ARCHITECT OF CATHEDRAL MUSIC: AN INTERVIEW WITH PHILIP MOORE

Extract

Philip Moore (b. 1943) has had a distinguished career as a cathedral musician, organist and, increasingly in recent years, as a composer. He began his career as a music master at Eton College and subsequently held a number of important positions, firstly at Canterbury and Guildford Cathedrals and latterly as Master of the Music at York Minster (1983–2008). His impressive catalogue of 400 works contains a substantial body of church music, but he has also written instrumental music and some larger works with orchestra including an organ concerto. His music draws on a wide sphere of influences with a strong tilt towards Vaughan Williams, Howells and Britten, plainchant and Duruflé and those whom he regards as the great classical architects of music: Bach, Brahms, Mozart and Hindemith amongst many others. On 20 November 2010 his new cantata Ode to St Cecilia was premièred in Guildford Cathedral. The composer has said that the genesis and design of the work derives from Britten's St Nicholas to which he hopes it will be seen as complementary. This interview took place in October 2009 before a recital devoted entirely to Moore's organ music at St Paul's Cathedral in London.