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heva

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Posts posted by heva

  1. I had to play a wedding mass some ten years ago, where a (woman) friend of the bride would sing Ave Maria - the Bach/Gounod one (sure ...). We sang it through before mass and it was ok (for an amateur singer), but so incredibly loud - like a high pressure soprano mirabilis ... ("Or should I sing a little more in your direction", nonono, it's ok ....)

     

    Well, at the end of the mass the Ave Maria should be sung and I started the 'Bach' prelude waiting for the soprano to join. Which she did, but a third too low. Funny, I thought. In doubt whether to transpose or not - she didn't seem to notice (question is if could be heard at that volume) - so I didn't transpose.

    Nor did she. I kept on playing the piece, which writtendown was in D-major, she kept singing in B-flat major - it's difficult not to laugh then, that jazzchord at the end ...

     

    The priest asked me later "you know, I have no musical knowledge, but what kind of Ave Maria arrangement was that? I sounded somehow ................different............

  2. Actually, you might be rather surprised to find that on many old 'baroque' organs the Sequialteras are placed with the chorus stops rather than with the solo stops (flutes, mutations and reeds) e.g. at Haarlem they are on the same side of the console as the Principals and Mixtures. The implication is that they were considered as an element that could be drawn in the chorus, rather than exclusively as a solo stop.

     

    Even more so, if you look at old books with registrations (suggestions) you'll find that the sesquialtera is drawn in the 'organo pleno'.

  3. No - PC would not have needed to cheat. Since his piano teacher had been Nadia Boulanger, his clavier technique was that of a concert pianist; it is highly probable that he brought his pedal technique up to the same standard.

     

    I am (still) at school and I cannot find a specification on-line which lists couplers and accessories, but I do not recall there being a sostenuto on the N.-D. organ. No doubt, when I get home and check, the first thing that I shall notice is a sostenuto facility.... To which part of the DVD were you referring, incidentally?

     

    It is interesting to watch his clavier technique - particularly his left hand. His facility really is quite impressive.

     

    His piano teacher was Marguerite Long, wasn't she? The sostenuto wasn't there - at the very end of track01 on th DVD he ends with a tutti (oui....) where the left takes over a chord from the right where it seems as if there is a sostenuto (not so good filming actually). About this left hand: look at the descendig scale in the Couperin at the beginning: nice historically correct way to play ...

  4. I believe that's right. Isn't the case of the little organ (the Ahrend) from Sweelinck's organ? Heva?

     

    The west gallery organ is, I think, approx 1760 by Vater. So a little after Sweelink's time.

     

    Talking of streets, there are some interesting shop window displays around the Oude Kirk...

     

    The first parts of the transeptorgan date from 1658 by Hans Wolff Schonat, that's 37 years after Sweelinck's death.

     

    The shop window displays pull out all the stops, if you pay them :P:P

  5. Ummm.... no, it is definitely there - for the entire chord; N.-D. is not that resonant!

     

    The Finale of Symphonie 6me is electrifying - but it is still inaccurate! I am currently in school (free period - no marking! YAY!!  :P ) so I cannot remember exactly where, but I think that it is on the second page, about the first or second line - he plays the same harmonies for both phrases - which is implicitly not correct! He also does this when the phrase is repeated, later.

     

    I confess that I do not know how he gets the pedal scales quite that fast - I play the movement fairly quickly - but not that quickly!

     

    Pedal coupled to a manual (LH)? manualchords by suboctave coupler(RH)?

     

    Another thing: do we widness the use of the/an sustenuto on the DVD where he ends at man.5?

  6. Also, at the end of the 1er Symphony, PC plays a tonic sixth chord on the tutti - presumably this had Vierne spinning in his grave.

     

    I doubt the tonic sixth chord - okay, I hear it too, but I just can't believe he did it.

    Must be the chamades in the pedal (where the b ís played) hanging or so ...

     

    Final 6th is simply electrifying, not to mention the the dancing scelletons in the scherzo ....

  7. Actually, on the DVD, in an earlier interview, PC does state that he was a lousy sight-reader when he was younger - and had not significantly improved. Whilst I doubt that this was literally true, it does perhaps cast some light on how he approached his own performances.

     

    Indeed, the 'louzy sightreader' remark puzzled my mind too. But did they need to in Dupré's class, I always thought everything needed to be played from memory. :P

  8. Yes - sorry, Heva, but I think your foot is bleeding profusely....

     

    Incidentally, I have not forgotten about the recording - I will do it soon - promise!

     

    Personally, I think the Cochereau improvisations are just too wonderful not to play, if at all possible.

     

    It must be said (and I am not the only person to say this) but the instrument in my own church does do a good job of some of the Cochereau improvisations. Whilst it is missing the 32p reed and really French chorus reeds (and a decent reverbeation period), most of the rest is there.

     

    :blink:

     

    Well, my foot get's better already, whith these wise words here :D

     

    Could playing these impro's conflict with the original artist's will? As far as I know PC seemed not very serious about it ("I don't study it, I study it on stage") and said that that music is there on the moment and is gone when it's finished. Would it show respect to him to keep repeating his 'thing for that particular moment'? (I know he was proud on the other hand when Jean-Marc had written down the Boléro - and played it himself (and found it pretty difficult)).

     

    But I agree they áre wonderfull ...

  9. Yes, I promise to keep the volume at a reasonable level  :blink: and will report back. And while we're on the subject of Vierne, does anyone have the Jeremy Filsell CDs of the complete organ symphonies from St Ouen? I was thinking of acquiring these, and would be grateful for the thoughts of others............

     

    Graham

     

    Well, another Rouen set - how much are there yet (haven't heard 'm though - so won't judge on the playing).

     

    How about Martin Jean at Woolsey Hall, Yale? It'll be my next ...

     

    Recently I bought Daniel Roth in St.Sulpice with Vierne 1+2. Though a very good set, I always find this organ (on cd) somewhat remote , 'at a distant' (also on Landale's Franck), even though it's sounds is massive in the tutti. Roth plays the Vierne's with authority, very musical.

     

    But, from all Vierne's I've heard so far, it's the Cochereau set that goes in my bag if sent to a desert island (there's só much fire in those recordings :D )

  10. ...his registrations were particulary so well choosen that you could believe that Pierre Cochereau was still alive...

     

    That's exactly what I personally dislike in all this Cochereau-improvisations-writtendown-and-performed.

    The great Pierre would probably not have 'done' the same improvisation twice, his genius would already have moved further. I doubt even if he would have liked it (would they be written down if he had had the health to be still alive?). Even on 'his' organ, with his notes, and his registration, you are not Cochereau, and neither is your 'performance' (and now I start wondering if this doesn't also count for written music by i.e. Bach - shooting myself in the foot?).

     

    Anyway, let's study his impro's very carefully, but do our/your own thing.

  11. Surely, at the end of the day, it is the music, this wonderful music of Bach that has the power to reach us, sometimes despite the nature of the vehicle utilised in the  interpretation.

     

    ... needing an artist who understands what this music is about and who is able to naturally convince/move the audience with his understanding (of both this music and his instrument).

  12. Both the Latry and van Oosten recordings are on amazon.co.uk.

     

    I do not know the Latry set, but everything I have heard from this musician was so great that I would order the CD immediately.

     

    Best, Friedrich

     

    Get the Latry-set, (it's back in print as far as I know). I don't know this Van Oosten set, find his playing very good, but mostly (very) 'reserved' (not to say boring). You'll be surprised to hear the NDdP organ souding só good for that time (don't know what they ever did with/for it ...)

     

    I also know old LP's with Pierre Labric, if you could get them: do!

  13. My best advice is to catch a plane and a train, listen to Reger and fly home.

     

    Don't get involved with these people!!

     

    ;)

     

    MM

     

    A bit difficult being a 6-foot-5-inch Dutch ;)

    Besides - there's Amsterdam (isn't that called 'sinkpot of the empire'?) and there's 'The Netherlands' ...

     

    But then there are those among 'us' who do the reverse: catch a boat and a train and listen St.Pauls or Westm.Cath.

  14. It is a bit disconcerting not to have to do any of the registration yourself!  My, those registrants work  really hard in the sort of repertoire mentioned above!

     

    My last recital in Holland was in a Reger Festival and I had to do 'Straf' mich nicht''.  It came out OK, but one did wonder quite why it had to be done on such a heavy action and an awkward console. The stop question has been covered above - I still ran out of notes on the pedalboard.  I do wonder, just a little, why the Dutch are quite so fascinated by Reger.  They ignore so much else, in fact virtually everything else from the same period and virtually everything Dutch from any period!.  In that series (in Delft) with (I think) fourteen players giving recitals there was a total of three Dutch works played in total. I played two of them!

     

    Down the road from where I played (The Niewe Kerk - N.B. not new , of course!) stands the Catholic Cathedral with 'the real thing' (as far as Reger is concerned) a genuine big, untouched German organ complete with Rollschweller.  Do they play Reger there? No.  The organist wants to play Bach there and wishes she was organist of somewhere else.  At least, being Hollond, she is not trying to have her instrument changed.

     

    Maybe that Reger's music compensates some emotions that are lacking in the (more ore less) orthodox protestant population? Anyway, 'we' Dutch lack an healthy amount of chauvinism, maybe that's why we don't play our own legacy (on the other hand the things that áre played over often overestimated in my opinion)

     

    The organ in the catholic church (not a cathedral) you refer to (by Maarschalkerweerd) is in restoration and should be finished somewhere in 2008.

  15. When a host in Holland says, "Play the solo of Liebster Jesu two octaves low on the 2ft" he means it.

     

    They are so ridiculously tall, with arms like crabs....I return to England with neck-ache, just talking to them.

     

    MM

     

     

    Shall we stick with "tall" ?? ;)

  16. I am familiar with the mainline USA builder output as I read their new organ and upcoming projects. Similarly I am somewhat peripherally aware of the "boutique" builders' work along similar lines of communication. It is rare to hear about new work large, medium , small from the UK, the continent, Asia or anywhere else, down under etc. Anybody care to offer some enlightenment as to what kind of organs are being manufactured and in what "style" or according to what concept if that is the correct term in these other venues?

     

    New organs being built, in Holland?

    :D

     

    One interesting organ being built is this one; french romantic organs normally are associated in Holland with the RomanCatholic demonination, this church is a protestant church in a rather orthodox protestant area in the Netherlands. Also it's a 'larger' new instrument for this builder in years - ofcourse 'large' in a Dutch perspective, we criticize 'big beasts' (just kiddin', steve) and built effectively nothing new (most new instruments are copies of some historic style.

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