On Wednesday 5th March we welcome our very own Pete Gunstone to the console for our seventh organ recital of 2025.
Could you introduce yourself, how you got into music / become an organist and your musical journey to where you are today?
My name is the Revd Pete Gunstone. I am Minor Canon for Worship and Nurture at Bradford Cathedral and will be installed as Canon Precentor at Carlisle Cathedral on Trinity Sunday, 15th June, at 3pm – all are most welcome! I come from a relatively musical family comprising church organists, Gilbert & Sullivan singer, and parlour musicians. Having learned the piano from the age of eight and been thrown out of piano lessons for not practicing, I took up playing the organ as a teenager in the wake of the previous Play the Organ Year (1990) [2025 is also ‘Play the Organ Year], went on to read music in the University of Leeds, was Organ Scholar a Leeds Parish Church, undertook postgraduate organ study in the Royal Northern College of Music, and then was a freelance & church musician for a number of years prior to ordination in 2019.
What can people expect from your recital at Bradford Cathedral, and how are you reflecting the terms programming themes in the repertoire?
The unusual opportunity to hear Carl Nielsen’s epic work for solo organ, Commotio op. 58, a notable example of “creativity under pressure”, Bradford Cathedral’s programming theme for January – April 2025. Composed between June 1930 and February 1931 Nielsen considered this a significant part of his compositional opus. In 1926, he had suffered a serious heart attack which limited his previously expansive musical career to composition. Of Commotio, Nielsen wrote: “None of my other works has demanded such great concentration as this: an attempt to reconstitute what is truly the only valid organ style, the polyphonic music that is especially suited to this instrument, which for a long time has been regarded as a kind of orchestra, which it absolutely is not.” Sadly, Nielsen was unable to attend the first performance in August 1931 and he died subsequently in October 1931. Interestingly, as his only major work for organ (the others comprise a collection of miniatures), Commotio became Nielsen’s final work.
Nielsen explained that the word Commotio meant for him, “Movement, also spiritual”. He also wrote: “The Latin word Commotio really applies to all music, but the word is used more specifically here as an expression of self-objectification. In a major work for the mighty instrument that is called the organ, whose sound is determined by the natural element we call air, the composer must attempt to suppress all personal, lyrical feelings. The expression becomes great and rigorous and demands a kind of dryness instead of the emotional, and must rather be gazed at with the ear than embraced by the heart. The work is borne up by two fugues, to which an introduction, intervening movements and coda cling like climbing plants to the tree-trunks of the forest; however, the composer thinks that further analysis is superfluous.”
Prior to Commotio, people will be able to hear J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in G BWV 541, whose opening motif and form are somewhat reflected in Commotio, and C.H.H. Parry’s Chorale Prelude on St Cross, which was composed during the First World War, reflecting the particular theme of this term’s
Your move to Carlisle Cathedral was recently announced. What have you most enjoyed about your time in Bradford, at Fountains Church, and the Cathedral, and what are you looking forward to in your new role?
I’ve really enjoyed being a planting the newest church in Bradford and then being a part of the oldest in the district. It is fantastic that at the heart of this city there are two such vibrant Christian communities that engage people of all ages and all cultures in their lives. I’m looking forward to getting to know a new city and county, to getting to know my future colleagues and the people of Carlisle, to training my nose to recognise exactly which biscuit is being baked on a particular day, and to being closer to the big hills of Scotland and Northern England. Thank you, Bradford, for your welcome. You will be in my heart forever and remain in my prayers.
You can join us on Wednesday 5th March at 1pm to hear Pete’s organ recital, with an optional £4 buffet lunch beforehand at 12:30pm.
You can discover more about our organ recital season on our dedicated page.