At the age of 22, in 1963 when he became sub-Organist of Westminster Abbey, Simon Preston was already the anointed Crown Prince of the King of Instruments. The reputation of his virtuosity and stylish response to a repertoire of five centuries had spread far before him. Having left the Abbey in 1967, he then returned […]

Westminster Abbey is a royal church, founded in 1065 by King Edward the Confessor, who was buried in the original Norman building only a few days after its consecration. Almost exactly two centuries later, in 1269, his body was ‘translated’ or removed to its present resting-place in the shrine east of the High Altar. It […]

The potential of music as a means of adding dignity and grandeur to state occasions has surely been lost on a few rulers in history. Portraits of antique kings and queens are more often admired (or the reverse) for their artistic qualities, as opposed to the enhancement in the status of their subjects they were […]