Ntalikeris666
Member
I mean the most discussed in Digital Organ section.
Yes you are right on the second part!
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Digital Organ Choice
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I mean the most discussed in Digital Organ section.
Yes you are right on the second part!
Clarion
New member
LastCorpseStanding
Did you know that a modern office tower now stands where Deer Park United once stood?? :crazy: They gave the organ to The Church of the Holy Trinity (Anglican) in downtown Toronto. It cost $50,000 to do the swap.
FelixLowe
New member
Hauptwerk is perfectly fine except that under its current mode of running through a powerful computer, I guess it can only have two sound channels of the left and right. Many of the samples are of excellent quality of those ancient instruments. I mean, they are being preserved eternally through digital sampling as long as those samples are kept.
When you say a challenge facing the organ makers, I actually see Hauptwerk as pointing to a new direction of development, whereby perhaps in future organ makers will provide their own systems of running Hautpwerk samples they pay royalties for. Then they would only be concentrating on their computerised gimmicks, improving the amplifiers and maximising sound channels.
Hear this version of BWV 659, Come now, Saviour of the gentiles (Nun komm der Heiden Heiland) by J S Bach on Hauptwerk sampling: http://www.oldorg.net/vph/bwv659_vph_mr.mp3. Instrument: The van Peteghem-organ of Haringe, Flandres (1778) in Belgium - Samples by Hauptwerk.nl. Registration: G. O. Montre 8' + Holpijp 8'; Chorale on Positif Cromhooren 8'; PD Bourdon 16' and Holpijp 8' from G.O. and Bourdon 8' from Positif. Werckmeister 3 Temperament.
The van Peteghem-organ of Haringe
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LastCorpseStanding
New member
I knew Deer Park was closing, but I didn't have a clue that the building was gone. I hope the organ works in the new space. Honestly, I don't think Bill was very happy with the location in Deer Park off to the side.
LastCorpseStanding
New member
I'm not certain about this. I'd have to check the HW forums, but I thought there were some channeling capabilities with it. In theory, it shouldn't be too hard to accomplish. Today's electronics make nearly anything possible.
That Montre with Holpijp combination is beautiful. Thanks for the link.
FelixLowe
New member
That translates to $HK160,000, which is not a small figure. After all, how many stops can one get for a Phoenix that costs $20,000(US?)? But to be honest, some cathedrals here in the past paid about four times that amount for their Allen organs, quite sizeable ones, though.
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FelixLowe
New member
Detlef Kleuker of Brackwede/Westfalia, near Bielefeld, in the then West Germany was behind many Kleuker instruments around the world. It built many intruments from the 1960s through to the late 1970s.
After reviewing a few sound clips, I was wondering if Kleuker is truly of South German Baroque school. Yet, I don't think it is entirely so. Neither was it entirely of the North German Baroque school. I guess it was an instrument that has the middle ground between the both schools. It has chorus the reed trumpet that could cloud the manual principal ensembles, not just merely being a colour reed. Yet its ensemble and Mixture together never occurred to me to be as bold, heavy but as smooth as the South German Baroque School. Instead, it has the cheerfulness and a slightly more coarse texture, a hint of French taste also, as well as quite prominent chiff as the North German school.
The voicing can be said to be just German High Baroque if judged by any ordinary ears. And the variation in tastes with regards to voicing these post-WWII instruments can be understood in this context as stated in The Cambridge Companion to the Organ by Stephen Bicknell who contributed a chapter to the book, called Organ Building Today. He seems to explain post-WWII German organ builders in neo-classical revival terms. In that regards, it would not be too excessive to view the Kleuker as the German counterpart of, say, Donald G Harrison's neo-classical Aeolian Skinner on the American continent. Bicknell says the following on p.83-84 of the above-mentioned title:
"Schweitzer could not have anticipated that the modern movement would renew emphasis on function not decoration, and would highlight virtues of design and manufacture rather than those of pure art. None of the organ builders of the early classical revival escaped the influence of modernist thinking. In the work of the builders mentioned above the principles of modern design were executed to the highest standards of indiviudality and quality. In German-speaking Europe the picture was slightly different. Rudolph von Beckerath, the leading neo-classical builder in Germany after the Second World War, shared many sources of inspiration with his Scandiavian and Dutch colleagues, but did not have their visual sense, usually being content to interpret casework in the form of giant boxes reminscent of commercial office blocks or even banks of loudspeakers. Rieger, Schuke, Ott, Klais, Kleuker and others celebrated the modern world with enthusiasm, incorporating new materials, experimental tonalities, and revelling in the opportunities offered by, for example, daring and radical layout or electric console gadgetry (even though mechanical key action had been revivied for its twin virtues of simplicity and purity).
"However, for the vast majority of organ builders, survival depended not on some great artistic statement but on good commercial use. In West Germany, for example, the post-war boom and the classical revival conspired to produce new organs in great numbers and to generally high standards. To say that there are relatively new bright stars in this galaxy of activity would not be entirely unfair. With characteristic thoroughness German master organ builders are trained at a government college at Ludwigsburg and their style is somewhat homogenised as a result. Also, though the number of firms is many and their size modest (at least compared to a century go), the commercial pressures of a boom period have meant that few have been encouraged to divert resources towards pure art-making such a statement at a time of stiff competition is simply too extravagant. One of the few styles to contrast with the norm of German organ building has come from the firm of Klais, where a more individual family tradition survived the neo-classical revolution. For those who still took refuge in romantic organ music (much decried by the heard-line classcists) the extraordinarily bold and rich palette of big Klais proved the ideal vehicle for the full modernisation of great nineteenth-century works (see Klas 1975)."
Here are a few sound clips on the Kleuker organ:
(1) The very well known fugue of Johann Sebastian Bach in G minor BWV 578, played by the organist Chris Paraskevopoulos at the Detlef Kleuker organ of the First Greek Evangelical Church of Athens, on May 5th, 2007 at the first Bach Festival, organized by this church: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn7bOn5LXwQ.
(2) Jean Guillou plays Bach's Goldberg Variations -- Aria on the Kleuker organ in his own transcription for organ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaVOHegcE98.
(3) Bach: Toccata BWV 564. JORGE SÁNCHEZ HERRERA, Kleuker organ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3umis3oByA.
After reviewing a few sound clips, I was wondering if Kleuker is truly of South German Baroque school. Yet, I don't think it is entirely so. Neither was it entirely of the North German Baroque school. I guess it was an instrument that has the middle ground between the both schools. It has chorus the reed trumpet that could cloud the manual principal ensembles, not just merely being a colour reed. Yet its ensemble and Mixture together never occurred to me to be as bold, heavy but as smooth as the South German Baroque School. Instead, it has the cheerfulness and a slightly more coarse texture, a hint of French taste also, as well as quite prominent chiff as the North German school.
The voicing can be said to be just German High Baroque if judged by any ordinary ears. And the variation in tastes with regards to voicing these post-WWII instruments can be understood in this context as stated in The Cambridge Companion to the Organ by Stephen Bicknell who contributed a chapter to the book, called Organ Building Today. He seems to explain post-WWII German organ builders in neo-classical revival terms. In that regards, it would not be too excessive to view the Kleuker as the German counterpart of, say, Donald G Harrison's neo-classical Aeolian Skinner on the American continent. Bicknell says the following on p.83-84 of the above-mentioned title:
"Schweitzer could not have anticipated that the modern movement would renew emphasis on function not decoration, and would highlight virtues of design and manufacture rather than those of pure art. None of the organ builders of the early classical revival escaped the influence of modernist thinking. In the work of the builders mentioned above the principles of modern design were executed to the highest standards of indiviudality and quality. In German-speaking Europe the picture was slightly different. Rudolph von Beckerath, the leading neo-classical builder in Germany after the Second World War, shared many sources of inspiration with his Scandiavian and Dutch colleagues, but did not have their visual sense, usually being content to interpret casework in the form of giant boxes reminscent of commercial office blocks or even banks of loudspeakers. Rieger, Schuke, Ott, Klais, Kleuker and others celebrated the modern world with enthusiasm, incorporating new materials, experimental tonalities, and revelling in the opportunities offered by, for example, daring and radical layout or electric console gadgetry (even though mechanical key action had been revivied for its twin virtues of simplicity and purity).
"However, for the vast majority of organ builders, survival depended not on some great artistic statement but on good commercial use. In West Germany, for example, the post-war boom and the classical revival conspired to produce new organs in great numbers and to generally high standards. To say that there are relatively new bright stars in this galaxy of activity would not be entirely unfair. With characteristic thoroughness German master organ builders are trained at a government college at Ludwigsburg and their style is somewhat homogenised as a result. Also, though the number of firms is many and their size modest (at least compared to a century go), the commercial pressures of a boom period have meant that few have been encouraged to divert resources towards pure art-making such a statement at a time of stiff competition is simply too extravagant. One of the few styles to contrast with the norm of German organ building has come from the firm of Klais, where a more individual family tradition survived the neo-classical revolution. For those who still took refuge in romantic organ music (much decried by the heard-line classcists) the extraordinarily bold and rich palette of big Klais proved the ideal vehicle for the full modernisation of great nineteenth-century works (see Klas 1975)."
Here are a few sound clips on the Kleuker organ:
(1) The very well known fugue of Johann Sebastian Bach in G minor BWV 578, played by the organist Chris Paraskevopoulos at the Detlef Kleuker organ of the First Greek Evangelical Church of Athens, on May 5th, 2007 at the first Bach Festival, organized by this church: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn7bOn5LXwQ.
(2) Jean Guillou plays Bach's Goldberg Variations -- Aria on the Kleuker organ in his own transcription for organ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaVOHegcE98.
(3) Bach: Toccata BWV 564. JORGE SÁNCHEZ HERRERA, Kleuker organ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3umis3oByA.
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FelixLowe
New member
Detlef Kleuker of Brackwede/Westfalia, near Bielefeld, in the then West Germany was behind many Kleuker instruments around the world. It built many intruments from the 1960s through to the late 1970s.
After reviewing a few sound clips, I was wondering if Kleuker is truly of South German Baroque school. Yet, I don't think it is entirely so. Neither was it entirely of the North German Baroque school. I guess it was an instrument that has the middle ground between the both schools. It has a chorus-reed trumpet that could cloud the manual principal ensembles, not just merely being a colour reed. Yet its ensemble and Mixture together never occurred to me to be as bold, heavy but as smooth as the South German Baroque School. Instead, it has the cheerfulness and a slightly more coarse texture, a hint of French taste also, as well as quite prominent chiff as the North German school.
The voicing can be said to be just German High Baroque if judged by any ordinary ears. And the variation in tastes with regards to voicing these post-WWII instruments can be understood in this context as stated in The Cambridge Companion to the Organ by Stephen Bicknell who contributed a chapter to the book, called Organ Building Today. He seems to explain post-WWII German organ builders in neo-classical revival terms. In that regards, it would not be too excessive to view the Kleuker as the German counterpart of, say, Donald G Harrison's neo-classical Aeolian Skinner on the American continent. Bicknell says the following on p.83-84 of the above-mentioned title:
"Schweitzer could not have anticipated that the modern movement would renew emphasis on function not decoration, and would highlight virtues of design and manufacture rather than those of pure art. None of the organ builders of the early classical revival escaped the influence of modernist thinking. In the work of the builders mentioned above the principles of modern design were executed to the highest standards of individuality and quality. In German-speaking Europe the picture was slightly different. Rudolph von Beckerath, the leading neo-classical builder in Germany after the Second World War, shared many sources of inspiration with his Scandiavian and Dutch colleagues, but did not have their visual sense, usually being content to interpret casework in the form of giant boxes reminscent of commercial office blocks or even banks of loudspeakers. Rieger, Schuke, Ott, Klais, Kleuker and others celebrated the modern world with enthusiasm, incorporating new materials, experimental tonalities, and revelling in the opportunities offered by, for example, daring and radical layout or electric console gadgetry (even though mechanical key action had been revivied for its twin virtues of simplicity and purity).
"However, for the vast majority of organ builders, survival depended not on some great artistic statement but on good commercial use. In West Germany, for example, the post-war boom and the classical revival conspired to produce new organs in great numbers and to generally high standards. To say that there are relatively new bright stars in this galaxy of activity would not be entirely unfair. With characteristic thoroughness German master organ builders are trained at a government college at Ludwigsburg and their style is somewhat homogenised as a result. Also, though the number of firms is many and their size modest (at least compared to a century go), the commercial pressures of a boom period have meant that few have been encouraged to divert resources towards pure art-making such a statement at a time of stiff competition is simply too extravagant. One of the few styles to contrast with the norm of German organ building has come from the firm of Klais, where a more individual family tradition survived the neo-classical revolution. For those who still took refuge in romantic organ music (much decried by the hard-line classicists) the extraordinarily bold and rich palette of big Klais proved the ideal vehicle for the full modernisation of great nineteenth-century works (see Klas 1975)."
Here are a few sound clips on the Kleuker organ:
(1) The very well known fugue of Johann Sebastian Bach in G minor BWV 578, played by the organist Chris Paraskevopoulos at the Detlef Kleuker organ of the First Greek Evangelical Church of Athens, on May 5th, 2007 at the first Bach Festival, organized by this church: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn7bOn5LXwQ.
(2) Jean Guillou plays Bach's Goldberg Variations -- Aria on the Kleuker organ in his own transcription for organ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaVOHegcE98.
(3) Bach: Toccata BWV 564. JORGE SÁNCHEZ HERRERA, Kleuker organ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3umis3oByA.
After reviewing a few sound clips, I was wondering if Kleuker is truly of South German Baroque school. Yet, I don't think it is entirely so. Neither was it entirely of the North German Baroque school. I guess it was an instrument that has the middle ground between the both schools. It has a chorus-reed trumpet that could cloud the manual principal ensembles, not just merely being a colour reed. Yet its ensemble and Mixture together never occurred to me to be as bold, heavy but as smooth as the South German Baroque School. Instead, it has the cheerfulness and a slightly more coarse texture, a hint of French taste also, as well as quite prominent chiff as the North German school.
The voicing can be said to be just German High Baroque if judged by any ordinary ears. And the variation in tastes with regards to voicing these post-WWII instruments can be understood in this context as stated in The Cambridge Companion to the Organ by Stephen Bicknell who contributed a chapter to the book, called Organ Building Today. He seems to explain post-WWII German organ builders in neo-classical revival terms. In that regards, it would not be too excessive to view the Kleuker as the German counterpart of, say, Donald G Harrison's neo-classical Aeolian Skinner on the American continent. Bicknell says the following on p.83-84 of the above-mentioned title:
"Schweitzer could not have anticipated that the modern movement would renew emphasis on function not decoration, and would highlight virtues of design and manufacture rather than those of pure art. None of the organ builders of the early classical revival escaped the influence of modernist thinking. In the work of the builders mentioned above the principles of modern design were executed to the highest standards of individuality and quality. In German-speaking Europe the picture was slightly different. Rudolph von Beckerath, the leading neo-classical builder in Germany after the Second World War, shared many sources of inspiration with his Scandiavian and Dutch colleagues, but did not have their visual sense, usually being content to interpret casework in the form of giant boxes reminscent of commercial office blocks or even banks of loudspeakers. Rieger, Schuke, Ott, Klais, Kleuker and others celebrated the modern world with enthusiasm, incorporating new materials, experimental tonalities, and revelling in the opportunities offered by, for example, daring and radical layout or electric console gadgetry (even though mechanical key action had been revivied for its twin virtues of simplicity and purity).
"However, for the vast majority of organ builders, survival depended not on some great artistic statement but on good commercial use. In West Germany, for example, the post-war boom and the classical revival conspired to produce new organs in great numbers and to generally high standards. To say that there are relatively new bright stars in this galaxy of activity would not be entirely unfair. With characteristic thoroughness German master organ builders are trained at a government college at Ludwigsburg and their style is somewhat homogenised as a result. Also, though the number of firms is many and their size modest (at least compared to a century go), the commercial pressures of a boom period have meant that few have been encouraged to divert resources towards pure art-making such a statement at a time of stiff competition is simply too extravagant. One of the few styles to contrast with the norm of German organ building has come from the firm of Klais, where a more individual family tradition survived the neo-classical revolution. For those who still took refuge in romantic organ music (much decried by the hard-line classicists) the extraordinarily bold and rich palette of big Klais proved the ideal vehicle for the full modernisation of great nineteenth-century works (see Klas 1975)."
Here are a few sound clips on the Kleuker organ:
(1) The very well known fugue of Johann Sebastian Bach in G minor BWV 578, played by the organist Chris Paraskevopoulos at the Detlef Kleuker organ of the First Greek Evangelical Church of Athens, on May 5th, 2007 at the first Bach Festival, organized by this church: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vn7bOn5LXwQ.
(2) Jean Guillou plays Bach's Goldberg Variations -- Aria on the Kleuker organ in his own transcription for organ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaVOHegcE98.
(3) Bach: Toccata BWV 564. JORGE SÁNCHEZ HERRERA, Kleuker organ: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_3umis3oByA.
Clarion
New member
The proper "mode and stops"?? I'm not quite sure what you had in mind, but IMO, Hamill's performances on his website show that in addition to the rest of his talents, he knows marketing! He knows his audience and his market: Great Britain; and that's who is is playing for. It's no mere accident that Phoenix is Great Britain's foremost digital organ builder.
If you prefer this over Hamill's rendition, then you and I will always be polar opposites, unlikely to agree on even the most minute matters.
Okay, let's deal with the producer of the CD, and his problems; and whom in your opinion, is grossly incompetent, The producer of the CD is Stephen Hamill who:
1. At the outset, designed the organ and the Phoenix system from scratch;
2. Built the organ;
3. Recorded and processed the voice samples for the organ;
4. Installed the organ;
5. Voiced the organ;
6. Played the demo organ pieces;
7. Recorded the demos;
8. Provided them as a freebie on his website for anyone who cares to listen to, or download the demos.
And you really figure that Stephen Hamill is the one who has the problem??!
Regardless of your extensive critique of Stephen Hamill's rendition; he wasn't playing for YOU! He was playing for the audience he obviously knows so very well; the local target audience of his marketing endeavours.
In your above-noted preferred 545 style, if you ever attempted to pull something like that on Brits, with it's primitive, strident, screechy rendering; you would have Brits bolting for the exit doors within 5 minutes of the onset of such an assault!!
You don't seem to understand as to what Brit's prefer and embrace! At the outset, British organ enthusiasts have little tolerance for primitive continental stuff. They far prefer a more civilized approach to organ music; and to that end, while you may well find three, four or even five 8'diapasons on the Great; you may be challenged so find so much as a single mixture or mutation on many British organs. And that's what make their organs sound so much better than the primitive obsolete German stuff. It will probably take decades (optimistically), if at all, for Germans to ever catch up with British superiority.
PS: As for "Alice in the Wonderland", just one more British cultural triumph!
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FelixLowe
New member
Nun danket alle Gott, BWV 79a [2:14] (http://zionorgan.com/vb/mp3/bwv079a_ss4ch.mp3) A cheerful arrangement from Cantata No. 79 for two organists, one handling the trumpet parts, the other the organ. Originally prepared on March 21, 2000, the 315th anniversary of J.S. Bach's birthday, Instrument: Marcussen & Son Organ / St. Stefanuschurch / Moerdijk (Noord-Brabant, The Netherlands) (1965) - Samples by Ariaan Hoogendijk
Source: http://www.virtuallybaroque.com/track050.htm
Source: http://www.virtuallybaroque.com/track050.htm
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FelixLowe
New member
Well, I had only been British for a short while in my life. So there is a good reason to be "primitive", I guess. That's A. And B, I've heard a renowned organist play at the biggest Anglican cathedral here, and it wasn't anything like Hamill's version. After all, that guy here was trained at the Royal Academy, too. And his organ there at St John's can switch modes, too.
Just think about why Phoenix has to sell four organs in one. If they were so confident in just one style, they would have just made them with much lower overhead costs.
And I thought you said you had been enjoying the chiffy Baroque mode earlier?
The issue regarding "chiff" is that it is generally regarded as a necessity in terms of organ as an ancient instrument. Chiff goes back not to Baroque era, but way before that. Certainly hanging a piece of leather over the languid might have been a new late invention/ addition to generic European practice, particularly the German stopped flutes.
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Clarion
New member
LastCorpseStanding,
Thanks ever so much for your St. George's samples. :clap:
I really enjoyed listening to them. Although it probably doesn't come as a big surprise that I obvously consider you as an accomplished organist; although as you can imagine, listening intently to your recordings, Classic/Walker didn't come out quite as favourably.
Although the general voicing and tuning of the organ seemed to be acceptable, the thing that struck me, was the voicing-attack. I can't presume to know whether this is merely an anomally of the recording; or whether it has to do with a deficit on the part of the installer/voicer.
While I'm really reluctant to get involved in this kind of issue, my perception of the voicing-attack in particular, seems to be exaggerated, unatural, artificial, unrealistic and contrived. ??
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FelixLowe
New member
Personally, I do think the organ should have a swell shoe to be used mostly for solo performances. To support congregation singing, it is OK, too, if the organ is very big and capable of producing audible dynamics control even to the singning congregation. For the Kleuker in Causeway Bay, the application of the swell during congregational singing was superfluous -- no audible differences were heard with the shutting and opening of the swell. Or perhaps, the organist did not apply the stops in a way that made the swell to be sufficiently functional. Below is an article by Stephen Bicknell about whether the organ is an expressive instrument or not.
Expression and the Organ
by Stephen Bicknell
"The monster never breathes!"
Berlioz's anguished cry of despair at the inadequacy of the organ echoes down the ages and stands as a permanent rebuke to those of us foolish enough to absorb ourselves in working alongside this most unforgiving and unexpressive musical instrument.
Or could he have been wrong?
The problem of whether or not the organ is an expressive instrument is one that puzzles me continuously, not least because it is a subject on which almost everyone holds a decided opinion. An extreme neo-classicist might hold one rather determined view: that the organ is not expressive and nor should it be; that registrations are to be set in advance and left well alone; that rubato and phrasing are romantic indulgences and should be replaced by varieties of attack and release; that emotion is undesirable but articulation is an end in itself. On the other hand another kind of organist believes that there is an answer to artistic expression in organ playing: for him it lies in the confident and stylish manipulation of colour. For him, playing the notes is a technical skill that can be mastered through study and practice, but artistry is defined by the management of the swell pedals, the control of the stops via buttons between the keys, and the setting up of the memories for the combination action and sequencer.
My description of these polarised views is a caricature, but readers will grasp my point.
The alleged problem of the organ - its apparent lack of expression - was remarked on long before the romantic or orchestral ways of playing took hold. The English organ builder Renatus Harris, who seems to have been one of those involved in the development of early swell mechanisms, proposed in 1712 a new west end organ for St. Paul's Cathedral. Its sixth (sic!) manual was to be "adapted for the emitting of Sounds to express Passion by swelling any Note, as if inspir'd by Human Breath; which is the greatest Improvement an Organ is capable of, except it had Articulation. On this set of Keys, the Notes will be loud or soft, by swelling on a long Note or Shake, at the Organist's Pleasure. Sounds will come surprizing and harmoniously, as from the Clouds, or distant Parts, pass, and return again, as quick or slow as Fancy can suggest; and be in Tune in all degrees of Loudness & Softness." [Renatus Harris, pamphlet of c1712, sole copy in library of St. Paul's Cathedral, reprinted in The Spectator for 3rd December 1712]
A generation later a prominent London organist and composer returned to the same theme in the introduction to his twenty-four 'Select Pieces for the Organ' explaining that in writing for the organ
"... the most artful parts of Composition should be employed, especially when it is considered that we have no Articulation, as in Choral Music, to mark and give strength to the subjects; nor the assistance of different species of Voices, to distinguish them in their places of Acute and Grave; and, above all, that we are destitute of Poetical Sentiment, which stamps a character so truly animating on the subjects of the Chorus." [John Keeble, introduction to the first set of 'Select Pieces for the Organ', London 1778]
It is in this period that we see the first evidence of mechanical expression appear in the scores of organ music. Once the Swell Organ had made its first appearance at St. Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge, in 1712, it became an essential part of every new organ and rebuild thereafter. By 1752, the hairpin marks for crescendo and diminuendo could be found in organ music for the first time. [William Walond, Six Voluntaries Opus 1, London 1752]. Thereafter they disappear again, later composers (such as Keeble himself) being content to indicate 'Swell' in the rubric and leave expression to the performer.
This is an interesting place and period to enquire after expression in organ playing because the English organ of the eighteenth century (a modest instrument usually of three manuals but with no pedals) was heard in church, in concerts and in wealthy houses as a solo or concert instrument, and its reputation in the British Isles was on terms that the harpsichord enjoyed elsewhere. In its typical setting - a parish church built new in the classical style or the assembly rooms of a large provincial city - an organ be heard clearly and without the disguise of a generous acoustic. Every detail that a good player could bring to bear on his interpretation, either in the performance of composed music or in the ever-popular improvised 'voluntaries', would be conveyed with the utmost clarity to the listeners.
And, if we explore this period in detail, it suddenly becomes clear that expression is readily evident in the text of organ music long before the introduction of the swell box. Take the organ pieces of Purcell's teacher, John Blow, which survive in a handful of manuscripts. Blow and his contemporaries were influenced from several directions: by the locally composed fantasias for viol consort (the main means of hearing serious compositions during the Civil War), by new French styles which came into fashion with the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1661, and perhaps most importantly of all by the circulation and copying of music by the masters of the age. In this later category two names stand out as being known to most keyboard players in England and found repeatedly in collections and manuscripts of the late 17th century - Frescobaldi and Froberger. Froberger is supposed to have visited London, where he was kicked out of the loft at the Queen's Private Chapel by Matthew Locke for not remembering to pump the organ, and where at some point Blow wrote out his own copy of some of Froberger's pieces, adorned with a characteristic flurry of English-style shakes, beats, forefalls, backfalls and other ornaments.
Two things emerge from an acquaintance with the activities of the great Dr. Blow.
First, his own organ music repeatedly demonstrates an ability to generate changes in mood during the course of a piece by changes in the texture. In Blow's counterpoint voice-leading is informal; parts appear and disappear as required and formal consistency is not the aim. But when Blow decides he wishes to convey a sense of crescendo or build towards a florid climax, he does so with effortless panache. A piece that starts with solemn imitation will gradually add rhythmic and harmonic intensity, gain additional subsidiary themes, and then finally break out into an exuberant display of florid passage work. There are other composers of the period who can do the same kind of thing; Blow is not unique in this ability: but his swings of tempo and mood are engineered simply, effectively, very smoothly, and are readily apparent to the player and listener as being part of the construction of the music.
Secondly, in leaving us his own private performing edition of keyboard music by Froberger, Blow may be indicating a set of truths about performance in his time that may (even after two generations of early music revival) not yet be fully appreciated. By adding his own set of ornaments, Blow indicates that we may play the music of one performer in the style of another. And, by suggesting this immense degree of potential freedom, he invites us to ask ourselves again what made Froberger himself such a very famous performer, and what 'secret' he might have applied to the performance of his own works that would have made his rather austere counterpoint come fully to life and amaze his listeners. Froberger himself is supposed to have said to an enquirer, who asked 'how' his pieces should be played, that the method could not possibly be described, but given a lifetime of study it could, perhaps, be demonstrated.
My own personal - and purely imaginary view - is that a first class keyboard player like Froberger, who had absorbed in a short life of intense travel the traditions and compositions of Germany, Italy, France and England and who had sat with Samuel Scheidt, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Louis Couperin and Matthew Locke, would have been fully aware of any number of different ways of playing, some of them as far removed from the written notation as jazz, gospel, ragtime - or indeed French Classical.
Modern interpreters, particularly organists, are inclined to view the ornaments and inégalités suggested by the old French tutors as a prescription by means of which a 'correct' way of performing can be followed. That was absolutely not the intention of the authors. They sought to explain that all good performance, especially on the keyboard - where there is neither breathing nor tonguing nor bowing nor dynamic change to enliven the notes - depends on the extensive development of a sense of style, and that this could most readily be achieved by the addition of ornaments and by the subtle alteration of written note values. The various indications they give of how these note values may be altered are suggestions for the learner. We should not regard them as a fixed rubric, but rather as a rough indication of the kinds of methods that may be applied, in their full variety, in performances of different kinds.
Returning to the organ music of Blow, we can see how the various manuscripts, some in different hands, indicate variation in ornamentation and in rhythmic interpretation. Where the same piece exists in two or three different manuscripts, the differences from one 'performance' to another can be substantial. And who knows to what extent the manuscripts actually reflect the full working out in practice of the basic musical notation. Take, for example, the very well known 'voluntary' in G by Blow's pupil Purcell [Z720]: could the ornamentation and passagework that adorn the slow shifting of bars 3-5 not also be applied freely by the player to the relatively blank bars 12-22? Surely the ornaments in the manuscript are not a prescription, but a series of approximate indications: the performer who used this copy would have noted the things he needed to remember, but would have left unmarked those passages where the treatment was, to him, completely obvious.
The more I explore organ music from the age before 'expression' was part of the mechanism of the instrument, the more I realise that expression by extensive rhythmic variation was not present only in the codified and formal suggestions of the French masters, but is widely implied in the manuscripts and publications of many composers from many places and periods.
Bach may be adept at notating various different styles of keyboard playing through precision in notation, for example taking the trouble to write out a fully ornamented Italian-style slow movement in his 'Italian Concerto' - but might another way of publishing the same movement not have been to present the performer simply with a row of chords?
In London, the keyboard composers struggled variously with similar problems. We know that there was a local school of improvisation on the organ, but what form might it have taken? Surely, when James Nares writes out his extraordinary florid 'Introduction' in A minor to his Fugue no.5 [James Nares: Six Fugues with Introductory Voluntaries, London 1772] he is demonstrating what might be normal. Surely, when Keeble writes an introduction to Select Piece no XIX [London 1780] with no key signature, three tempi and two time signatures, he is presenting us with something relatively commonplace, however surprising it may appear at first glance. And Arne, most usefully of all, prefaces the Prelude to his Sonata III for harpsichord with the following revealing remark:
"In this and other preludes, which are meant as Extempore touches before the Lesson begins, neither the Composer nor Perfomer are oblig'd to a strictness of Time" [Thomas Arne, 'VIII Sonatas or Lessons for the Harpsichord' London 1756]
Today's performers on the organ have become utterly hidebound by an imagined need to maintain 'strictness of time' in much pre-romantic music. The notion of the pulse or 'tactus' has been allowed to obscure and reduce the other evidence. The longing to move away from the long sweeping rubati of nineteenth century romanticism has led to the annihilation of rhythmic expression in the playing of earlier repertoire - and occasionally all repertoire. The score and its notation is the Holy Grail. If a note is shown with a single dot, then that is how it shall be played, unless a specific reference to a specific relevant contemporary source suggests that the note value be altered by a specific amount. This is not perfomance, it is arid sterility, to which no good musician of any age has subscribed.
Much early organ music remains under a cloud. When I told one fine organist friend that I was becoming interested in the music of Froberger, he retorted "but it's all sooooo boring!" ... and returned to his Hollins and Lemare and to Best's arrangements of Handel. (I would have treated his comment with more charity if his favourites had been Franck and Brahms) I have to admit that in most performances the toccatas, canzonas and ricercars of Froberger are, indeed, boring. Need it really be so? Sometimes I wonder if there are any modern 'performers' of these works: it seems they are still merely being 'played'. Listening to Gustav Leonhardt one has an impression of what may one day happen to interpretations of some of the early masters: his extraordinarily buoyant and imaginative renderings of later French harpsichord music are a clue, and I have twice heard him visit London and give a breath-taking account of one of Blow's finer organ pieces, almost a reprimand to the local organists who do not play them at all.
If this disease is identifiable and can be said to have afflicted especially the performance of early keyboard music, then I do also want to point out that a similar dark cloud has fallen over the performance of later and much more familiar repertoire. For those who enjoy music of the nineteenth century - and I am quite happy to enjoy Mendelssohn, Franck, Brahms, Schumann and Liszt quite as much as I enjoy Froberger, Couperin and Bach - the question of expression in playing is every bit as lively and interesting. Surely, from the point of view of the organist, we now enter a period where varied and stimulating changes in colour are possible, where the vision of the organ imitating the orchestra comes into play: surely expression can be handled in the later repertoire through registration and dynamics? It must be remembered, however, that one system of 'expression' was not exchanged for another, however much the new system might have dominated or obscured the old.
One cannot deny the importance of new organ technologies in lending special character to individual works. Some effects are simple to the point of naivety, such as the clankingly obvious stop-change under a single held note in Franck's third Choral. Others present the player with quasi-orchestral demands far beyond the mechanisms available at the time, as in the Elgar Sonata (which Elgar surely wrote as a symphonic exercise, even if he contented himself the organist's four limbs). Other works, such as the Schumann Sketches and Canons, may simply ask questions without offering straight answers.
In all these pieces and many others it may be possible for the player to make his performance expressive by changing the stops or using the swell pedals, But that is not the only means by which organ music is made expressive, and organists are in grave peril if they believe that a truly expressive musical performance can be achieved without the primary attention being focussed on the notes and their timing.
If we look at piano music, it is at once apparent that no matter how much the action of the modern piano developed, and its ability for dynamic control increased, rhythmic nuance was still the cornerstone of effective interpretation and expression for the Romantic age and can clearly be shown to be vital to many important works.
Let us start with an experiment, taking the unusually simple and static three Gnossiennes of Erik Satie as a test. Written in 1890, each of these similar short piano pieces is printed without bar lines, but with a clearly defined metrical pattern identified by a bass line of whole notes enlivened by left hand chords on the second and fourth beats of the imaginary 'bar'. Over this ostinato, whose pattern is identical in all three pieces, the right hand plays mournful and repetitive quasi-modal melodies. There is no development whatever. The normal romantic structures of form and dynamic interest have been deleted entirely, leaving a deliberately monotonous 'moto perpetuo' that sounds as though it might have started long before we first arrived and may still be continuing in a locked corner of a Parisian garret to this day. The only clues to interpretation are a handful of dynamic markings and some sublimely inconsequential instructions to the player: 'avec etonnement' (with astonishment), 'très perdu' (very lost), 'munissez-vous de clairvoyance' (arm yourself with clairvoyance).
And yet these strangely static and minimalist works have a resounding emotional impact and are among a handful of little pieces that seem somehow to be known to the man on the street (along with the yet more hackneyed Gymnopédies). Getting that impact across as a performer requires that you work in opposition to the rhythmic notation, applying not only everything a romantic teacher could tell you about phrasing, rubato, dynamics and shading, but also introducing a degree of variety of utterance in each repetition of the dull little melody - a species of variety that would surely have been recognisable to a clavéciniste a century and a half before.
In the first Gnossienne, the three melodies are repeated four times each. It could be a profoundly wearing experience. But a sensitive player will make each recurrence of the plaintive theme different from the one before, as if responding to the childish instructions in the rubric (one time 'astonished', then later 'clairvoyant'). Some of these alterations will adjust the phrasing through dynamics and accent, devices possible on the piano but not on the unexpressive organ. But the most telling of the alterations will be achieved through changes in rhythm, the still-common thread of expression on any keyboard instrument.
Other 'moto perpetuo' pieces can be used to make the same point. The extremely sea-sick-making 'Barcarolle' of Alkan [Trente Chants Op.65 No.6, 1861] has an ostinato bass of sixteenth-note waves in 6/8 time. The ambiguous harmonies are relieved and marked out with conventional marks of phrasing and accent and these give most of the clues to interpretation. But, being a Barcarolle, there is also a subsidiary rhythmic accent on the second and fifth beats of the bar. It is almost impossible to play the piece without an occasional rhythmic lingering on these off-beats and, as you get to know the work and play it often, so the degree of rhythmic variety you can subtly insert into this pattern gives an emotional intensity entirely missing in a composition lacking significant development or narrative thread.
Going back a little further into the nineteenth century, I think one can see the same fundamental need to be alert to constantly shifting patterns of rhythmic nuance in the more colourful (and therefore more typical of their period) Schubert Impromptus [first set Op.90 (D899) publ 1827]. These works belong to the period of the early romantic piano, an instrument capable of infinite dynamic shading and much in the way of singing beauty, but entirely lacking the thickness of tone and fantastic range of power that became available by 1870. Schubert uses the then modern instrument to its full potential, but at the same time he subdivides his music in order to allow major changes in dynamics and colour - the 'registration' as we organists would say - to have its proper rhetorical effect. However, in addition to these and many other conventional techniques, he leaves us with some wonderfully powerful indications of how important the interpretation of rhythmic patterns can be to the successful performance of apparently simple music.
For example, the theme of the first impromptu opens with a dotted pair of notes. During the remainder of the piece this pattern is developed extensively, sometimes through direct means, and sometimes transformed slightly by being set alongside patterns of triplets. At every reiteration the context, texture and rhythmic emphasis of the theme is altered slightly. Sometimes the gestures by which Schubert affects the change are incredibly subtle, an additional note here or a tiny slur there. One has to be alert for each and every detail. Less good players of this first Impromptu get bogged down in trying to decide how to treat the apparent ambiguity. Given that Schubert shifts into triplets in the middle of the piece, does that mean that he requires the dotted figure to be played in triplet rhythm throughout?
Of course not. The full expression locked up in this wonderful work can only be fully explored by varying the rhythm of the principal theme according to its position and context. Sometimes the triplet rhythm is obvious enough; at other times a four-square dotted rhythm is called for; sometimes one might want to land in between, leaving the result full of poetic ambiguity; on other occasions one might want to slip into the area between dotting and double-dotting, just for a special effect. Once it is fully understood that this tiny two-note figure and its rhythm are the germ to an understanding of how to express the entire piece, it then becomes far easier to marshal the conventional forces of rubato and rhythmic phrasing to enliven the entire work and to give it the sense of narrative without which the rhetoric of development will lie unnoticed.
How are these techniques applied when playing the organ?
The first piece I learned to play on the organ is one familiar to most organists, the Berceuse by Vierne [24 Pièces en Style Libre, No.19]. In performance, the expressive object of the piece is not actually to make the listener fall asleep, but to convey an atmosphere of gently child-like 'sleepy-time'. The theme is developed via a series of dream-like enharmonic shifts. There is registration indicated in the score, but changes need to be effected with subtlety if the piece is to hang together. On most English and American romantic organs the instruction to use the 'G.' or Great Organ will be ignored, and much of the activity will take place on the Swell and Choir organs. The phrasing is marked, mostly dividing the music into two-bar sections - simple enough.
But, as my organ teacher pointed out to me, the phrasing does actually have to be observed if the piece is to live, and in order to make the phrases apparent the fingers have to be lifted from the keys to give a tiny breath between one phrase and the next. In order to make that breath, extra time has to be put in, for neither the last note of the preceding phrase nor the first note of the following phrase will survive being shortened. Thus the tempo becomes fluid and irregular. It takes only a moment to realise that each two-bar unit subdivides further into subsidiary 'phraselets' of one bar, where another tiny hiccup may appear and that, one layer even further down, the patterns of eighth-notes in the melody are so very pretty if they are played in accented pairs.
Inégalité never died.
Before neo-classicism took organ playing in its icy grip, one could still hear occasional masterful performances of the old school. I have one such, an old LP of René Saorgin playing the Franck Pièce Héroique on the organ at St. Sernin, Toulouse sometime in the 1960s (the disc was issued in 1968). You know from the very start that Saorgin has expression under his belt, for the first of the opening chords in the right hand is delivered with weight, and then there is a tiny accelerando to bring the listener up to speed and into rhythm before the irregular theme appears in the bass. The rest of the account is equally compelling, right down to the long sequence of final chords - usually crashingly dull - where Saorgin actually manages to build tension through the inauspicious final passage by deleting tiny amounts out of each of the long rests.
There have always been one or two players who seem to have grasped this kind of elegant musical expression as if by instinct. Another favourite LP of mine is a rare old recording of the least altered of all the remaining organs by Father Willis, at St. Dominic's Priory, Haverstock Hill in north London. The performances date from August 1978, and include renderings of Schumann's four sketches, opus 58. The sleeve notes correctly observe that the pieces were composed in Dresden in 1846, when Schumann was fascinated with the music of Bach and the possibilities of counterpoint. The organ, which I know well, is nearly a semitone sharp, has Barker Lever action to the Great, pneumatic to the Pedal and is otherwise all-mechanical. Though there are composition pedals and a Great to Pedal reverser, there are no pistons. There is a balanced Swell-pedal - a later addition - but perversely the only undulating strings are on the unenclosed Choir Organ.
To continue reading, click here: http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/FS/sb.html
Expression and the Organ
by Stephen Bicknell
"The monster never breathes!"
Berlioz's anguished cry of despair at the inadequacy of the organ echoes down the ages and stands as a permanent rebuke to those of us foolish enough to absorb ourselves in working alongside this most unforgiving and unexpressive musical instrument.
Or could he have been wrong?
The problem of whether or not the organ is an expressive instrument is one that puzzles me continuously, not least because it is a subject on which almost everyone holds a decided opinion. An extreme neo-classicist might hold one rather determined view: that the organ is not expressive and nor should it be; that registrations are to be set in advance and left well alone; that rubato and phrasing are romantic indulgences and should be replaced by varieties of attack and release; that emotion is undesirable but articulation is an end in itself. On the other hand another kind of organist believes that there is an answer to artistic expression in organ playing: for him it lies in the confident and stylish manipulation of colour. For him, playing the notes is a technical skill that can be mastered through study and practice, but artistry is defined by the management of the swell pedals, the control of the stops via buttons between the keys, and the setting up of the memories for the combination action and sequencer.
My description of these polarised views is a caricature, but readers will grasp my point.
The alleged problem of the organ - its apparent lack of expression - was remarked on long before the romantic or orchestral ways of playing took hold. The English organ builder Renatus Harris, who seems to have been one of those involved in the development of early swell mechanisms, proposed in 1712 a new west end organ for St. Paul's Cathedral. Its sixth (sic!) manual was to be "adapted for the emitting of Sounds to express Passion by swelling any Note, as if inspir'd by Human Breath; which is the greatest Improvement an Organ is capable of, except it had Articulation. On this set of Keys, the Notes will be loud or soft, by swelling on a long Note or Shake, at the Organist's Pleasure. Sounds will come surprizing and harmoniously, as from the Clouds, or distant Parts, pass, and return again, as quick or slow as Fancy can suggest; and be in Tune in all degrees of Loudness & Softness." [Renatus Harris, pamphlet of c1712, sole copy in library of St. Paul's Cathedral, reprinted in The Spectator for 3rd December 1712]
A generation later a prominent London organist and composer returned to the same theme in the introduction to his twenty-four 'Select Pieces for the Organ' explaining that in writing for the organ
"... the most artful parts of Composition should be employed, especially when it is considered that we have no Articulation, as in Choral Music, to mark and give strength to the subjects; nor the assistance of different species of Voices, to distinguish them in their places of Acute and Grave; and, above all, that we are destitute of Poetical Sentiment, which stamps a character so truly animating on the subjects of the Chorus." [John Keeble, introduction to the first set of 'Select Pieces for the Organ', London 1778]
It is in this period that we see the first evidence of mechanical expression appear in the scores of organ music. Once the Swell Organ had made its first appearance at St. Magnus the Martyr, London Bridge, in 1712, it became an essential part of every new organ and rebuild thereafter. By 1752, the hairpin marks for crescendo and diminuendo could be found in organ music for the first time. [William Walond, Six Voluntaries Opus 1, London 1752]. Thereafter they disappear again, later composers (such as Keeble himself) being content to indicate 'Swell' in the rubric and leave expression to the performer.
This is an interesting place and period to enquire after expression in organ playing because the English organ of the eighteenth century (a modest instrument usually of three manuals but with no pedals) was heard in church, in concerts and in wealthy houses as a solo or concert instrument, and its reputation in the British Isles was on terms that the harpsichord enjoyed elsewhere. In its typical setting - a parish church built new in the classical style or the assembly rooms of a large provincial city - an organ be heard clearly and without the disguise of a generous acoustic. Every detail that a good player could bring to bear on his interpretation, either in the performance of composed music or in the ever-popular improvised 'voluntaries', would be conveyed with the utmost clarity to the listeners.
And, if we explore this period in detail, it suddenly becomes clear that expression is readily evident in the text of organ music long before the introduction of the swell box. Take the organ pieces of Purcell's teacher, John Blow, which survive in a handful of manuscripts. Blow and his contemporaries were influenced from several directions: by the locally composed fantasias for viol consort (the main means of hearing serious compositions during the Civil War), by new French styles which came into fashion with the Restoration of the Monarchy in 1661, and perhaps most importantly of all by the circulation and copying of music by the masters of the age. In this later category two names stand out as being known to most keyboard players in England and found repeatedly in collections and manuscripts of the late 17th century - Frescobaldi and Froberger. Froberger is supposed to have visited London, where he was kicked out of the loft at the Queen's Private Chapel by Matthew Locke for not remembering to pump the organ, and where at some point Blow wrote out his own copy of some of Froberger's pieces, adorned with a characteristic flurry of English-style shakes, beats, forefalls, backfalls and other ornaments.
Two things emerge from an acquaintance with the activities of the great Dr. Blow.
First, his own organ music repeatedly demonstrates an ability to generate changes in mood during the course of a piece by changes in the texture. In Blow's counterpoint voice-leading is informal; parts appear and disappear as required and formal consistency is not the aim. But when Blow decides he wishes to convey a sense of crescendo or build towards a florid climax, he does so with effortless panache. A piece that starts with solemn imitation will gradually add rhythmic and harmonic intensity, gain additional subsidiary themes, and then finally break out into an exuberant display of florid passage work. There are other composers of the period who can do the same kind of thing; Blow is not unique in this ability: but his swings of tempo and mood are engineered simply, effectively, very smoothly, and are readily apparent to the player and listener as being part of the construction of the music.
Secondly, in leaving us his own private performing edition of keyboard music by Froberger, Blow may be indicating a set of truths about performance in his time that may (even after two generations of early music revival) not yet be fully appreciated. By adding his own set of ornaments, Blow indicates that we may play the music of one performer in the style of another. And, by suggesting this immense degree of potential freedom, he invites us to ask ourselves again what made Froberger himself such a very famous performer, and what 'secret' he might have applied to the performance of his own works that would have made his rather austere counterpoint come fully to life and amaze his listeners. Froberger himself is supposed to have said to an enquirer, who asked 'how' his pieces should be played, that the method could not possibly be described, but given a lifetime of study it could, perhaps, be demonstrated.
My own personal - and purely imaginary view - is that a first class keyboard player like Froberger, who had absorbed in a short life of intense travel the traditions and compositions of Germany, Italy, France and England and who had sat with Samuel Scheidt, Girolamo Frescobaldi, Louis Couperin and Matthew Locke, would have been fully aware of any number of different ways of playing, some of them as far removed from the written notation as jazz, gospel, ragtime - or indeed French Classical.
Modern interpreters, particularly organists, are inclined to view the ornaments and inégalités suggested by the old French tutors as a prescription by means of which a 'correct' way of performing can be followed. That was absolutely not the intention of the authors. They sought to explain that all good performance, especially on the keyboard - where there is neither breathing nor tonguing nor bowing nor dynamic change to enliven the notes - depends on the extensive development of a sense of style, and that this could most readily be achieved by the addition of ornaments and by the subtle alteration of written note values. The various indications they give of how these note values may be altered are suggestions for the learner. We should not regard them as a fixed rubric, but rather as a rough indication of the kinds of methods that may be applied, in their full variety, in performances of different kinds.
Returning to the organ music of Blow, we can see how the various manuscripts, some in different hands, indicate variation in ornamentation and in rhythmic interpretation. Where the same piece exists in two or three different manuscripts, the differences from one 'performance' to another can be substantial. And who knows to what extent the manuscripts actually reflect the full working out in practice of the basic musical notation. Take, for example, the very well known 'voluntary' in G by Blow's pupil Purcell [Z720]: could the ornamentation and passagework that adorn the slow shifting of bars 3-5 not also be applied freely by the player to the relatively blank bars 12-22? Surely the ornaments in the manuscript are not a prescription, but a series of approximate indications: the performer who used this copy would have noted the things he needed to remember, but would have left unmarked those passages where the treatment was, to him, completely obvious.
The more I explore organ music from the age before 'expression' was part of the mechanism of the instrument, the more I realise that expression by extensive rhythmic variation was not present only in the codified and formal suggestions of the French masters, but is widely implied in the manuscripts and publications of many composers from many places and periods.
Bach may be adept at notating various different styles of keyboard playing through precision in notation, for example taking the trouble to write out a fully ornamented Italian-style slow movement in his 'Italian Concerto' - but might another way of publishing the same movement not have been to present the performer simply with a row of chords?
In London, the keyboard composers struggled variously with similar problems. We know that there was a local school of improvisation on the organ, but what form might it have taken? Surely, when James Nares writes out his extraordinary florid 'Introduction' in A minor to his Fugue no.5 [James Nares: Six Fugues with Introductory Voluntaries, London 1772] he is demonstrating what might be normal. Surely, when Keeble writes an introduction to Select Piece no XIX [London 1780] with no key signature, three tempi and two time signatures, he is presenting us with something relatively commonplace, however surprising it may appear at first glance. And Arne, most usefully of all, prefaces the Prelude to his Sonata III for harpsichord with the following revealing remark:
"In this and other preludes, which are meant as Extempore touches before the Lesson begins, neither the Composer nor Perfomer are oblig'd to a strictness of Time" [Thomas Arne, 'VIII Sonatas or Lessons for the Harpsichord' London 1756]
Today's performers on the organ have become utterly hidebound by an imagined need to maintain 'strictness of time' in much pre-romantic music. The notion of the pulse or 'tactus' has been allowed to obscure and reduce the other evidence. The longing to move away from the long sweeping rubati of nineteenth century romanticism has led to the annihilation of rhythmic expression in the playing of earlier repertoire - and occasionally all repertoire. The score and its notation is the Holy Grail. If a note is shown with a single dot, then that is how it shall be played, unless a specific reference to a specific relevant contemporary source suggests that the note value be altered by a specific amount. This is not perfomance, it is arid sterility, to which no good musician of any age has subscribed.
Much early organ music remains under a cloud. When I told one fine organist friend that I was becoming interested in the music of Froberger, he retorted "but it's all sooooo boring!" ... and returned to his Hollins and Lemare and to Best's arrangements of Handel. (I would have treated his comment with more charity if his favourites had been Franck and Brahms) I have to admit that in most performances the toccatas, canzonas and ricercars of Froberger are, indeed, boring. Need it really be so? Sometimes I wonder if there are any modern 'performers' of these works: it seems they are still merely being 'played'. Listening to Gustav Leonhardt one has an impression of what may one day happen to interpretations of some of the early masters: his extraordinarily buoyant and imaginative renderings of later French harpsichord music are a clue, and I have twice heard him visit London and give a breath-taking account of one of Blow's finer organ pieces, almost a reprimand to the local organists who do not play them at all.
If this disease is identifiable and can be said to have afflicted especially the performance of early keyboard music, then I do also want to point out that a similar dark cloud has fallen over the performance of later and much more familiar repertoire. For those who enjoy music of the nineteenth century - and I am quite happy to enjoy Mendelssohn, Franck, Brahms, Schumann and Liszt quite as much as I enjoy Froberger, Couperin and Bach - the question of expression in playing is every bit as lively and interesting. Surely, from the point of view of the organist, we now enter a period where varied and stimulating changes in colour are possible, where the vision of the organ imitating the orchestra comes into play: surely expression can be handled in the later repertoire through registration and dynamics? It must be remembered, however, that one system of 'expression' was not exchanged for another, however much the new system might have dominated or obscured the old.
One cannot deny the importance of new organ technologies in lending special character to individual works. Some effects are simple to the point of naivety, such as the clankingly obvious stop-change under a single held note in Franck's third Choral. Others present the player with quasi-orchestral demands far beyond the mechanisms available at the time, as in the Elgar Sonata (which Elgar surely wrote as a symphonic exercise, even if he contented himself the organist's four limbs). Other works, such as the Schumann Sketches and Canons, may simply ask questions without offering straight answers.
In all these pieces and many others it may be possible for the player to make his performance expressive by changing the stops or using the swell pedals, But that is not the only means by which organ music is made expressive, and organists are in grave peril if they believe that a truly expressive musical performance can be achieved without the primary attention being focussed on the notes and their timing.
If we look at piano music, it is at once apparent that no matter how much the action of the modern piano developed, and its ability for dynamic control increased, rhythmic nuance was still the cornerstone of effective interpretation and expression for the Romantic age and can clearly be shown to be vital to many important works.
Let us start with an experiment, taking the unusually simple and static three Gnossiennes of Erik Satie as a test. Written in 1890, each of these similar short piano pieces is printed without bar lines, but with a clearly defined metrical pattern identified by a bass line of whole notes enlivened by left hand chords on the second and fourth beats of the imaginary 'bar'. Over this ostinato, whose pattern is identical in all three pieces, the right hand plays mournful and repetitive quasi-modal melodies. There is no development whatever. The normal romantic structures of form and dynamic interest have been deleted entirely, leaving a deliberately monotonous 'moto perpetuo' that sounds as though it might have started long before we first arrived and may still be continuing in a locked corner of a Parisian garret to this day. The only clues to interpretation are a handful of dynamic markings and some sublimely inconsequential instructions to the player: 'avec etonnement' (with astonishment), 'très perdu' (very lost), 'munissez-vous de clairvoyance' (arm yourself with clairvoyance).
And yet these strangely static and minimalist works have a resounding emotional impact and are among a handful of little pieces that seem somehow to be known to the man on the street (along with the yet more hackneyed Gymnopédies). Getting that impact across as a performer requires that you work in opposition to the rhythmic notation, applying not only everything a romantic teacher could tell you about phrasing, rubato, dynamics and shading, but also introducing a degree of variety of utterance in each repetition of the dull little melody - a species of variety that would surely have been recognisable to a clavéciniste a century and a half before.
In the first Gnossienne, the three melodies are repeated four times each. It could be a profoundly wearing experience. But a sensitive player will make each recurrence of the plaintive theme different from the one before, as if responding to the childish instructions in the rubric (one time 'astonished', then later 'clairvoyant'). Some of these alterations will adjust the phrasing through dynamics and accent, devices possible on the piano but not on the unexpressive organ. But the most telling of the alterations will be achieved through changes in rhythm, the still-common thread of expression on any keyboard instrument.
Other 'moto perpetuo' pieces can be used to make the same point. The extremely sea-sick-making 'Barcarolle' of Alkan [Trente Chants Op.65 No.6, 1861] has an ostinato bass of sixteenth-note waves in 6/8 time. The ambiguous harmonies are relieved and marked out with conventional marks of phrasing and accent and these give most of the clues to interpretation. But, being a Barcarolle, there is also a subsidiary rhythmic accent on the second and fifth beats of the bar. It is almost impossible to play the piece without an occasional rhythmic lingering on these off-beats and, as you get to know the work and play it often, so the degree of rhythmic variety you can subtly insert into this pattern gives an emotional intensity entirely missing in a composition lacking significant development or narrative thread.
Going back a little further into the nineteenth century, I think one can see the same fundamental need to be alert to constantly shifting patterns of rhythmic nuance in the more colourful (and therefore more typical of their period) Schubert Impromptus [first set Op.90 (D899) publ 1827]. These works belong to the period of the early romantic piano, an instrument capable of infinite dynamic shading and much in the way of singing beauty, but entirely lacking the thickness of tone and fantastic range of power that became available by 1870. Schubert uses the then modern instrument to its full potential, but at the same time he subdivides his music in order to allow major changes in dynamics and colour - the 'registration' as we organists would say - to have its proper rhetorical effect. However, in addition to these and many other conventional techniques, he leaves us with some wonderfully powerful indications of how important the interpretation of rhythmic patterns can be to the successful performance of apparently simple music.
For example, the theme of the first impromptu opens with a dotted pair of notes. During the remainder of the piece this pattern is developed extensively, sometimes through direct means, and sometimes transformed slightly by being set alongside patterns of triplets. At every reiteration the context, texture and rhythmic emphasis of the theme is altered slightly. Sometimes the gestures by which Schubert affects the change are incredibly subtle, an additional note here or a tiny slur there. One has to be alert for each and every detail. Less good players of this first Impromptu get bogged down in trying to decide how to treat the apparent ambiguity. Given that Schubert shifts into triplets in the middle of the piece, does that mean that he requires the dotted figure to be played in triplet rhythm throughout?
Of course not. The full expression locked up in this wonderful work can only be fully explored by varying the rhythm of the principal theme according to its position and context. Sometimes the triplet rhythm is obvious enough; at other times a four-square dotted rhythm is called for; sometimes one might want to land in between, leaving the result full of poetic ambiguity; on other occasions one might want to slip into the area between dotting and double-dotting, just for a special effect. Once it is fully understood that this tiny two-note figure and its rhythm are the germ to an understanding of how to express the entire piece, it then becomes far easier to marshal the conventional forces of rubato and rhythmic phrasing to enliven the entire work and to give it the sense of narrative without which the rhetoric of development will lie unnoticed.
How are these techniques applied when playing the organ?
The first piece I learned to play on the organ is one familiar to most organists, the Berceuse by Vierne [24 Pièces en Style Libre, No.19]. In performance, the expressive object of the piece is not actually to make the listener fall asleep, but to convey an atmosphere of gently child-like 'sleepy-time'. The theme is developed via a series of dream-like enharmonic shifts. There is registration indicated in the score, but changes need to be effected with subtlety if the piece is to hang together. On most English and American romantic organs the instruction to use the 'G.' or Great Organ will be ignored, and much of the activity will take place on the Swell and Choir organs. The phrasing is marked, mostly dividing the music into two-bar sections - simple enough.
But, as my organ teacher pointed out to me, the phrasing does actually have to be observed if the piece is to live, and in order to make the phrases apparent the fingers have to be lifted from the keys to give a tiny breath between one phrase and the next. In order to make that breath, extra time has to be put in, for neither the last note of the preceding phrase nor the first note of the following phrase will survive being shortened. Thus the tempo becomes fluid and irregular. It takes only a moment to realise that each two-bar unit subdivides further into subsidiary 'phraselets' of one bar, where another tiny hiccup may appear and that, one layer even further down, the patterns of eighth-notes in the melody are so very pretty if they are played in accented pairs.
Inégalité never died.
Before neo-classicism took organ playing in its icy grip, one could still hear occasional masterful performances of the old school. I have one such, an old LP of René Saorgin playing the Franck Pièce Héroique on the organ at St. Sernin, Toulouse sometime in the 1960s (the disc was issued in 1968). You know from the very start that Saorgin has expression under his belt, for the first of the opening chords in the right hand is delivered with weight, and then there is a tiny accelerando to bring the listener up to speed and into rhythm before the irregular theme appears in the bass. The rest of the account is equally compelling, right down to the long sequence of final chords - usually crashingly dull - where Saorgin actually manages to build tension through the inauspicious final passage by deleting tiny amounts out of each of the long rests.
There have always been one or two players who seem to have grasped this kind of elegant musical expression as if by instinct. Another favourite LP of mine is a rare old recording of the least altered of all the remaining organs by Father Willis, at St. Dominic's Priory, Haverstock Hill in north London. The performances date from August 1978, and include renderings of Schumann's four sketches, opus 58. The sleeve notes correctly observe that the pieces were composed in Dresden in 1846, when Schumann was fascinated with the music of Bach and the possibilities of counterpoint. The organ, which I know well, is nearly a semitone sharp, has Barker Lever action to the Great, pneumatic to the Pedal and is otherwise all-mechanical. Though there are composition pedals and a Great to Pedal reverser, there are no pistons. There is a balanced Swell-pedal - a later addition - but perversely the only undulating strings are on the unenclosed Choir Organ.
To continue reading, click here: http://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/FS/sb.html
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FelixLowe
New member
If performed over large Cathedral space, it should sound like this: http://www.silborg.net/vpr/bwv545_vpr.mp3. BWV 545 is expected to sound extremely overarching and pierce through the nave and transepts. The music freshly attached is a first-class rendition. Instrument: Gottfried Silbermann Organ, Reinhardtsgrimma / Sachsen, Germany (1731) - Samples by Prof. Helmut Maier
Stops on the right hand side of the organ.
And that's why at the organ loft, you often find industrial earmuffs for use by the one playing.
What appears to be screeching at the organ is only just right for the congregation in terms of clarity.
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FelixLowe
New member
If that's the case, so be it. Do we (between you and me) have any reasons for me to agree with you on all minute matters?
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FelixLowe
New member
Let's now turn to something quite different and hear this piece of gospel song "As the Deer Panteth for the Water" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9AmR6Ojrwc. This is performed Andre van Vliet on the Johannus Vivaldi 25. I don't know whether you will find yourself listening to an organ. To me, that's New Age music on a classical organ console. It sounds like the kind of music you will find in a documentary such as Journey on the Silk Road or something, where the camera pans to the sand dunes, and suddenly there you are -- a passage of tribal new age music starts fading in. Or your mind may dream off to some Kenny G highlights.
Nice and soothing, but to me it is not classical organ music at all. I hope the model provides for different voicing modes.
Nice and soothing, but to me it is not classical organ music at all. I hope the model provides for different voicing modes.
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FelixLowe
New member
The CEO of Johannus presents a new Johannus Vivaldi organ series. He describes his Vivaldi series of instruments as unsurpassed and "shaking up the organ world". He was also playing up the feature that his Vivaldis are also four-in-one organs. Watch Andre van Vliet play gallantly, as the CEO introduces his intruments: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfdquuV279g&feature=related.
Pretty tones. But I don't know what modes he had chosen to play the different songs. To me his organs are too refined in tonal quality -- so refined that perhaps the Baroque mode is also made to sound quite like the Romantic.
Pretty tones. But I don't know what modes he had chosen to play the different songs. To me his organs are too refined in tonal quality -- so refined that perhaps the Baroque mode is also made to sound quite like the Romantic.
LastCorpseStanding
New member
As I recall, there wasn't any real work done on the attack at all when they did the voicing. Probably what your hearing is the pure sample. I don't know how much processing, if any, was done to the attack in the original sample.
Actually, when I first started reading your post, I thought you were going to ask "What attack?". In all honesty, some of the stops seem to have none, they just sort of appear..
The organ, at times, may have sounded a bit heavy. Certainly it would compared to what your used to playing with the German spec. Part of that is the organ. There is a lot of channeling to the subwoofers, to the point that even the lowest octave of an 8' Prinicipal will have some of the frequency run through it. It gives the sound of a very full, much larger instrument. That being said, the recording isn't as bright as the real organ. The reeds have more bite to them, and the mixtures are more prominent.
I suspect there is very little massaging of the original samples. I'm reminded of the 16' reed on the swell. One of the pipes in the rank must not have spoken properly, and you can hear it on the sample. It almost sounds as if the reed 'scoops up' to the right pitch. I've also heard a few notes on a couple of the flutes that have a faint buzz to them.
Ultimately, I think the fault may actually lie in the choice of rank to sample.
P.S. If I had to do it again, for sure I wouldn't have the big Cornopean on the Great, I'd go for something a bit brighter.
Clarion
New member
No . . . it has a very definite attack; particularly most noticeable on the full fonds/mixture intro to How Brightly Shines . . .
Good stuff for a church organ basically, for hauling the congregation up to speed. :smirk: It just seemed a little prominent to my ears, and I was just wondering if they had cranked up the attack a bit.
I was just discussing this with Phoenix yesterday, with a view to do a bit of tweaking on a couple of the more prominent 16' pedal flue stops. Voicing of these stops is ever so finicky in a home organ installation where resonances and standing waves change with the landscape: Change the furniture . . . tweak the voicing. So with Christmas at the door, and people-intensive festivities beginning this weekend, I thought it might be a good idea to bring a couple of 16' flues up to snuff.
So . . .
Q. What to do with the subwoofers?
A. Leave the subwoofer crossover at 250hz; and then adjust the subwoofer level to eliminate any mid-bass boom; and only after that, go to the note-by-note stuff.
So basically, the subwoofers start around middle C, and then the objective is to provide seamless integration with the main speakers.
I really enjoyed the reed chorus demonstrated in Once in Royal David's . . . Doesn't get much better than that! :cheers: My wife must have liked it also. We share a computer room; and ever since I played your rendition of Once in Royal David's . . . she's been humming/singing it for the last half hour. :crazy: Considering that she has never been an organ fan; and attempting to launch the reed chorus when she is home, inevitably results in her approaching the organ, pressing her favourite button! :bawl:The distressing aspect of all of this is that she thinks your reed chorus is absolutely wonderful; and mine stinks!:bawl:
Yeah. No big deal. It's basically an artistic judgement call . . . whether to pursue inferior authenticitiy in favour of idealism. For sure, it is common practice to extrapolate a number of samples to fill in for less than wonderful neighbouring notes. Of course, the upper and lower notes of a 61 note rank are extrapolated to offer an extra half-octave or so on each end to the keyboard to service the transposer.
At least that aspect of voicing can be tweaked with little effort; or alternately, did your organ not come with a whole bunch of "hidden" optional/substitutional voices that could be invoked??
Since it's been few decades since I have dealt with Classic Organ; I am wondering if Classic, at the outset, provided you with not only the essential Voicing software, but Configuration software that provides you with the option of virtually remapping the function of each and every tab on the the entire organ!?? :clap: ??
And at the end of all of this, my wife is still humming Once in . . . . :lol:
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