This is literally my first post on this forum. I searched using Google, for a pipe organ forum to ask a burning question about the Boellmann Toccata. Not only do I find a music site with a pipe organ forum, but it also has an open discussion on the Boellmann Toccata... ... how cool is that? So, hello all. I have listened to the link even though I am sort of hijacking the topic. Hopefully it isn't a bad sort of hijack. To stay with the topic for a moment I will say that I think characterizing the tempo as "comfortable" is unfortunate. It does not appear all that "comfortable" for the performer. Quite likely she is maxxed out even at this "comfortable" tempo. I would be. And maybe that is the point. We should all be free to play a work within the limits of our technique without apology. A slow, clean performance ought not to be derided, but it would be. A hyperfast one is also derided but that is pure sour grapes. If I could play as fast a Julian Beswig as cleanly as he does, I WOULD! And I would want the world to know I could. I don't see anything wrong with that. But it should be clean and as musical as is possible under those conditions. I've heard some hyper-fast Bach that brought out amazing phrasings that aren't apparent at slower tempi. Bach may not have been able to even imagine the tempi attainable by a Cameron Carpenter but his genius is such that it cannot be harmed by such treatment. It's like a fractal artwork, the more you speed it up, the more inner detail you find.
Here is my question about the Boellmann piece: On just about any recording of this piece you can find, the pedal line swings in a way that is not indicated by the written score. It doesn't sound bad, it almost sounds like what should have been written in the first place. I find it hard to do... take a full half beat off the leading half note in the pedal melody but play the full set of 1/16th notes in the right hand. This present performance does not swing as much as others, but even she does something odd with the 3rd beat quarter note, no doubt because she has internalized all those existing performances which almost sound as if the piece were witten in 3/4 time rather than 4/4. How do you fit the proper number of 1/16 notes into the right hand figures and still get a pedal line that doesn't sound stilted???
Back on topic, I don't know if their really is any national bias in the penchant for hyper fast performance. Is it possible to find a performance of the Prelude and Fugue in B major (a work that AFAIK has not been recorded (on youtube) by any Americans). If I were to finish learning this piece and put it up on youtube, the contrast between my tempo and the tempi of all the other performances there would be VAST. All of the nuances of the composition are lost at the insane tempi that modern musicians are able to achieve. Dupre doesn't scale up as nicely as does Bach I feel.
With the Boellmann I don't think it is so much tempo, but the desire to get the pedal line to sing pleasingly, overwhelms the dictates of the notation. I'll admit to not knowing how to resolve the dilemma and hence this post. Any thoughts?
H