Alsa
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Posts posted by Alsa
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I hope that the sour grapes issue is not pointed in my direction, because I am completely immune, with not the slightest interest in chomping at carrots, hurdling or short-lists.
MM
Excellent - Good for you!
So I just wonder why you need to make so much fuss about FRCOs, honorary or not, seeing that they mean nothing to you.
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The marmite of the organ world then !!
I accept that there are two valid views about PC. However, when you look at those organists in this country that devote time to keeping his memory alive through playing and transcribing his improvisations-David Briggs, Jeremy Fillsell, John Scott Whiteley-can they all be wrong? Certainly Filsell's excellent disc recorded at Liverpool Met left me wanting to hear more.
I agree with you on this - I find his improvisations more inspiring than perhaps those of his disciples. It's a pity that some think that this is the only way to improvise and do a very cheap imitation of PC.
However, I find his improvisatory skills when playing other people's music rather less satisfying.
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ARCO is an exam - a hurdle - a qualification - for any organist, and FRCO is one for those who aspire to be professional musicians, or aspire to be of the standard of professional musicians?
Sir Thomas Beecham had other thoughts on THAT particular aspiration!
Like any exam in the world, in the end it doesn't prove anything other than a level of perceived competency on the day of the things you were asked to do, but at least it does show you have some capability and potential.
So what is the point of all this listing?
You answered your own question.
Perhaps we are discussing the absuridty of institutionalised peer approval?MM
I detect sort of sour grapes issues here!
Beecham - always one with a quick and clever remark - few show any real depth - all covering an insecure person, on the run from his debtors...
You missed the point - it's not peer approval that many taking an RCO exam seek, it's ambition to do better and improve ones lot.
I for one find it very helpful to have the sort of skills that doing an RCO diploma or 2 made me develop. Without these exams I just wouldn't have got round to it.
Those who don't get round to taking the diploma perhaps don't need this carrot or indeed the leg up that an FRCO might give to get onto a shortlist.
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Cochereau is over hyped, with all that rolling around on the pedals for his improvisations and thoroughly distasteful registration, not least in his Dupre with cheezy bits at the end of the Symphonie Passion Nativite. Even worse when people even try to emulate that style
WHY!!! , and there are several contenders for that. I think his "version" of the Vierne Berceuse is actually almost good, but he did too little all in the same style much for too long, and it's sad to think that the current Organist of ND is not revered as much. It's like Mozart, kick the bucket and you're an icon.R
for once, I couldn't agree more
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Indeed, and Jane Parker-Smith is a non-FRCO (and a non-Hon FRCO)too..........
And Hon FRCOs are also held by
Andrew Lumsden
Barry Rose
Ian Tracey
Olivier Latry
Marie Claire Alain
amongst others
RCO exams ... it's a dead easy concept to grasp:
ARCO is an exam - a hurdle - a qualification - for any organist, and FRCO is one for those who aspire to be professional musicians, or aspire to be of the standard of professional musicians, presumably so that one has a level of qualification which makes it easier to get a good job, be it in a church or and educational establishment or to gain private pupils. That's why people take the exams. Why else would they take them?
Some in the list of Hon FRCOS didn't take the exam - didn't get round to it or didn't see the point - possibly some regret in some way not doing it, left it too late, became too distinguished to take the exam without a potential loss of face, but surely its good to have these people "on the inside pissing out" - after all some of them became President and gave their time freely to the college ...
... or are distinguished organists from overseas ... good to have them on the college books. What other way could British organists 'honour' these fantastic musicians?
Some tried but didn't manage it, however they more than later proved their worth so the college 'honoured' them with a diploma (always a reverse honour - i.e. they honour the College by accepting it)
... and Heath - well, he was Prime Minister so there was kudos for the college there - they would have been foolish not to acknowledge him. But none of these diminish the efforts of those who took the exam and passed.
Like any exam in the world, in the end it doesn't prove anything other than a level of perceived competency on the day of the things you were asked to do, but at least it does show you have some capability and potential.
So what is the point of all this listing?
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I shall have to listen to my recording of PC playing Dupré's Symphonie-Passion, since I cannot presently recall how he plays it. However, with regard to the recording of Cochereau playing the Trois Préludes et Fugues (Op. 7) and the Variations sur un Vieux Noël, not only did Cochereau consider carefully how he should interpret these, but he also spent some time in discussion with Dupré - and received his unqualified blessing.
It is worthy of note that Dupré described Cochereau as "A legend in his own lifetime" or words of a similar nature; I am currently too tired to pin down the exact quote. Dupré was no fool - he was quite able to tell the difference between a phenomenally good musician with a superb technique and someone who could give a good impression of something - but not be terribly accurate.
Certainly I have a recording of Cochereau plaing the final movement from the suite Évocation (again by Dupré) and it is virtually flawless - and whilst it is quite fast, it is neither unclear nor messy.
Cochereau had a technique equal to that of a concert pianist. Whilst it is true that his interpretations were sometimes unusual - possibly even a little eccentric, I think that one would be hard pushed to argue that they were any more offensive than the recent recordings of the major works of Franck by Pierre Pincemaille - another Cochereau disciple.
I have attended a number of recitals in this country, by British performers, only to be left pondering afterwards what possessed them to play a certain work in the way they did. I have also heard some of them make mistakes, too - or quite obviously start too quickly and be unable to maintain the speed, flow or clarity. I have even heard one famous organist give a recital at Exeter Cathedral and fail to draw any stops on the clavier on which it was intended to play a solo melody. In case you are wondering, the recitalist did the only reasonable thing - and began the piece again. Even Bairstow once forgot where he had left a Tuba (opening recital, Southwell Minster?).
Cochereau was fond of the chamades - as far as I am concerned, with good reason. The Boisseau chamades added to N.-D. in about 1970 are fiery, bright and very exciting. However, downstairs in that vast Nave, they are not at all overwhelming. Rather they are actually necessary additions to the tutti, in order that the instrument should fill the great length of the building.
One must bear in mind that virtually all of the recordings of Pierre Cochereau at Nôtre-Dame were made (by François Carbou) with microphones positioned quite close to the case - partly because Carbou probably did not wish to hang out of the triforium over the full height of the Nave, in order to string wires across the building. Therefore, to judge the balance and effect of this organ thus, is to rely on a false sense of aural perspective.
As I have written in another post, many of those contemporaries of Cochereau (and others who have arisen since his death) forget (or fail to acknowledge) that, without Cochereau and his policy of tailoring his playing to suit the occasion and the space to be filled, would probably still be playing to empty pews. His playing captured the hearts of many of those who attended services and concerts regularly at N.-D. It was quite usual for many hundreds to stay seated quietly at the end of the Mass until PC had finished playing - and then often break into spontaneous applause. Stephane Grappelli himself used to attend Cochereau's recitals anonymously in the vast crowd - and was deeply moved and captivated by what he heard.
Cochereau ... organ lovers' Marmite.
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Possibly. The exact sense of your original second paragraph was unclear, since you did not mention H&H in either paragraph - only Willis. I made the (reasonable) assumption that your second paragraph concerned the effect of the instrument after the Willis rebuild.
However, this was my point. How do we know that it has been returned to its original sound? H&H have researched carefully and attempted to restore it as faithfully as possible to what was documented to have been the state of the instrument before Willis altered it. But, since there is probably no-one alive who remembers accurately the precise sound of the instrument - (a memory which is bound to be subjective, in any case) - we cannot truly say that it has been restored to its former sound.
Whilst I appreciate that some of the restoration which was undertaken on the pipe-work involved (to put it crudely) 'reverse-engineering', Willis had renewed the action, possibly altered some of the wind pressures (I am not certain of this latter point, since I cannot presently recall the article in The Organ) and, as you observed, fitted 'compensator-amplifiers' to many of the ranks.
Two things - 1) the wind pressures were raised by Willis and restored by H&H and 2) the compensator amplifiers were removed - they are easily taken off and as they don't affect the physical integrity of the body of the pipe or its mouth, the original speech was restored once the pipes recieved their original wind pressure. In as much as any restoration can be proven to be a return to the original sound, this is one of the simplest of procedures and the effect is immediate.
And you seem to forget that they had the twin of this organ available in the factory for cross reference of voicing style.
As for lack of clarity - if you read the post I quote in my reply you will see the subject is restoration, and that I am answering that by referring to a restoration reversing the procedures that Willis had done on this organ.
Anyway, who gives a ****?
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OK - fair points.
Now, I am not being difficult, either - just curious.
Do you have a favourite organ?
What would be your idea of a 55-stop scheme for a building such as this? For the sake of argument, disregard the stipulation that it has to be particularly British - although I believe that the information regarding the services on the website stated that the music was (to be) modelled on the English choral tradition - I did not bother to re-open the link (I am still too tired....), so I hope that I have remembered this correctly.
Favourite organ - I assume of English type - not really, though I would always feel more attracted to a Thomas Hill kind of organ (say of the 1880s) than most others.
You see, I like the organ at Chester with all modern the additions. It is elegant, musical, balanced, colourful, versatile and exciting.
And most of all it plays music really well. Is that a bad thing?
If we are talking favourite organs in the whole world - has to be St Bavo Haarlem.
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The 17-19-22 Willis Mixture is actually a Sesquialtera, the kind of which existed in England and Flanders in the 18th century. Its aim was to go in the Diapason chorus
so that it was possible to have the 17th in it or not.
We have examples of it in Van Peteghem organs.
Soft mixtures and mutation ranks we still have as well; they were the only ones that could be drawn without reeds.
The german version of the Dulciana Mixture was the Harmonia aetherea, 2 2/3'-2'-1 3/5',
Gamba scale. At Hayange, France (Dalstein&Haerpfer), it still exists, and is made with flute ranks instead of strings.
These stops are invaluable in combination.
So we have two different things, the Willis III ranks, like the later Harmonics (same principle plus flat 21st) being a stop for full combinations with reeds, the soft ones for quiet effects strangely lacking in modern organs.
At Bailleul, France, there is an early Gonzalez whose Tierce on the Positif sounds very close to a british D.M. or a german H.A. The tendancies, the fashions are the same worldwide, with little delays, despite the names.
Pierre
A Fr Willis Mixture/Sequialtera (17 19 22) and a Harrison Harmonics are very different in tone and pitch. The Harmonics usually doesn't break until c4 (treble c) whereas Willis usually breaks at c3 - and the voicing and scaling is totally different.
You have a very odd idea about organs - you seem to impose one idea upon another without much basis in fact. How can a single Tierce rank sound like a 3rank Dulciana Mixture? And WHICH Dulciana Mixture? (Harrison? Hill? Norman and Beard? ...).
I get the impression you hold theoretical notions that are an amalgam of lots of bits and pieces of different organs which tend to suit your fancy, one of which is the Dulciana (there are so many different types of Dulciana) including a Dulciana chorus.
Please tell me of one you know well and tell me what repertoire it is for.
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The Tierce, Jeu de Tierce, and the Cornets are a huge domain by themselves,
not well known even by the french organists.
This matter could fill more pages than W.....(estern England somewhere) thread.
I'll just share some hints about the "Post-romantic" jeu de tierce, the stops Tournemire, for instance, had added, and probably Guy Weitz in England as well.
Tough written "Nasard 2 2/3'" and "Tierce 1 3/5'", these stops had near to nothing in common with their baroque equivalents.
They were done after a kind of Dolce model, often conical, and very softly voiced, to the point the 8' Bourdon still dominates them; there are many examples still existing of these stops, intended for synthetic effects.
So they are rather to be seen like isolated parts of a Dulciana Mixture or a Dolce Cornet than a classical Jeu de Tierce!
So in Leiden it would suffice to gather them on one slide and name the thing Dolce Cornet, and we would have "a more resembling spec"......In words!
Pierre
I'm interested in whether you have ever heard one of these soft cornet/mixture stops? The only ones I have heard I can now no longer remember because they seemed to be so innocuous as to be of no use at all. For example, there's a Dulciana Mixture on the Great (!) of a 3 manual Norman and Beard organ near me, but to be honest it is so soft its barely any use at all. I genuinely cannot imagine what it's for! The Swell Mixture and the Great 2' add the brightness to this organ.
I'm not being difficult for the sake of it, I just fid all this bewildering. Those hybrid flutey Willis III mutation things don't sound like these Dulciana or Echo Mixture stops at all, so I can't see how a nasard and tierce on the solo of this organ makes up a Dulciana Cornet. They are two quite different things. Sorry.
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You may not like Cochereau's interpretation of the symphonie passion, but you have to know that Dupré himself said to Cochereau that the rhytm he decided to adopt was fine to him....
Well - what else could he say? Pity about the extra quaver in every bar?
Sounds rather like Messiaen's endorsements of countless performers interpretations of his music. It almost seems more exclusive not to have his endorsement.
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"How ridiculous!"
(Quote)
One may think what he/she wants about this project, but it will be build by a british builder, a seldom occasion on the continent.
So to qualify it as "ridiculous" on a premium english forum might seem a bit like to shot in one's own foot, isn't it?
I can assure you nobody here does laugh at it, be the specification "perfect" (whatever this may mean) or not.
Be it the first of a series!
Best wishes,
Pierre
Whether an English builder builds it or not it I agree that it looks more like Klais at Bath Abbey.
What on earth is the point in building another hybrid organ? You've a got a Harmonics on the Great but not all the other stops that go with that - Geigens galore for a start! And you need the Geigens because they build up the stringier side of a Harrison Great chorus, along with strong 4' and 2' ranks and which lead to the Harmonics, all trying to counteract the effect of an enormous Open Diapason and the Trombas.
Not a clue ...
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There's nothing inherently neo-Baroque about a flute-toned Nasard (sic) and Tierce, which these must surely be. Indeed, the majority of Nazards and Tierces in Britain are anything but Baroque - though many organists labour under the misapprehension that they somehow are. I would assume these are going to be Romantic voices. Admittedly you'd normally expect to find them on the Choir Organ, but I can see a lot of sense in putting them on the Solo, especially if the Choir is going to be unenclosed. (Is it? I haven't attempted to translate the leaflet.)
I think you are wrong in what you say about English organs and their Nas/zards and Tierces, unless you are thinking of those very strange narrow scaled flute ones introduced in the 1930s, which seem to serve no musical purpose.
Are they in the majority in Britain? I would put money on most mutation stops having been inserted in the 60s 70s and 80s, often on new 'Positive' divisions and more likely to be wide scaled, low mouthed, low wind pressure, unnicked ones - I can think of loads of examples of these in many English cathedrals.
Yes, I can see all that you are saying about mutations of the solo organ - at least they would stand a chance of being with bigger flutes and so sound a bit more like they have a purpose.
But this sort of mish mash is exactly what is perceived to be wrong with our cathedral organs as they have been altered in recent years.
I'm not very keen on resurrecting the traditional English Cathedral organ, whatever that might be, but if you are going to do it then you should get it right, not suddenly muck about with Nasards and Tierces on the Solo, presumably just in case you suddenly want to play some Vierne or perhaps something a bit earlier. It's certainly not much use for Elgar, Whitlock, Howells, etc.
So build your Traditional English Cathedral organ - choose a style and possibly a builder and then do it, but acknowledge that it should be warts and all, just as you would with a Cavaille-Coll copy or even one of those Drake/Goetze and Gwynne early English organs.
But this organ just looks crass.
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The Pedal reeds were revoiced - in a style somewhat alien to the original spirit of the Lewis ranks.
Of course it is a matter of taste, but Willis simply imposed their 'house style' on what was actually (as far as I am concerned) a masterpiece - and should have simply been restored.
We shall have to agree to disagree over the effect of the organ after Willis' tender ministrations - I did not find it nicer or more relaxed - just fatter and rather spoiled. Whilst it may not have sounded quieter, what is certainly not in dispute is that it sounded different - against which runs my argument. Personally, I wish that Willis had left Southwark well alone tonally and just carefully restored the mechanical side of the organ.
Even Arthur Harrison was known to treat a genuine masterpiece with more respect. A young visitor to the organ loft at Exeter Cathedral (when H&H were in the process of restoring it) had said "I expect you have revoiced the organ." To which Harry Wood (I think that it was he) responded "When we find perfection we leave it alone."
We seem to be talking at crossed purposes
I was referring to the RESTORATION of the organ by H&H back to the Lewis original, both voicing and specification (e.g. mutations on the choir were removed and the original sonorities, albeit with pipes from another redundant organ of the same period by Lewis).
It has been returned back to its former sound - I was responding to one contributor's query of how successful that was.
N.B H&H also restored the very similar intact, and with unaltered pipework, Lewis organ in St Paul's Cathedral Melbourne at the same time so they had a good bench-mark.
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If they really MUST build an English Cathedral organ, couldn't they get the nomenclature right (pedal stops at 8' and 4') and what are all those neo-baroque mutations doing on the Solo Organ?
It just looks like another 1950s mess up of an older organ (think the old HNB at St John's Cambridge)
How ridiculous!
Mad, mad, mad...
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Did he ever play it?
I think that this is an appalling thought.
His 'version', especially of the rhythm, of Dupre's Passion Symphony is bad enough, but Reubke with those chamades - it would be almost as great a travesty as the Brahm's G minor Prelude and Fugue, played a la Francaise by Philippe Lefebvre, at the re-opening recital!
Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiideous.
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Yes Colin, I agree - but here it was clearly a restoration of the status quo, as Willis had considerably modified the instrument from a tonal aspect in the 1950s - unfortunately so, in my view.
Just how successful the H&H restoration is we will probably never know. There is probably no-one alive who can remember accurately the sound of the organ as T.C. Lewis left it. Even Downes may well have viewed it through 'rose-tinted ears' - and the mellowing passage of time.
I think that, in technical terms, Willis raised the wind pressure and then used 'compensator amplifiers' on the top of the pipes to restore the speech and stop the pipes from overblowing. I don't think that the mouths were altered so that restoration was a relatively straightforward operation of reversing the procedure.
There was a similar thing with the reeds, but I'm not quite so sure what that involved. The wonderful thing is that the organ didn't sounded quieter after the restoration, just nicer and more relaxed. there's no reason to believe that the final result was wide of the mark in terms of restoration.
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Oh don't worry ,there a lots of modern "classical" organs here too, I just don't like them
. I find organ music to be better served by instruments other than electric tin openers , and seriously consider that many of these modern heaps will be burnt once the pendulem has completed it's swing back. Imagine the joy when such gems as Christchurch Oxford and New College are replaced by Hills, and Willis's, oh.... but I forgot, Father Willis dead, so is William Hill. Thats the reason why so many have already been destroyed and modern Organists do not know how to cope or play them without an array of 75 Generals. No we need to get back to authentic, and that means REAL organs. Liverpool has lots, including the very finest in this country . Forget the biscuit tins , the RCO didn't last long in Birmingham did it ?!!!.R
One man's meat,eh?
Good to know the reactionary wing of the organ world is alive and kicking.
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Richard's claim for Liverpool has just as much merit as any of the above, though I am doubtful whether the local authority is one of the more enlightened and supportive ones, plus the factor that Liverpool isn't exactly flush with money.
His list of organs in Liverpool doesn't exactly present anything that is a bit more cutting edge than the 1930's, which would be a tad restrictive for the activities of the more ambitious musician.
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One name I would add to the list of outstanding British improvisers is Mark Wardell, assistant organist at Chichester. I heard him improvise a suite during a recital at Winchester Cathedral a couple of months ago and was amazed at his skill and sheer talent.
Same for Simon Johnson at St Albans. He produced a Cd recording of a meditation service/recital he did at St Albans a couple of years ago interspersed with readings - fabulous!
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This topic of obtaining bookings abroad is clearly problematic. The current St Sulpice series:
http://www.stsulpice.com/Docs/concerts.html
only has one recital by a British organist; Thomas Trotter. This may reflect that they only are interested in organists in the front rank who have established an international reputation with CDs etc.
French organists seem to fare better. The co-titular of St Sulpice, Sophie-Veronique Cauchefer-Choplin, has done well in the number of UK recitals she has given and seems to trot the globe. At the Temple Church, tomorrow, Jerome Faucher plays and Pascal Reber is at All Souls next Monday.
I think that the French do rather well because of one word: improvisation. They bring us something that our players can't provide when they play abroad. Despite the over-inflated reputation of some of our own improvisers, the French show is how it can and should be done.
I sometimes think it is easier for overseas players to obtain recitals in London that for those located in the North of England to do so. When was the last tine John Scott Whiteley or Philip Moore gave a recital in London?
Rubbish!
They don't do it for three reasons:
1) they've rarely heard of anyone from here - they are better with German organists, but amongst many reasons it's because reciprocal recitals are easy to arrange and direct travel is easy. On the whole French players aren't that interested in playing in England because their repertoire and our organs (in our relatively small churches cathedrals and their acoustics) just don't match well. And when they do come they clearly don't understand how the organs here work so they play on the full organ all the time - and that's before we get into pedalboards and stop control issues
2) cost - travel plus accomodation plus a fee all adds up - very few places in Europe pay a large fee ... more than €500 and you're doing very well and there's the audience risk factor, and which works the same way here. Whether in France, Germany or England when you put on an unknown player the number attending drops, and so does your income (and possibly then your sponsorship). The French also like minimal organisation - it's going to be hassle for them, but hey, Germans are easy to deal with and usually speak French fluently
3) they are interested in Germans playing German music and so on. But understandably the English only ever want to play French music in France.
Why would the French want to hear that - again!
There are no more French players playing here than vice versa.
And as for improvisation, I think that we are starting to beat the French at their own game.
Listen to our best players in improvisation. There are many more than just Briggs and Baker ... Allcoat, and the assistant organists at Westminster Chichester and St Albans Cathedrals are fabulously inventive and very versatile. And what's more they ALL can improvise in more styles than the sub-Cochereau French stuff which passes for good improvisation over there. I've heard them do everything from early French and north European baroque through Germanic Romantic and English, and more modern neo-classical and later styles with real use of counterpoint. But of course if you just want a quick fix and bit of crashing around ...
Do you attend St Albans or Haarlem competitons, where I've heard some of the French competitors play and they're often amongst the worst, making the most horrible, ear splitting, self indulgent, joyless and frenetic noise that is just 'modern' and violent in its effect with no apparent relationship to given themes? And when asked to do something with a bit of technical and stylistic discipline it's a disaster area. Sweeping generalisation I know - but then I'm replying to one!
As for your last point, well John Scott Whiteley gave at least one excellent recital last year in SE England that I know of. Does Phillip Moore play recitals seriously any more? He's not 'Organist' of York Minster (that's JSW!)
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Exactly Stephen - but you are a cathedral organist by profession. Most organists are not! Does this mean that the FRCO should only be aspired to by those who follow a certain career path?
Every test I did for ARCO has been useful to me at some point. I've had to sightread, score-read and transpose at very short notice, and have accepted this as par for the course. Although I do some freelance playing, I earn my principal living outside the world of music. With family commitments too, practice time is always at a premium, and I can't imagine ever wanting to sit down and learn these clefs, knowing it would be for a complete "one-off".
I agree that the ability to be able to read these clefs says many good things about musicianship and the ability to be able to master a discipline, but I suspect that most organists would consider them largely irrelevant compared to what they do on a regular basis.
I reckon a far more valuable test would be to place a hymn-tune (composed by an RCO examiner) in front of an FRCO candidate 15 minutes before the exam (along with the transposition test), let them play through it once during the exam and then expect them to reharmonise it fluently in the manner of an accomplished last verse descant. Only my opinion of course....................
As for me, I'll keep practising the DT crossword...................
Yes, sjf is a cathedral organist and a very good one too! Isn't the FRCO designed to be "the gold standard" for those who aim to be at the top of the profession - not just those who are very able, but nevertheless amateur.
I went to an ARCO training session once where the examiner had each of us in turn either play a piece or do a test and we all gave a mark for it. His marking was at odds with all of us because he gave lower marks. One of us said that he was marking harshly and that everyone had played to an alright standard (no-one had had a fail mark), but the examiner stuck to his guns and I remember him saying something along the lines of - yes the playing is alright but what about these points which were not as good as they could be, or missed altogether. And what do we do for marks if we give 27 28 or 29/30 for this satisfactory but not totally accurate and stunning performance, and then the next candidate to come into the room is the John Scott of the next generation?
That's the trouble - we all know what we like and what we'd prefer to do, but professionals have different requirements. Just imagine what would happen if they ran the Royal College of Surgeons on these lines!
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Nice idea, Graham - both tests are essential. On the more serious point, I'm with innate and Alsa on this one, as I can honestly say I have used every one of the tests on a regular basis in professional life, even the score reading in C clefs (not only at Christ Church, by the way) - knowing the soprano clef fluently makes score reading Clarinets in A a lot easier too.
Exactly sjf. I think we have to remember that ARCO is the standard proficiency test and FRCO demonstrates proficiency to the highest professional standard, which includes being fluent in score reading. Whether you think it applies to you or not, it does apply to a lot of people at the top of the trade and that's what FRCO was set up for.
I like the suggestions in the second part of Paul's email though too. Definitely worthy of serious consideration! They might have been written with his tongue in his cheek, but ...
WHY!!! , and there are several contenders for that. I think his "version" of the Vierne Berceuse is actually almost good, but he did too little all in the same style much for too long, and it's sad to think that the current Organist of ND is not revered as much. It's like Mozart, kick the bucket and you're an icon.
. I find organ music to be better served by instruments other than electric tin openers
Cochereau And Reubke
in The Organ
Posted
The Guillou version of Liszt's BACH is a brilliant transcription of Liszt's own piano version/arrangement of the (original?) organ work. It is idiomatically pianistic - large chunks of it were re-written by Liszt and contain more arpeggiated figurework, for example.
There was a wonderful recording by Alfred Brendel of this on vinyl, but I'm not sure if it's available on CD. It is well worth listening to. So Guillou's "improvement" of the original is in fact largely Liszt's own work!