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Dupre playing the F major toccata at St Sulpice in 1961

 

and

 

I just listened to this for the first time and, to be honest, I don't quite know what to make of it. It is just so different from what I am used to.

Interesting! Well, laying the bad mistakes aside, I rather like it once the triple invertible counterpoint starts. You can hear the lines sing and connect in a way often missing from many 'modern' performances using détaché touch, sewing machine tempi and quint mixtures. Either way, you simply can't keep Bach's cosmic and determined joy down in this piece!

 

Of course, with that organ in that acoustic, you need some reeds and a stately tempo to make each part clear (see Daniel Roth's liner notes to his St Sulpice Bach disc).

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Dupre playing the F major toccata at St Sulpice in 1961

 

and

 

I just listened to this for the first time and, to be honest, I don't quite know what to make of it. It is just so different from what I am used to.

Goodness me, Bach sounds like a man of substance and stature! Can't be right, surely? :blink:

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Ah yes - is this the recording, the original soundtrack of which was re-used (and re-mastered?) to provide the fourth track of the first CD of the box set Pierre Cochereau: l'Organiste de Nôtre-Dame (SOCD 94/96) ?

 

I really like this performance, it is so full of energy and fire. The section with the chromatic thirds is played stunningly well - and very quickly.

 

A slightly late response, but yes, I am fairly sure that it is. After reading about this recording I tried to find it and, as luck would have it, there was on Ebay the 2 LP set (FY20/21) which I "won" for quite a modest sum, the CD being long since discontinued according to the Solstice website.

 

The organ, playing and recording quality are quite wonderful. I haven't fully assimilated the discs yet, but I have never heard a Cortege & Litanie quite like it and as for the Symphonie-Passion, what Passion is in the playing!

 

I'm so glad that I kept my record deck. Next job is to back-up the discs onto tape at 7.5 ips, just in case...

 

 

Edit, later...

 

The end of Evocation III is absolutely stunning. Words almost fail me... :lol:

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I started buying vinyl LPs again about four years ago and bought the necessary equipment to play them on. Some of the Dupre recordings (especially playing Widor and Franck) are superb. I quickly realised that we were all duped when CDs first came upon the scene. In many cases the sound quality on vinyl is extremely good. Not only have I bought them on e-Bay; there is a shop selling them (albeit slightly overpriced) just round the corner from Brighton station and I've picked up some good items - choral, organ and other genres - in there.

 

Malcolm

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Romantic US organs with nine (yes: 9) stops, there are

a sheer number of them. But nobody in Europe knows them

and how interesting they are !

 

We talk of course of "Octopods" here....This one has a 2', but

illustrates the genre quite well.

 

Hook & Hastings (Boston) organ from 1893:

 

 

(check under "others video from..." there are two handfulls of videos

with this organ).

 

And oooh this one:

 

 

Lack of "clarity in the polyphonic textures"?

 

And note the acoustics do not help at all, as it is often the case in the United States.

 

Pierre

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I started buying vinyl LPs again about four years ago and bought the necessary equipment to play them on. Some of the Dupre recordings (especially playing Widor and Franck) are superb. I quickly realised that we were all duped when CDs first came upon the scene. In many cases the sound quality on vinyl is extremely good. Not only have I bought them on e-Bay; there is a shop selling them (albeit slightly overpriced) just round the corner from Brighton station and I've picked up some good items - choral, organ and other genres - in there.

 

Malcolm

 

I have often observed that organ recordings sound better on vinyl - somehow warmer and less 'clinical', for want of a better word. I have a friend who goes even further and states that organs also sound better through a good quality valve amplifier. I am not sure about the latter point, but I still enjoy listening to my old LPs.

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Guest Patrick Coleman
I have often observed that organ recordings sound better on vinyl - somehow warmer and less 'clinical', for want of a better word. I have a friend who goes even further and states that organs also sound better through a good quality valve amplifier. I am not sure about the latter point, but I still enjoy listening to my old LPs.

 

I think the King's Nine Lessons & Carols sounds far better on my 1932 Marconi wireless...

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My uncle used to make wirelesses as a hobby in the 1940s and 1950s. My aunt used to comment that "wireless" was one of the most inappropriate names she could think of for these contraptions!

 

If he had lived in the age of the microchip my uncle would have had more time to spend drinking Brickwood's ales in the local pubs of rural West Sussex.

 

Malcolm

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If he had lived in the age of the microchip my uncle would have had more time to spend drinking Brickwood's ales in the local pubs of rural West Sussex.

... except that in the age of the microchip Brickwoods, had they survived at all, would be a faceless and tasteless brand name of Interbrew and the local pubs would all be faceless and tasteless Enterprise Inns outfits run by people lured by 'earn up to £90,000 a week' adverts. Your uncle probably would have instead been on forums at half past midnight making observations totally irrelevant to the subject, like me.

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"Fantasia in G" by JS Bach. Portsmouth Cathedral, Sunday 17th January 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGPvwawMMdQ

 

I recorded this clip myself after the end of Choral Evensong. It is played by David Price (Organist & Master of the Choristers, Portsmouth Cathedral) who gave me permission to upload the clip onto YouTube when I spoke to him briefly after he came down from the organ loft. Fabulous sound but it is a pity about the talking, which was inevitable of course. I also liked the sound of the Cimbelstern (sleigh bells) at the end. Still the music is audible over the crowd which is great.

 

I took a walk around the cathedral while the music was playing, as you can see from the clip.

 

Enjoy!

 

Dave

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Here's a change from your usual pseudo-Cochereau improvisation:

 

It's possibly a little too long, but there are plenty of interesting sounds from this resourceful organ and I'm damned sure I couldn't produce anything remotely as good. It's worth watching in high quality and full screen mode.

 

The player's middle name seems too good to be true!

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As always, nobody is a prophet in his/her own country; there are french people

who say the french music of the baroque period is "light" !!!!

 

This is of course completely wrong a statment, and here is another proof of the

contrary.

The belgian organist Serge Schoonbroodt presents us with a subtile, even meditative

interpretation of the "Offertoire sur les grands jeux" from the "Messe à l'usage des paroisses" by F. Couperin

at the beautiful organ in Puy-en-Velay:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlhRB-XZxZ4...player_embedded

 

Pierre

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Ah yes - is this the recording, the original soundtrack of which was re-used (and re-mastered?) to provide the fourth track of the first CD of the box set Pierre Cochereau: l'Organiste de Nôtre-Dame (SOCD 94/96) ?

 

I really like this performance, it is so full of energy and fire. The section with the chromatic thirds is played stunningly well - and very quickly.

 

I have very recently been in correspondence with the utterly charming Yvette Carbou of Solstice about a quite different matter and mentioned that I had just bought the LPs of Pierre Cochereau playing Dupré. This is her thought on the recording...

 

agree with you about the FY020/021 (Dupré). Most of Cochereau's fans consider that recording as one of the best Pierre has ever done !

 

With my best wishes !

 

Yvette Carbou

 

P

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