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Design A Programme


Vox Humana

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We've had quite a few "design your own organ" threads, but how about something a bit different? How about recital programmes for particular situations?

 

Such as...

 

You have been invited to give a recital in a North American concert hall. The organ has 4 manuals and 100 stops. What are you going to play?

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We've had quite a few "design your own organ" threads, but how about something a bit different? How about recital programmes for particular situations?

 

Such as...

 

You have been invited to give a recital in a North American concert hall. The organ has 4 manuals and 100 stops. What are you going to play?

 

 

Right!

 

[A rushed response to set the ball rolling - I'm awaiting a phone call which will take me off in a hurry...]

 

1. Marche Pontificale - Widor

2. Toccata, Adagio and Fugue - Bach (with introduction not entirely unlike those offered by V.F of sainted memory)

3. Some nice English Cornet Voluntary in a minor key

4. Fantasia in F minor and major - Mozart

5. Sonata no.3 - Mendelssohn (with the crude application of brash reeds from time to time)

6. Divertimento - Robert Cundick

6. Sonata Eroica - Jongen

 

That, maybe plus an odd little English work or two, ought to suffice!

The encore (if needed) would be American - probably 'Roulade' by Seth Bingham

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There are so many good organs in North America, but a lack of really good spaces into which they speak. However, give a decent acoustic ad perhaps one of the new breed of concert organs with Chamades, I think I would probably opt for a programme like this:-

 

 

 

1. Introduction & Passacaglia (the shorter one) Max Reger (A cracking opening piece to pin back the ears)

 

2. Lied to the flowers - Flor Peeters

 

3. Prelude & Fugue in C major (the 9/8 one) - Bach

 

4. Preludium - Zoltan Kodaly

 

5. Will o' the wisp - Nevin

 

6. Litanies - Jehan Alain (Something for the chamades)

 

7. Berceuse - Vierne

 

8. Sonata on the 94th Psalm - Reubke

 

 

You will observe FRENCH music in this programme, but Alain wasn't just any old Frenchman!

 

The Vierne is gorgeous, and I play it a lot.

 

No.4 is superb, and the ending quite magical

 

MM

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Guest Barry Oakley

I would not dream of quibbling with any of the suggestions put forward so far. But I did wonder if the potential recitalist might consider an arrangement or improvisation for organ based on an orchestral work by an American composer - Copland or John Adams, etc.

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Interesting question!

 

The most unusual theme to an organ recital I've ever faced was a concert of organ music with Congolese connections.

 

Stumpted?

 

Just before leaving to take up my current job in Democratic Republic of Congo I gave a recital at my church. I included Franck's Third Chorale (being perhaps the most famous Belgium composer, and DRC was formerly a Belgium colony), plus a voluntary by Stanley (no relative of Henry Stanley, the Victorian explorer who opened up Congo) and Guillmant's First Sonata (which was composed for and first played in the presence of Prince Leopold II of Belgium, whose brutal rule over the colony created the conditions that have plagued the nation ever since).

 

Other suggestions for wacky recital themes please?

 

Contrabombarde

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