sprondel
-
Posts
425 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Posts posted by sprondel
-
-
Just in case anyone doesn't have this set of three CDs, Selections.Com are selling it for £7.99.
It's worth buying a separate set just for the car at that price.
I know the set, and found it quite good. Of course, everything new in this area has to stand up to comparison with Ben van Oosten's set, which, in my ears, is unsurpassed in every aspect (and it was recorded in 1984!). Jeremy Filsell's playing, of course, is very good, but somehow I think I would have enjoyed it more in recital than on disk, maybe because of the more interesting bits in the articulation.
My new favourite, and in my ears the first Vierne set coming close to the BvO set, is this, played here. Of course, the organ is anything but romantic (as stated erroneously by the label), but it is an exceptionally fine new instrument and, in its short life, has served for many recordings already. (In case you think, having read the stoplist, that one-and-a-half real pedal stops might not be sufficient for symphonic repertoire, I recommend to give it a try -- I was surprised myself.) It is the playing, however, that really makes the music bloom.
Best,
Friedrich
-
... Indeed, so far as effect is concerned the palm may go to Rheinberger, for it can hardly be denied that some passages in the Bach work - e.g., Variations XV and XVI - suffer from its having been written for the clavicembalo." (From the Notes to his Novello Edition of the Sonata.) Any comments?
Only that it hadn't. Whoever brought up that idea -- be it Forkel, Griepenkerl, or anyone else -- can't probably have heard it on a pedal harpsichord -- if he ever saw, let alone heard one in his life --, as the piece is such an excellent example for refined sound management on the organ by four-part writing. Almost all of which is lost on the harpsichord.
Best,
Friedrich
-
Incidentally - a "what would you do?" question. Several years ago I played for a series of special services in a church in Hastings (every night, Monday to Friday). I had (as asked by the organist) noted the piston settings before changing them. However, the assistant organist (who was a friend) asked me to leave my settings at the end of the week, as she preferred them to the "standard" ones. What would you do?
That's an easy one, isn't it? Put down mine for the assistant organist, and restore the organist's as promised. One might suggest, then, to leave negotiations with the organist to her. Or to quarrel over the question if and when to acquire a multi-level combination system.
Best,
Friedrich
-
What a very nice, well rounded modern English organ.
AJS
Was the case design, by any chance, done by Simon Platt? Judging from his work for Gerhard Grenzing -- Niigata centre, Brussels and Madrid cathedrals etc --, I'd say he likes to show a lot of wooden surfaces in his cases, and the decorative elements at Llandaff seem to match his overall style as well. In fact, I find his case designs quite attractive, if a bit heavy sometimes. Nicholson's site doesn't tell anything about it, or I did not find out where.
Best,
Friedrich
-
Is history just bunk?
No. It's fascinating.
Why didn't many composers for the organ leave specific registration instructions, as an orchestral composer would have done?The history fascists tought me that it was a matter of conventions, which sometimes were confirmed by repetition in the score, but more often were not. Some schools had developed a set of shorthand instructions, most effectively the French. Other schools just did not bother.
Is Bach arr. Virgil Fox less worthy than Bach recreated by scholarly insight?Worthy? Depends on what you would like to hear, or give the audience to listen. I don't believe in Wanda's view, but some ways of music making, in relation to the music played, sound more convincing to me than others, for several reasons. Personal predilection for certain sound qualities is just one of them, expectation from knowledge of historical instruments and other sources another.
Isn't it all just fashion and personal taste, or maybe the facism of academia?Fashion: As far as it is reflected in the market, of course it is. Personal taste: If you mean it in the way of saying "Well, it all comes down to personal taste in the end", then the question is useless. If, on the other hand, "taste" means something in the way of "bon gout" as the Couperins might have used the expression, then it is a definitive Yes.
Is Reger any the worse for being played on an English instrument, or Vierne played on a neo-calssical instrument?No! I love listening the players to cope with instruments, and love it even more if they manage well. Nicolas Kynaston playing Widor's Eighth on a German neo-baroque Ott form the 1950ies in Bonn? Fascinating!
Is it better to just make things sound good, and then play with conviction?You might be on to something there.
Best,
Friedrich
-
I like that Wiederman stuff as well. Look out also for the amazing Passacaglia quasi Toccata on B-A-C-H by Milos Sokola. The only UK recording I know of which should still be available is John Scott's Priory disc from St Giles' in Edinburgh (the last Rieger organ designed by a Glatter-Gotz!). John Scott's performance is very polite and rather slow...
Nicolas Kynaston played the piece, along with some Wiedermann and Germani, for his Hyperion CD from Chichester. Great playing throughout, so supple.
Best,
Friedrich
-
We have heard of hybrid instruments.
is a hybrid performance, featuring one player and two instruments, one clearly digital, the other one very analogue.Reminds one of what is told about Bruhns, accompanying himself while playing the violin.
Best,
Friedrich
P. S.
Oh -- not at all hybrid, it turns out. Fully analogue. Sorry.
-
I can't help seeing the Dupré G minor fugue in a rather similar sort of light, though the image that piece conjours up for me is rather one of ghoulish devils dancing wildy round a fire - particularly in the final section where the strettos kick in. Yes, a real devils' dance. Rather unsuitable for church really!
The second phrase of the fugue subject is an inversion of the "Dies irae" beginning. When the entire subject comes in inverted, at first the semitone is in the wrong place. When the chorale from the prelude is quoted, however, it clearly tells its point of departure. So, it is more than possible that you're on to the master here.
Best,
Friedrich
-
I have 2 LP recordings of Mme Durufle playing her husband's Prelude & Fugue sur le nom d'Alain, one dating from 1973 at Soissons (traction mechanique), the other from 1976 at the National Shrine Washington, so very close together in terms of time, & we may assume Mme's technique was in much the same order. Both are beautifully played, but there is really no contest. The performance at Soissons is so much clearer, and one can quite hear that this is because of the direct link between the player and the pipes. Mme is equally at home at Washington, but the organ lets her down. It is simply not capable of responding in the same way. It is left behind. ...
Which reminds me of a sentence by Fernando Germani as quoted by his student Nicolas Kynaston. Germani knew hardly any other than pneumatic and e-p organs, but became acquainted with tracker action at the end of his career. It must have made a lasting impression on the man. "You just think it and it happens", he put it.
Best,
Friedrich
-
========================
One of the best tracker actions I have played, is that at the Bavokerk, Haarlem, but the limitation there is the speed of note repetition, again presumably due to the inertia of an action-run which goes upwards as much as 30 -40ft from the console.
There is a quote from Jeanne Demessieux about the type of action that would suit playing Dupré's music best, and she stated that tracker action needed to be "very, very light"; the best type would be electric (by which, I gather, she meant e-p).
These "very, very light" and fast tracker actions, however, do exist; and maybe Mme Demessieux just couldn't know, because she tragically did not live to see the considerable progress in tracker action engineering since the 1960ies. I recently heard Dupré's Sketch op. 41, 1 (that staccato thing) on a 1989 tracker (this recording, nothing on youtube, alas) with the player going at breakneck speed -- faster indeed than John Scott on his, otherwise peerless, St Paul's recording. The only downside was that, on a tracker that basically was built in 1960 (1989 rebuild), the keyboard ended at g''', so that a few notes on the top end were missing.
Bottom line: As long as we are talking contemporary organbuilding, no tracker actions needs to be as clumsy as to exclude exciting bits of repertoire. On the other hand, some other very exciting bits, by composers such as Ligeti, Cage, Kagel, Yun etc., cannot be performed aptly on electric action instruments.
Best,
Friedrich
-
In no particular order:
1. Royal Festival Hall, London
2. St Louis Vichy
3. St Ouen, Rouen
4. St Sernin, Toulouse
5. Auckland Town Hall
6. Sint Laurenskerk, Alkmaar
7. Groote Kerk, Zwolle
8. St Bavo, Haarlem
9. Washington National Cathedral
10. West Point Military Academy
That's a very good list. Mine would include additionally, and perhaps before your nos. 9 and 10
1. Norden, St. Ludgeri
2. Freiberg, Dom
3. Dresden, Hofkirche
4. Ottobeuren, Abbey church (Riepp twins)
5. Riga, Dom
6. Schwerin, Dom
7. Poitiers, cathedral
8. Sydney, Town Hall
9. Southwark Cathedral
10. Boston, Church of the Advent
(11. ex Boston, ex Immaculate Conception -- in storage, alas)
Best,
Friedrich
-
Slider seals on a Romantic soundboard, and surely I didn't see a row of lever arm magnets. I'll let them off the slider solenoids. Just an illustration of how far you take a pure philosophy. Design looks a bit vertical to me for the concept as well. Will be interested to hear how they sell the instrument. Leathered lips and double risers does not a Romantic organ make.
I am not quite sure what you mean by "vertical", but felt remembered of a sentence Robert Ampt said about his splendid Sydney Hill on YouTube: "Well, the one thing the organ (120+ stops) lacks is mutations".
Bound to make registering Messiaen, for one, a tricky experience, but it's the way they wanted it. I still don't quite get the rationale. May be, if the interest in the instrument persists, we get a déja-vu twelve years from now, and a "Positiv" division will be massaged into the music closet -- Cornet décomposé, Cymbale and a "Cremona".
Best,
Friedrich
-
I just found this – Sebastian KB has been mentioned here before, this is another display of what he does.
Judgement about the organ in ongoing discussion, by the way, is between quirky and rightout hideous (sound as well as achitecture). But I think that's secondary to this stunning Dance of the Death.
Best,
Friedrich
-
I phoned and was told categorically that there is no truth in this rumour
That's still the best way to handle it.
When I worked as an editor for an organ magazine, some person approached me, relating the "news" that, under the load of the then-new suspended Klais in Cologne cathedral, the vaults were crumbling, and that the organ had been silenced and was about to be taken down very soon. The person in question just came from a meeting of organ experts-to-be, so a lot of people had had their heads together over their beers, and the buzz made its way through the scene quite well.
I called the cathedral's curator (Domabaumeisterin), and she said, well she'd love to confirm the rumour as she had never been especially fond of the location and case design of the organ, but alas, everything was fine.
Best,
Friedrich
-
The Lausanne Fisk has a all-but-true 32-foot chorus. The open 32' is taken down to CCCC (ten old wooden pipes, another two in the front) but, from TC up, is an extension of the 16'. The two 4' are Prestant and Octave, and with them the chorus spreads into a German and French branch, so to speak. The chorus consists of the following ranks:
32.16.8.4.4.2 2/3.2.1 3/5.VIIFour.VCy.VI-IXMx
This adds up to 26 to 29 ranks of chorus -- in a Fisk, this is a sound to remember, for "our organs are never shy", as Greg Bover, vice president to the company, put it.
The organ has what David Pike, tonal director, called "blind features" concerning the 32' chorus in the Great. The Fourniture VII starts on 2 2/3', and the 5 1/3' comes in fairly early. There is a 10 2/3' rank as well which is activated only if the open 32' is drawn. Likewise, the Mixtur VI-IX has a 5 1/3' rank that only comes in if the 16' Montre is drawn.
Many Schulzes, even if only of moderate size, had a 32' Bourdon from TC up. These stops appear to have worked quite effectively in their tonal concept.
Best,
Friedrich
-
There is a recording by the late Käte van Tricht, organist at Bremen cathedral and virtuoso student of Karl Straube, Reger's friend and favourite performer. Straube edited several organ works by Bach, pre-Bach masters and Reger which, today, can be seen as protocols of his own way of playing this literature, before he made contact with, and became vivid supporter of, the Orgelbewegung.
The disc (MD+G) was recorded at the Bremen Sauer (c. 1900, IV/100+) before the last restoration, which took the organ -- that in the meantime had grown quite some cymbals and lost lawns of strings instead -- back to a more romantic state. Nevertheless, underneath some shiny XXV-or-so-rank mixtures, you hear the unbreakable Sauer core of foundation and reed sound.
The B-Minor prelude, played by van Tricht after the Straube edition, is foundations throughout, quite slow and melancholic, as if played by a large string orchestra. The first fugato entry in the prelude, in fact, sounds on the string céleste. The prelude starts pp, builds up to a climax of foundation sound just before the re-entry of the last ritornello, then shifts back to pp -- a most compelling effect, smoothening the formal break and keeping the flow beautifully.
The fugue starts very soft and rhythmically free as well, then gains a more and more solid sound and pace, and ends, with a monumental ritardando, on full organ.
It is an interpretation that always harkens back to a big Wagner orchestra behind the organ sound. It is one-of-a-kind playing. I like it much better than TK's, who, no matter what he plays, tends to raise my heart rate and blood pressure most uncomfortably.
Best,
Friedrich
-
Best's name has been linked to the tale since at least 1926 when the story (along with the one about the pencil) was printed in the Musical Times. You can read it here (in the left-hand column) in what seems to be an article about Best ...
Thanks Vox! That's the sort of information I was looking for.
Gratefully
Friedrich
-
My understanding is that it was GTB at the Temple Church. Perhaps it is ome of those apocryphal talers that never actually happened but somehow got embedded into the collective consciousness of organists the world over!
I'm quite sure I read it in some authoritative source, perhaps an OR article or even Stephen Bicknell's book ... Temple Church is a good hint, though. Must dig out the book.
Thank you anyway,
Friedrich
-
Dear members,
I am looking for a source and some facts concerning the famous anecdote about someone announcing "And now, the organ will play!", and the organist who is supposed to play sitting in the audience, waiting what might happen without him. I have a vague memory that WT Best was the organist in question, but can't find anything to support that.
Who was involved, and when and where did this happen as reported?
Thanks for any help!
Best,
Friedrich
-
ust wondering: in a baroque orchestra, where does this organ fit in? Is it an acurate copy of a baroque instrument or is it (as I suspect) in fact a 20th century (neo-baroque) invention? I know of only two examples (seen on photo) of 'real' baroque organs-like-a-box, but these were actually normal organs in a different housing (quite large in fact).
There are historical organs, especially manufactured for processions, which, concerning space economy, even surpass today's tightest-packed examples. An example is the Gottlieb Näser positive (1734) at the Germanic National Museum, Nürnberg, which is really tiny (and for that sake leaves out the note D, starting C E F F# ...). There are, as well, many baroque positives of three to five stops which, while not meant to travel in an estate car, were not that much different from their mobile great-great-grandchildren. They were placed in chancels, on choir lofts etc. Thorough bass created a market for this kind of instrument.
Best,
Friedrich
-
Probably. The thread was posted in the wrong forum to begin with really. I'm sure the moderators would consider moving it if you asked them to.
I opened a new thread on "The Organ and its Music". It's thriving. Please come and join.
Best,
Friedrich
-
Dear all,
I have started a new topic on this fascinating subject, and invite you to abandon the GDB thread for a while and join me there.
Thanks for coming
Friedrich
-
The question was raised in the GDB topic, but gained quite some momentum of its own, so let me start a spin-off topic here.
Malcolm Kemp asked:
"... but I still find that Walcha and Heiller inspire me in a way that van Oortmerrson and Koopman do not. Perhaps I am just getting old. What do others think?"
As for Koopman, he just raises my blood pressure to dangerous levels, even in his recordings – something quite remarkable in its own right –, so that I have to stop listening after a short while. I decided not to listen to him any more.
Jacques van Ootmerssen's recent Bach recordings I found very good – well-chosen tempi, nicely breathing phrasing, noble articulation, and a true sense for the respective organs and their sounds.
About Walcha, I find it remarkable how every voice sings, and how he never disturbs the grand pace of the music. I needed some time, however, to discover these qualities in the recordings, because they are the opposite of spectacular – you need to open your ears wide and to join into the singing. As regards registration and articulation, the recordings avoid extremes of any kind – as long as you regard a playing based on seamless legato not an extreme, that is.
Another player I found quite compelling is Leonid Roizman, teacher of most Russian organists touring the globe today. His 1960 Bach recordings are currently reissued on CD (Melodia), one by one. They were taken on the Cavaillé-Coll-Mutin organ of Moscow conservatory (the one you see on all the Horovitz Covers). The playing is flawless, majestic and overwhelmingly disciplined. By going at very steady paces and using incredibly long-reaching phrasing, he manages to build up even the longest pieces – the F Major toccata, the Passacaglia – as large units. These recordings are definitely worth listening to. I had to review them together with Jacques van Ootmerssen's, and found them not as distant from each other as one might expect.
Best,
Friedrich
-
At least two times too fast. All the solemnity and gravity of the piece dissepears.
At places when the music is very dense, you need to concentrate not to lose the half of the notes.
Bach's music is no clavier challenge -not only-, but above all depth, dignity and grandeur.
I like the playing, and the tempo is not so very much off the usual (which of course doesn't say much about the quality of the interpretation). (Yes, there are one or two notes in the pedal during the ritornello that could have lasted longer, but it doesn't disturb the overall momentum.)
When players go for a really heavy "French" beginning, the staccato echoes get quite stiff, even comically so, and the fugue sections loose all sense of virtuosity. Played at this pace, the music actually tells that it was created by the same mind as the fugues in G Minor (542/2) or C Minor (582/2). First-hand witnesses report that Bach tended to play at a vivid pace, comparatively.
I think Peter Williams is right in writing that there is more to this piece than the much-quoted French overture style, and Spang-Hansen apparently is aware of that.
Best,
Friedrich
Wim Verburg RIP
in General discussion
Posted
Dear list members,
from the German Orgelforum I had to learn that Wim Verburg, after a short and severe illness, died today.
Many of you might know him from his incredible website www.orgelsite.nl as an avid organ lover, player, photographer, and even composer. He had a gift for making contact easily and kindly, as well as for communicating his love for the organ and his insatiable, and at the same time wonderfully relaxed, curiosity for everything concerning the instrument.
Wim had married recently. He was only 44.
Best,
Friedrich