davidh

No wonder he had problems if he used that operating system!

I can't quote a "worst performance"; my mind has probably gone into self-protective mode and refuses to remember this. However I can quote some "worsts" in other categories. Worst recorded sound. -------------------------- Gareth Green's "English Organ Music" on Naxos. Was the microphone outside the church? Worst editing --------------- Some Schweitzer reissues, but perhaps the transcriber was working from impossible masters. Worst presentation (of an excellent recording of an excellent performance on excellent organ) --------------------- DVD: "J S Bach and the Magic of Slovak Caves", pirated soundtrack issued without knowledge of the performer. The organ pieces are familiar - Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV565, Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C, Prelude and Fugue in A minor, Fantasy and Fugue in G minor, and several chorale preludes. The pictures are almost exclusively of Slovak Caves, with occasional pan and zoom shots of two different werkprinzip organs. Much is made of the visual pun with the similarity in form of rows of organ pipes and stalagtites. Neither of the organs pictured is the one being played. The on-screen titles show: "Lamp of God" instead of "Lamb of God", and because the person who did the titling mistook the end of a section in the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue for the end of the piece, every subsequent title is out of place. The final piece is therefore given the title "Slovak Gaves" (instead of "Slovak Caves") to complete the track list. The firm which did this refers to its work as "authering".

Alas, this was quoted to me many years ago, and I don't know the source. I once had a copy of the 1825 edition of Wesley's Hymn book. Hymn no 443 about the salvation of the Mahometans describes Mohammed in terms which would bring a jihad on a church if you sang it today. The funeral hymn no 48, “Ah, blessed appearance of death” might still be useful, but we couldn't sing it today with a straight face. It’s too much like, “Ain’t it grand to be blooming well dead”. Hymn 470 offers some useful guidance for men about how to rule their families aright, and how to treat their “inferiors” – by which Wesley meant wives, children and servants. Methodists should not betray their Lord’s authority by treating their inferiors as equals! I'm not sure that playing the tunes would bring smiles to any faces, because few people now know them. One might get a laugh from a congregation of cyclists by playing, "And can it be that I should gain" as they would immediately think ahead to "my chains fell off".

There's a story, which probably isn't true, of a civic service with the dignatories processing down the aisle to the hymn, "See the evil hosts advancing, With Satan at their head."

I notice that it says nothing about audio recordings (although presumably the permitted video recordings may include sound). I assume that the organist has agreed to this. (He/she gets £55 for 45 minutes).

The completion that he wrote for the Art of Fugue is the most convincing of all the different versions that I have heard. Does anyone know if it has been published?

What? Can it be the Vogons?

My interest in the organ goes back more than 50 years, and I probably learned most at that time from Lionel Rogg's complete bach recordings. However, the one LP which inspired me more than any other was Piet Kee's 1954 recording at Alkmaar, with pieces by Buxtehude, var Noordt, Sweelinck, Reger, Couperin and Distler. I have judged all later recordings of the works of these composers by that recording, and the closer to Kee's style they are, the more right they sound. I'm very sad that he didn't record the complete works of Bach and Buxtehude, and I would very much like to know what he would have done with a complete Couperin organ mass, if he had recorded on a suitable instrument.

"Concerning the temperament of the St Mary's organs, we know from documented evidence only that the large organ was tuned to equal temperament in 1782 and the small organ not until 1805." Comments on 1/4 meantone as the most common system in North Germany in the 17th century, but fewer than half of B's organ pieces work well and several are impossible in this system. Discussion of friendship with Werckmeister. "In a 1985 article and the first edition of this book I proposed a hypothesis on information in the accounts that the bellows treader had received pay to 30 and a half days extra work while the organ builder Michel Briegel had "thoroughly tuned" both organs without their reeds, which B had presumably already retuned himself. This theory was widely accepted, but it rested on incomplete evidence. ... the account books extended only through 1685. ... The return of later books from the Soviet Union in 1988 made new evidence available which Ibo Ortgies mined ... He found payments to bellows treaders for extra work of 27 and a half days ... "In 1683 the account suggests that the 30 1/2 days were entirely due to tuning; still, in view of the great discrepancy with 83 1/2 days in 1782 it appears that my hypothesis that the temperament was changed to Werckmeister III in 1683 can no longer stand."

Presumable that was from the 1987 edition of Snyder; the 2007 edition comes to a different conclusion.

I once attended a recital which included Ned Rorem's "Quaker Reader". One movement required the top F# and G several times, and the visiting recitalist hadn't noticed that he had only a 30-note pedalboard until he tried to play them.

I can do the Germani. Please PM me with details of resolution required, file format (e.g. jpg), etc. The light here isn't good at the moment; I'll take a photo in daylight tomorrow morning.

As far as Organist's Review is concerned, I like MOST of the changes. Orgues Nouvelles is very different. Of course I can only judge by the 20-page sample issue (real issues will be 52 pages), but it seems to be very glossy magazine style, with no article longer than a single page, which suggests that it is unlikely to deal with any topic in enough depth to be of much interest. The 16 pages of the Attaignant score and associated MP3 look interesting, but it's far from an urtext, as the introductory page says, "Ceci n’est pas une édition musicologique répondant aux usages scientifiques modernes. Ceci est une avant tout, une édition pratique, destinée à être jouée et entendue." The price in the UK is 66 euros for 4 issues each including a CD with audio and computer files. It's more than I would want to pay unless I had evidence that the real issues will be more substantial.

I know that I risk being rather simplistic, but there are many (not on this board, I hope) who obviously disgree with my view that the piano is a very good instrument for playing piano music, the orchestra is very good for playing orchestral music, and the organ is very good for playing organ music. With a few notable exceptions, ignoring this principle results in disaster.

My thanks to Bazuin for some very useful information, and I'll watch out for the "serious recent Dutch music" which he has recommended. The problem for me here is that by that criterion Bach too would be "an arranger of tunes" as far is his chorale preludes are concerned. Although the Dutch may have the only real Calvinists, I can't see why only Calvinists would be interested in the music. There are Roman Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, Methodist and Anglican hymn writers and composers of church music, and people who are not Roman Catholic, Calvinist, Lutheran, Methodist and Anglican or indeed of any faith at all nevetheless listen to their music. Most modern hymn books in this country use an eclectic mixture of tunes, and no one cares at all about the denomination of the composer.

A contributor on another thread has just commented, "In Holland we had Feike Asma, (who won lots of fans to the organ who now only go to concerts by people who try to play like he did. One Asma was more than enough)." I know little of Asma as a performer, except from a recording of his own and Jan Zwart's works, although I have heard that he had little respect for other composer's stated intentions, and as a result others were either very enthusastic or very dismissive. Just over a year ago I first became aware of his compositions, of which there are well over a hundred, mostly chorale preludes or chorale variations. (I know that some people don't like this genre and they needn't read any further). I have since bought recordings and many pieces of sheet music. One of the first things that I noticed was that some performances don't follow the published music, although different performers seen to play from a common text, which suggests either that there are alternative versions, perhaps in print, or else that performers work from manuscript sources, and perhaps the published versions have been edited to reduce their length. Although the harmonic language is pretty consistent throughout - you don't have to hear many bars to recognise Asma - there is a wide variety of different types of variation in terms of structure and embellishment. They range from quite simple to quite difficult to play, but they all lie very comfortably under the hands, as one might expect if the music was transcribed from extemporisations rather than composed in the head and then fitted to the fingers. Some of these preludes might well be useful for English churches. Of course some of these are based on Lutheran or Dutch tunes not known or used here, but others are based on hymn tunes which are well known here, i.e. in the UK. The problem is that the titles of the variations are in Dutch, and there is no reference to the names of the tunes as they are known elsewhere. It might be useful if someone who knows the Dutch and British scenes were to make up a list linking them to the English names. Asma is only one of many Dutch composers writing in this genre over the last century or so. Few of them have been heard of outside of The Netherlands, excepting perhaps Jan Zwart, and even his music doesn't seem to be stocked by British suppliers who have a tremendous range of other organ music. Although only a few miles separate us from Holland, the musical culture seems to be almost completly unknown here. The biggest problem is probably one of language. Many audio recordings, DVDs and musical publications are only available from Holland, and can only be bought by navigating websites entirely in Dutch, but emails bring friendly replies in good English. Payment is also a problem. Few Dutch websites accept credit card payments, sterling cheques are not welcome, and payments by bank transfer add £15 to £20 to the cost of an order, so the only convenient way to pay is by posting Euro notes. I think, too, that the Dutch don't seem to expect that people from other countries would be interested in their organ music. A lot has happened between Sweelinck and Andriessen, and is still going on!

Hove Town Hall had a 4-manual Willis with an unusually large proportion of reed stops. In the early 1960's the council proposed to sell it, and I was one of the people who campaigned unsuccessfully for its retention. It was sold to a London school where it is still in service. In 1966 the Town Hall caught fire and was completely destroyed. And the moral of this story .....

This site is well worth looking at. It has an exceptional amount of technical information available about Pasi's op13 and op14

I suspect that few of the good citizens of Dordrecht who hear this will ever hear a real Silbermann, and those who are lucky enough to do so may hear a demonstration, perhaps a couple of recitals and, if they are really lucky, may be able to play one for ten minutes. An accessible local copy of a Silbermann, even if imperfect, would be of far more use to most organists and audiences than a real instrument in Freiberg.

I can't understand why any of the recent discussions should be an embarrassment to our hosts. There might be an issue if it was argued that electronic organs are both cheaper AND superior to pipe organs. If this was generally accepted it would damage the pipe organ business, but so far I have not read of anyone on this board arguing that this is true.

That certainly seems very odd. It is well known that F sharp minor is a problem key for mean-tone organs (did Buxtehude ever play his praeludium in Fis BuxWV 146 in that key?). Saorgin plays this on an ET instrument, Harald Vogel on the Aa-Kerk at Groningen on an instrument with slightly modified ET, and Spang-Hanssen on the Aubertin at Vichy in Kirnberger 3. We have yet to hear what Davidsson will do on the Gothenberg mean-tone organ. The organ in den Haag is tuned to ET. I have no idea why depth of touch would be a problem in this key.

I have had Saorgin's set for many years, and found it very enjoyable. Of course there is considerable scope in deciding what a "complete set" of organ works should contain; there are about 20 pieces which you will find in sets by other performers which are not on Saorgin's, but this is partly a question of whether some pieces are "organ" or "harpsichord/clavichord", as if there was any rigid distinction in Buxtehude's time. I also have Ulrik Spang-Hanssen's set and Harald Vogel's, and I wouldn't consistently rate any of these three sets better than the others, they all have valuable contributions to make. You might find it "interesting" to listen to the disks available so far of what will be Hans Davidsson's complete set on the mean-tone organ as these may be nearer to the temperaments which were available on Buxtehude's organ. They may sound strange if you have only ever listened to equal temperament, but then Buxtehude himself probably never heard an equal-temperament organ in his life. They certainly throw some new light on the music, but I wouldn't want them as my only set.

Yes, I have, in the same small party that Nick was with. As a clavichord player who has only just taken to the organ I have often thought about the fact that many organists used the clavichord as a practice instrument, which was logical enough considering how unpleasant it must have been to work in a cold (as Nick said), and dark church, plus the difficulty of finding a willing person to pump. Two clavichords stacked one on top of each other, plus a pedal clavichord or pedal with pull-downs would have made it possible to practice most of the repertoire, and also to use this arrangement for improvisation, composition and teaching. Of course one wonders about the differences. Instead of the organ's infinite sustain, clavichords have very little sustaining power. Organs are generally reckoned to have very little touch sensitivity (which is why so many people were satisfied with pneumatic or electric action) although tracker enthusiasts have always insisted that touch is important. While, once speaking at its set volume, an organ pipe is beyond the control of the organist, the dynamic range of the clavichord is very wide, even though it is never very loud, and it is even possible to apply a controlled vibrato. It's much harder to play a fugue on a clavichord, as it is difficult to maintain the equality of voices. Many post-Bach organs are rather slow and imprecise in their speech, while the clavichord is very prompt. Organ actions can be quite heavy with a deep touch, while clavichord keys are extremely light and touch depth may only be a few millimetres. After briefly trying the "Bach Organ" I now understand why players thought the clavichord a suitable practice instrument for the organ. The Dordrecht keyboard was extremely light and the pipes very responsive, and to me that organ felt much nearer to the clavichord than any other that I have tried. (Of course it was MUCH louder!)

Does anyone have any information (other than that available on web pages) about Nathaniel Clarke 1773 - 1827 who was organist at Bosham in West Sussex and later at St Nicholas Brighton? I'm particularly interested in recordings of his music, or scans of his sheet music (way out of copyright now). I know that he composed choral and piano music, and might have written for organ as well.

Sorry, the tuner wasn't THAT old. The organ destroyed in 1942 was the 1851 Schulze which replaced Buxtehude's instrument, which had been enlarged in the early 18th century. He might well have tuned the Totentanz organ which had been restored as closely as possible to the state in which Buxtehude knew it.