Godfrey Marks: Gavotte (E major) @PSearPianist

Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago

Phillip Sear plays an 1886 piece by the British organist and composer James Frederick Swift (1848–1931), writing under the pseudonym 'Godfrey Marks'.
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Born in Manchester, Swift was educated at the Commercial School of Liverpool College, held organ posts from an early age, and by 1886 was organist at St Bride’s Church, Liverpool. He also directed choral societies in Liverpool and composed songs and instrumental music, often under the pseudonym Godfrey Marks. He lived for many years in Liscard, Wallasey, near Birkenhead.

Under the name Godfrey Marks, he published several songs that achieved significant popularity, most notably "Sailing" and "A brave heart". As well as popular ballads, he wrote a substantial body of religious music, including hymnody and church pieces, so his catalogue reflects the practical needs of Victorian musical life rather than a narrowly defined concert-profile.

This gavotte is quite unusual in having a passage marked 'scherzissimo' following a hymnlike passage where one would normally find a musette.

Thumbnail image created with Picsart ( tinyl.co/4WqE ).
#britishmusic #gavotte
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Played by Phillip Sear
psear.co.uk (Email: piano4@psear.33mail.com
WhatsApp: wa.me/441444483794 ) TikTok: tiktok.com/@pianogems
****See all my latest videos here: tinyurl.com/phillip210 ****

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Fritz Renger: Ländlicher Tanz (Rustic Dance), Op.34 No.3

S. Claude Ridley: Evening Flowers (Graceful Sketch)

$Harvey Löhr: Läuschen und Flöhchen, Op.23 No.8 #8 from Grimm Fairy Tales (Silhouettes), Op.23 (1904). Phillip Sear plays a piece from a set of 25 by the English composer of German descent (Richard) Harvey Löhr (1856–1927). Born in Leicester, Löhr was the youngest son of the German-born organist and conductor George Augustus Löhr (1821–1897), who had settled in England and became a significant figure in the musical life of the East Midlands. The family background provided a distinctly German orientation to Harvey Löhrs early musical formation. He received his advanced training at the Royal Academy of Music, studying under William Henry Holmes, Ebenezer Prout, and Sir Arthur Sullivan. He twice won the prestigious Charles Lucas Medal, in 1877 and 1878, attesting to early distinction as a student composer. He subsequently held the post of organist at St Jamess Church, Marylebone, a position that sustained his connection to Londons musical life throughout his professional career. Löhr died in Hastings, and his manuscripts are preserved at the Royal Academy of Music in London. Löhrs piano music occupies a modest but characteristic corner of the late-Victorian keyboard repertoire, oriented towards the lyric miniature and the genre piece rather than the large-scale sonata. A Shakespeare Cycle, Op.19 (1898), a set of twelve pieces published by Schott & Co., represents his most ambitious contribution to the genre, drawing on literary imagery in a manner consistent with the characteristic piece tradition of the period. Other collections include Garden Idylls, Op.25 (1910), an album of twelve lyric pieces, and When We Were Children, Op.26 (1913), six character pieces also issued by Schott, suggesting a secondary market in pedagogical and domestic salon repertoire. Lighter pieces such as Ariel (1889) and Scenes from Fairyland, Op.21 (1901) reinforce an imaginative, illustrative approach to keyboard writing. The piano music forms only a fraction of Löhrs considerable catalogue, which includes five symphonies, two piano concertos, two string quartets, a piano quintet, a piano quartet (Op.15), and a piano trio (Op.22), alongside the operas A Border Raid (1883) and Kenilworth (1906). His choral output embraces the oratorio The Queen of Sheba, Op.20 (1900) and several anthems and part-songs, complemented by a large body of solo song. Though Löhr attracted little sustained critical attention in the twentieth century, his enduring legacy is institutional: a scholarship bearing his name was established at the Royal Academy of Music for British-born composers between the ages of fourteen and twenty-four, a fund that has supported subsequent generations of student composers, among them Craig Armstrong.” (Perplexity AI, 21 June 2026). The piece is given a main English title of The Ladybird and the Fly, but the German subtitle Läuschen und Flöhchen known in English as “Little Louse and Little Flea” or “The Louse and the Flea” seems to be what the piece is about! “It is one of the shortest and most absurdist tales in the entire Grimm collection, belonging to the folklore type ATU 2022, “An Animal Mourns the Death of a Spouse”. A louse and a flea are brewing ale together when the louse falls into the brewing vat and scalds herself to death; the flea begins to weep and wail, and from that moment a chain reaction of increasingly ridiculous mourning spreads through a succession of characters — a little door starts creaking, a broom begins to sweep furiously, a cart starts running, a dung heap starts burning, a tree begins to shake its leaves, a spring starts to gush, and a little girl trips and breaks her jug — each one catching the lament from the previous and joining in the general lamentation without quite knowing why.” (Perplexity AI, 25 June 2026). Thumbnail image—showing the strange events listed by the Grimms—created with Picsart ( https://tinyl.co/4WqE ). #britishmusic #brothersgrimm #louse #flea Played by Phillip Sear http://www.psear.co.uk (Email: piano4@psear.33mail.com WhatsApp: http://wa.me/441444483794 ) TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@pianogems ****See all my latest videos here: https://tinyurl.com/phillip210 ****$