Barry Jordan

Gosh, don't know that one. I have heard "We've got a great big wonderful God". Do you know Wenn das rote Meer grüne Welle hat..? (When the red sea's on green wave....... meaning what traffic lights are when they're synchronised) Can it get worse? B

Quote from "The Blues Brothers": "We have both sorts of music." "Both sorts?" "Yeah, Country AND Western." Analogies?

Ah, the lovely Hee-Jung. I wondered what happened to her.

Would that be Yun Duk Lee?

Clergy and organists are cat and dog. I don't see why it should be so... or actually, I do, as long as both are slightly narcissistic and hate to share the limelight. I personally don't actually LIKE the limelight very much, which once led my vicar to say "At least I'm proud of my vanity, but you flaunt your modesty, that's much worse." (It sounded quite a lot harsher in German.....) As a believer, I am uncomfortable with all displays of division between those who are responsible for plowing the fields of divine service. But I often think I know more about liturgy than anyone else around.... the theologians who were ordained here in the sixties and seventies didn't think much of that sort of thing. Free-thinking was encouraged. As I once said to my boss, "I'm not really interested in what you don't believe, how about telling us what you do". From my point of view, if it were in accord with church dogma for once, I might be quite comfortable with that. I try to listen to sermons, but often give up after 20 minutes - well, we're lutheran here, you know. I have such a deep desire to hear, for example, 10 minutes worth of "baby in the manger" in the freezing cathedral on Christmas Eve, and not 25 on how sinful and materialistic we all are, especially at Christmas. That's why I adore our Bishop. For a "real" musician, work in the church can be a dull grind. One didn't really hone one's skills to that extent in order to play hymns..... it's no real wonder that one's attention often strays to the next challenging bit. And that is why it is hard to be a church musician and stay a believer, or one of the reasons for it, the other one being of course the insider's view of the clergy, who turn out to have clay feet, just like the rest of us. There's little to choose. And I have heard a lutheran pastor bragging about the fact that he ALWAYS leaves the church during the anthem, not even just the voluntary, so it's not really a parallel universe after all. Cheers Barry

I personally think that there is room at all ends of the scale fpr people who are simply good musicians, whatever they do with their musicianship. I once went to a Richard Claydermann concert - I felt a recurring desire to puke at the musak he was generating, and was profoundly impressed by his professionalism. The problem is though, that getting people to like, and even go to listen to, someone playing high-speed "Bumble-bees" on the pedals is not the same as getting them to go and listen to Bach played by an invisible organist in a possibly cold and gloomy church. We unfortunately have to acept that a lot of organ music is taxing for the listener in the same way as contemporary music is - you really have to LISTEN and the "oh wow!" factor might be fairly limited. Unlikely to be a mass market affair. When I came here, we could expect about 25 people at an organ recital (during the days of the communists, it was more like 4 or 5 hundred). Now we're up to about 150-200. I like to think it's because we make sure that the recitalists are good, but it might very well have more to do with the fact that we now give people a glass of wine in the cloisters afterwards and try to make sure that going to an organ recital is also a bit of a night out. As a believer, I try to ensure that the cathedral doesn't become a three-ring circus, so I don't encourage any over-the-top showmanship. But I also belive that God has a sense of humour, or he wouldn't have created us. Moderation is all...... Cheers Barry

No. But I can ask. Will get back in a few days. B

Stephen Roberts from the USA played the whole Suite from a Russian edition here a few years ago. There were a lot more differences than those - and the piece was a good deal more interesting. B

The organ builders here would think you were mad if you asked them to come to tune the reeds - or even if you asked them to come more than once a year at all - the rule is, touch-up tuning once a year, full tuning every three to five. That is incidentally the reason why most village organs don't have any reeds! Those by Ladegast, for example. But, the organs are cone-tuned, and tuning the pipes ruins their feet, consequently also their voicing. Cheers Barry

Of course it is all right.......... I think! Am actually not sure whether the images are stored. I must ask. Have a great day B

Hello, not really a topic for discussion, but I did want to let you know that the on-site work on the installation of our new instrument has begun. A webcam is tracking its progress with a new picture every 10 minutes or so. The address is http://www.aktion-neue-domorgeln-magdeburg.de/webcam.php More about the instrument can be found on my own pages, www.domorgel-magdeburg.de Thanks Barry

Oh gosh, "sex sells" is certainly being tried in the organ world, sometimes with better product than at others. For example http://www.organfocus.com/features/events/iveta_apkalna.php but also http://www.elkevoelker.de/images/pressefot...kevoelker03.jpg Run for cover guys. That thing looks lethal. Cheers Barry

You could ask a builder to have a look and see what the problem is......... whether the reservoirs are too small (hard to fix), the trunks are leaky (a bit easier), the blower too small (not difficult and not even all that expensive really), or the pallet channels of the chest too small (now there we're talking REALLY expensive). The issue of saving wind was historically more a matter of giving the poor blowers a break. They had to get those reservoirs filled, but they were always - in a good organ - big enough to support the lot, as long as the supply was guaranteed. Now that sounds like a big noise, though possibly a little on the dull side! B

If the Hohl Flute were on the piston before that, I might do it that way as well, because it's a matter of logic to add rather than substitute. Assuming all the usual things, for example they are in tune and that there is enough wind - not usually an issue on modern organs, bein all those built since the advent of blowing plant. Well, it depends. In my case, the organ which I have to play most often is hopelessly too small for the building, both in the number of stops and scale. The church is 120 metres long and 36 high and not exactly narrow either, and the organ has 37 stops, of which only 10 are at 8' pitch, including pedal stops and the reeds - if you subtract them, you are left with 5. So I almost never attempt to use the HW Principal 8' without the voluptuous "Spillflöte 8'". There is no swell to couple. Now I do realise you are talking about a very different organ, the sort I learned on actually. I do think it is instructive that in the days of fixed combinations, which we still had in Cape Town in those days, the organ builders used to set up the pistons so that the progression was additive - the only thing that ever went off again was the Voix celeste or Vos angelica r whatever it was called on the organ in question. You can see the same thing it you look at the way people like Sauer set up their crescendo pedals. Of course using your ears is subjective. But I don't think there's any way to avoid that in the whole business of music making, whether it's registration on the organ or tone on the clarinet or simply the whole business of everything from phrasing to tempo. Have you never heard a famous organist playing, and found yourself asking, "What can he have been thinking, to play it like that?" Or, for that matter, sat at a really ghastly organ and thought to yourself, "Funny - somebody must actually have liked it this way!"? Incidentally - my catholic colleague across the road has a new instrument where you really CAN'T use all the 8's together, and it's the Sw. Hohlföte wot does it..... but you don't hear it at the console. But the voicer warned me....... interesting organ, have a look at http://kirchenmusik-bistum-magdeburg.de/3910.html Under the picture there's a link to the "Disposition" Cheers Barry

And you know so many more people.................... BJ

Made tea and fish-cakes in the organ (useful power point) during the Good Friday vigil. Very good too.

That might depend a little on where you are listening from and, of course, on how big the church is. Anything with a big scale tends to carry a lot better than anything with a small one, so that the balance of these two stops could change a lot with a little distance. Just a thought........ B

That might depend a little on where you are listening from and, of course, on how big the church is. Anything with a big scale tends to carry a lot better than anything with a small one, so that the balance of these two stops could change a lot with a little distance. Just a thought........ B

No, this is correct, I didn't really mean to suggest otherwise - I was wrong about his writing the first sonata on the way to America, I was told that when I studied the piece with MH, but he might have made it up........he went to America in 1940 of course. I have no information about first performances, although Noehrens stories do seem to indicate the registration was still pretty much up for grabs at the time of the 1940 recording. Other tales reveal that Hindemith lost interest in his pieces very soon after their completion, so perhaps that was indeed their first "outing". I must look up the date of publication; in 1937 Hindemith was of course living in Switzerland, and it seems unlikely that Schott in Mainz would have taken the risk of publishing anything by Hindemith at that time, as he was already severely out of favour. Perhaps I can find out more.....oh how interesting, it really DOES seem to have been, Nazis notwithstanding! I don't really know anything about an association of Hindemiths with any particular European organist, does anybody? Ifound this on the web, an abtract of an article in het Orgel 1999: " Hindemiths remarks about this organ indicate that he fancied the ideas of the Orgelbewegung, but did not quite understand the details: ‘Ich bin kein Orgelfachmann.’ Since 1927 Hindemith tried to construct a theory on which to base his compositional technique. In 1937 he published this theory, entitled Unterweisung im Tonsatz. According to the Unterweisung, the triad is the beginning and the end of all music. Hindemith compares it with the three primary colours in painting and the three dimensions in architecture. In the same year, Hindemith published his first two organ sonatas as well. The first one is characterised by very precise indications with regard to articulation and phrasing; the second Sonata is less complicated and less representative for Hindemith’s style. The third Sonata was composed in 1940, after Hindemith had emigrated to the United States. It is based on three ancient German folk songs. Remarkable is the large number of crescendi- and decrescendi-indications, which require a register crescendo." Getting interesting! Barry

Almost impossible to say without 1) hearing the stops 2) seeing the pipes! On the face of it, looks rather like a case for warmer Abbruch - warm demolition? Incidentally, since we are being asked to play "self-appointed expert" here, and Paul reoprts elsewhere on HW4's disdain for such people, I must say that I repeatedly experience over here too that bad organ builders tend to be particularly vehement on this point. Especially when they are the offspring of better builders than they are. Cheers Barry

Oh come on, let me be a little mischievous........ and I'm not even one of those who doesn't like Dupré. But I don't think you can really call the B major fugue contrapuntalist's counterpoint, can you? The subjects and countersubjects are often constructed, like Reger's, very much from a harmonic point of view, something that one is also taught to do when improvising in this sort of style. So the counterpoint is not very linear in nature. I am not casting any doubt on Dupré's ability to improvise a fugue, nor is he alone in this. I had not heard that any of Bach's compositions had begun life as improvisations, except for the "Musical Offering". But of course we do not actually know whether what he wrote down is really what he played - I personally would rather doubt this. It seems to me that the ability to remember a half-hour improvisation would be a rather different one from actually making the improvisation as such - and would even tend to support the notion that there was a "formula" in play. In Bach's case, I would rather doubt this. But one only has to play enough of Dupré's music to learn the formulae, and reproducing them is what French improvisation has been about, ever since then. Nearly all French organists, and others who have studied in France, can do it well, although not all with the flair or orignality of Cochereau or Latry or Frederic Blanc. Cheers Barry

Umm, well, they don't turn into toccatas, but they aren't really very good fugues, are they? On the other hand, they don't have to be. The fugue is not something that really adapts very well to the romantic style, in my opinion. I adore the schumann fugues, but mostly because they don't always try to be particularly strict. And the Dupré fugues sound as though they are being improvised, which means that the the counterpoint is of the pseudo variety....... as for the Reger fugues, well........ those at the end of the Choralfantasies always have subjects you can whistle as soon as you hear the chorale tune. Anyone else had the feeling, that once you've learned the first big Reger, all the rest is EXACTLY THE SAME, consequently quite easy really? Not that I'd put Reger anywhere near the top of my "Music to heave to" list. Actually, I know longer really dislike much music that actively; when I was a student I rather disliked all music between Machaut and Bartok. But that was when I was a composition major. What I still really hate is Bruckner, but he didn't really write any organ music. I tend not to go to recitals where people play music by anyone called Fischer. This is quite a good thread, isn't it? Cheers Barry PS The SP story I'd heard in quite a few guises already, too, oh 20 years ago now I should think. It was supposed to have been a member of the Oxford Choral Society then. Probably an urban legend, but a good one. Wouldn't surprise me if he'd put it about himself, actually. Yonks ago I was playing in the competition in Dublin (got eliminatedin the first round, together with Jeremy Filsell - not a bad thing to happen in Dublin, one could then concentrate on other things, like the beer) , and SP, who I knew from Cape Town days, was on the jury. The World Cup was on, and Ireland was playing Rumania; we ended up having a few in a roughish pub down the hill from Christ Church while the match was bein broadcast on the telly. The glasses being empty, Simon offered to fetch a few more. The barman was a little unfriendly; because, he said, Simon was obviously not Irish, he must "probably be a bloody Rumanian". Became the slogan of the week: "Simon Preston and other well-known Rumanian organists". Now there, incidentally, is also someone who gets "bums on seats", especially in the colonies......... the ex-organist of Westminster Abbey is of course an excellent thing to be.

Oh, I don't know. It's good for practising twinkly toes and limp wrists. I heard Simon Preston play it in Ireland (Dun Laoghaire). He was practising his raconteurial skills bewteen pieces, and happened to mention that "it's the tune we know as "God save the Queen"." To which came the very audible response, "No queens in Ireland, dear." In the event, the groundlings loved it.

Hindemith wrote the first Sonata on his way to America on the ship. The others followed pretty quickly. Robert Noehren recorded the pieces at St. John's Church in Buffalo NY in 1940 under Hindemith's supervision. For the third sonata, Hindemith agreed to a registration of Flutes 8 & 2 for the mezzo-forte marking (last movemnt), adding 8 6 2 principals for forte; melody on a 4' reed. The first sonata obviously needs a lusher appraoch; Neohren recalls Hindemith saying "I want more sound" until he finally kicked the cresc. pedal open and Hindemith was satisfied with that! There are in fact two manuscripts of the piece with registrations worked out for different organs: one neo-classical, and then for Methuen. The neoclassical versions is the bare bones - although the piece has lots of different levels, these can easily be managed on a three manual organ by manual changing with discrete changes of registration here and there. The Methuen version looks like Reger, there are stops flashing on and off continuously. There are no crescendo markings in the first two sonatas, and only a few in the third - in fact the one I find the most difficult to register on a neoclassical instrument. The rather cool opening gestures of the first two sonatas seem not to want mixtures, or not big ones, at any rate; in fact, Hindemith wanted 8+2 onlyy for the second sonata too. So not really forte at all. My son demands my attention......... Cheers Barry

Ah, but have you been in Essener Dom? You can really get the congregation/ audience in your pincers with that "Auxiliaire" - they have no escape! Brilliant! Everything the power-hungry evil organist ever wanted! And anything Essen can have, Cologne can have two of. Cheers B