Nic DAVIDSON PORTER
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Posts posted by Nic DAVIDSON PORTER
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Memories of some unusual reviews took me to the late Dr. Wright's website this evening; just in time, as it is announced that the site will close on 20th December 2020...
Have any amongst you any experience of his Three Pieces for Organ, op. 1, or his Passacaglia, op. 30 ? I am currently separated from my copy of Dr. Henderson's Encyclopaedia, but I do not recall any mention of Dr. Wright's compositions therein.
With all best wishes for Christmas and the New Year.
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One of my favourite LPs in my Dad's collection was the Vlach Quartet amd Miroslav Kampelsheimer on harmonium playing Dvorak's op. 47 Bagatelles, now on YouTube if you are curious. It sounds like an "American Organ", and I'm guessing they were written after his period in the USA.
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Konstantin Reymaier has made a CD for Deutsche Grammophon, which was only released on Friday (2nd October); I don't know yet if it's for German-speaking territories only, but if it is, www.jpc.de is a good source. Interestingly, one major piece is the Elgar sonata (I believe KR spent a few years in Cambridge). Makes me think of the New York Phil playing the Enigma Variations under the baton of one Gustav Mahler. Elgar is definitely not as insular / English as is often made out !
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43 minutes ago, Cornet IV said:
Perhaps it's as well that I did not compound the confusion by adding that my fondly-remembered cleric took his holidays walking in the Lütschinen valleys!
In general, and not pointing in any particular direction, I am a little concerned at the tone of one or two comments recently.
Some questions are best left unanswered, and some unasked.
Please be mindful to show a tad more tact, diplomacy and optimism towards both our new hosts and our previous one. It must be a tricky situation all round, and assumptions should not be made.
An aside, re the Walschaerts valve-gear, when my ex and I lived in the Swiss Federation, four years were in the village of Blonay (a home to Paul Hindemith, who I am reliably informed had a magnificent train set in his attic; we also were on the cooking rota for train crews at the Blonay - Chamby Musee de Chemin de Fer).
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I am just SO relieved that this one is finally being restored. I remember going up to Manchester as a youngish teenager in 1975 for the International Organ Festival; Kamiel d'Hooghe gave a great performance of Vierne III, despite the organ limping along somewhat.
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Pity the poor lute players and flute players...
Meanwhile, I am off to rid my houses of lice and mice; after that a spot of grice-shooting will be a pleasant end to the day...
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This has cheered me up no end !
My very best wishes to all concerned.
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Quite simply, news that I never expected to hear. I pray that some sort of rescue package may be put in place. A terrible loss to the organ building world.
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3 hours ago, Rowland Wateridge said:
Well, as an alternative to Widor V (and breaking the rule about playing individual movements from organ symphonies) how about the Finale from Vierne’s Symphonie 3, already mentioned? The big pedal entry there is, I suggest, as exciting as Widor’s - possibly more so as it comes so dramatically following a gradual build-up on manual reeds. But, of course, this requires a large cathedral or concert hall organ with the necessary resources.
People who dislike transcriptions might like to reconsider in the case of W T Best’s arrangement of Mendelssohn’s Overture to “St Paul”. Again, it needs a suitably wide-ranging organ - and a virtuoso player! I have heard it three times played by Thomas Trotter. The same thing happened every time - there was an immediate audience reaction to the opening section. Twice was at Birmingham Town Hall, where much of the audience would be aficionados (and, incidentally, always runs into several hundreds - a full house is one thousand, and I experienced that once with people standing!), but perhaps the more telling experience was at the opening of the new Tickell organ at Manchester Cathedral, attended by all the great and the good of the north-west, Lord-Lieutenant and every mayor from Lancashire it seemed. It was a ticket event and I sat in the ‘additional seating’. I’m pretty certain that organists were very much in the minority in the audience of several hundreds. My impression was that many people were out of their depth, possibly slightly bored, until the opening bars of “St Paul”. The audience visibly stirred, and sat up! And listened!
The drama comes towards the end of the Vierne, but at the very beginning of the Mendelssohn. Either recipe might catch people’s imagination.
Mentioning Mendelssohn, War March of the Priests seems to get a lot of thumbs ups on YouTube, probably because of the famous film...
For anybody who DOES like Wagner, it seems to work pretty well on the organ. The Act I prelude to Lohengrin springs to mind..I know it's a thorny issue to broach, but I often think concert hall / town hall recitals will pull bigger audiences, most likely because audiences are already familiar with them as a local orchestral venue. Sad to say, but there are some people who will avoid a church at any cost. Make of that what you will...
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2 hours ago, Brizzle said:
Widor is becoming a divisive character! Whatever his administrative and socialite achievements, I don’t think we can escape the fact that much of his music isn’t considered to be any good. Widor lived alongside Delibes, Massenet, Debussy, and Ravel, and even overlapped Poulenc for 34 years; his non-organ music (and there’s plenty of it!) hasn’t found a place in the canon amongst the works of these other composers. (And it is possible for organist-composers to have to done so; Saint-Saëns has a number of widely-performed non-organ works, and Franck’s Symphony still gets an airing often enough, although less so since the height of its popularity in the 60s). We hold up Widor’s symphonies as the epitome of organ composition in the French Romantic style, whilst admitting that very few of them, if any, are consistently successful all the way through to be attractive to musicians and listeners away from the organ world. If, as Germani suggested, they should only be performed in their entirety, then we’d have to subject our audiences to some fairly second-rate music. Pretty much all of it could go in Room 101, I think.
Despite this, I would probably suggest keeping the Symphony 5 Toccata - it isn’t a great piece, but it is popular with non-organists, and if it is a way of introducing the general public to good organ music, then jettisoning it would be an own goal. In addition to the Toccata, I’d keep the first and last movements of Symphony 6, the Moderato cantabile from No. 8, and the Andante sostenuto from the ‘Gothique’ symphony.
I agree that Vierne’s third symphony is his best, but I’m not sure of its appeal beyond the organ loft. I’m not even sure I’d want to hear the whole thing in one concert.
My own pet hate is the Reubke Sonata, which sounds to me like 25 minutes of interminable, dreary diminished chords. I can’t be unbiased about it, but I suspect when non-organists say that they find organ music ‘boring’, this is exactly the kind of piece they have in mind. To replace it, I submit the third of Karg-Elert’s ‘Symphonische Kanzone’, with its gently unfolding fugue, serene Kanzone, and an ethereal epilogue with a violin and female singers. It’s still ‘serious’ music, but I have a gut feeling that it would appeal to any general public looking to explore organ repertoire further.
Oddly, I find the Reubke sonata about the only memorable German Romantic piece, amongst enormous swathes of WBD (worthy but dull...) The entirety of Rheinberger's solo organ output springs to mind, which is a pity, as his concerti are well worth hearing, and his music for organ and strings is great. Believe me, I have REALLY tried to like Rheinberger's sonatas, but...
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2 hours ago, Martin Cooke said:
Andrew Cooper has just passed this on to me...
The organ is still there, though the Town Hall is closed and unused, having been sold, and so I have not seen the instrument for about 10 years.
It was overhauled by Willis in 1986, received solid state switching in 1988, and the console was made moveable when the hall was converted to a theatre in the early 1990’s. A further overhaul took place in the mid 1990’s.
The Ryde Town Hall Organ Trust which organised concerts and raised money for maintenance was wound up after the building was sold.
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And I remember it being a very satisfying organ to play. I have several reminiscences from my time on the IW in the 80s/early 90s. There was one re-opening recital at some point by Thomas Trotter, which of course was excellent. I recall the G minor Fantasia and Fugue. But I also recall another recital by someone I can only describe as an imposter! He called himself Dr something or other and his recital programme consisted entirely of spurious items by composers that I had never heard of before or since. I think, to be honest, he made them up as he went along - it was one of the most bizarre experiences of my life and was utterly appalling!
It wasn't "The Abominable Dr. Phibes" by any chance ??!
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I remember living in Lausanne; one day, I stood utterly transfixed on a corner, listning to a superb accordionist, whom I later discovered to be Russian, playing music that was so wonderful, but very familiar.
I just couldn't place it.
Then it dawned on me: BWV 543, the entirety of the Suite Gothique, and THAT French toccata. I never thought that an accordeon could "do" a Bosendorfer Imperial, or a Father Willis...
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Those of you that enjoyed Jennifer Bate's Bach from the RAH may be interested to know that, on YouTube, there are 3 LPs worth of Ralph Davier / Ake Leven, including over 50 mins of Bach. Also an LP of "French". and "Encores." All very welcome.
David CF Wright, 1946 - 7th November 2020
in Organ Music
Posted
Thank you all very much for your replies to my query; I was worried I might be stirring up a hornets' nest.
Brizzle, you really hit the nail on the head with your comments; my use of the adjective "unusual" was a mixture of tongue-in-cheek/diplomatic. I am no musician, but my (university) language and linguistics training led me to a feeling of something approaching horror when I stumbled across his website; I was reading a lot around Elgar at the time. Wright's opinions are vitriolic; I can only hope that his music is better !
By the way, I must point out that the RCM David Wright is DCH , and not DCF. I shudder to think what an entire book even co-authored by DCF might have been like...
I am trying hard to show courtesy, but it is something he rarely seemed to accord his victims. I am not a "book-burner", but can't help thinking that it is probably a good thing that his website is slowly being dismantled...