) Giovanni Battista Polleri (Genoa 1855 - Genoa 1923) studied violin, organ, piano and composition with his father Niccolo, an esteemed violinist. He left for the United States in 1877. In 1889, he was appointed organist and choir master of the Immacolata Basilica in Genoa. (Presumably he returned to Italy for this.) He was appointed director of the Genoa conservatory in 1898 (?), and succeeded, after great demand, in establishing an organ class with a modern instrument, taught by professional organists (instead of piano teachers). He composed little: two Masses, a few organ and piano pieces, and a few orchestral and choral works.
Source: Michelle Bernard: Biographical notes from the edition of Trio Per Organo (edited)
Thank you very much, Chris, for this information (all of it new to me) about Polleri.
Curiously enough, when last I visited Rome in 1988 - a year in which LPs dominated the city's record stores and CDs had scarcely made any impact whatever on Romans - I saw disc after disc devoted to Ravanello's work. Never having heard of Ravanello before, I was fairly staggered. For all I know the stores might have contained Polleri LPs as well, but I never saw those.
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