What does BBC Radio 3 have AGAINST the organ ?

[John Furse]

Today, 20^th April 2024, is International Organ Day. Perhaps I should have headed for Worcester.

There has been, is and will be an impressive amount of innovative performing on offer: International Organ Day - 20th April - The Association of English Cathedrals

However, R3 has managed ONE solo item (‘the’ Widor) on Breakfast.

Despite much of the revised Saturday fare consisting of chat-type programmes, with a multiplicity of varied output, not one organist features. (Wayne Marshall’s sister, yes SISTER, appears in Jool’s Holland’s hour.) This was an ideal opportunity for organ-related programmes for the general, as well as specialist, listener.

I find this incomprehensible.

I remain most grateful to this station for how it has educated, entertained, consoled and puzzled me for most of my life. Also, for the world première and broadcast of one of my pieces (by the fabulous BBC Singers) but, as an organist, cannot help feeling short-changed today.

If I have missed something, please add it below.

[mrbouffant]

The BBC have missed out on a good opportunity here for a wall-to-wall Anna-Lapwood-a-thon! She is a star apparently, and the saviour of the organ!

[john carter]

Why not submit a programme about 25 minutes long, comprising interesting items that would appeal to a broad range of Radio 3 listeners?  Perhaps even consider pieces that the Classic FM audience might enjoy?  Nobody is going to promote the organ if its own players don't try.  And we don't need to keep emphasising how many thousands of pipes there are and how clever organists are to drive this technology.  The secret of success is in the music.

[Colin Pykett]

I shouldn't imagine the BBC has anything against the organ per se.  Rather, it probably has more to do with meeting the interests of the majority of listeners.  The BBC quite likely thinks that there wouldn't be much point wasting even more hundreds of kilowatt-hours of RF energy by broadcasting to an R3 audience which is already tiny enough as it is.  The organ just isn't up there at all when it comes to matters like this.  Example - how many people actually knew it was International Organ Day yesterday?  It's not just the BBC as  I listened to a good few hours of Classic FM on and off throughout the day and it never figured at all.  Then there's its repertoire - although large, much of it is regarded as absolute rubbish by an educated musical public, and they have a point.  The majority of people I meet deride things like Franck's L'Organiste even if they've come across it, Elgar's Vesper Voluntaries, S S Wesley's later output consisting of endless Andantes etc, and so on. Even some of the latter's finest pieces such as the Larghetto in F sharp minor or the Andante in F are in the 'slow and funereal' category which typifies much organ music in the mind of many, and bores them to death.  And, of course, a definite downside is that you have to go to church more often than not to hear live performances.   And so it goes on.

At the time I thought the BBC did us a favour by broadcasting a homage to the organ, lamenting the way it is vanishing, at Christmas 2022.  What a bitter taste arises now that we know more about the man who presented it, himself an organist, though the blame for that can hardly be laid at the door of the BBC.  But from time to time, programmes like this show that they do at least try.

I'm not saying that I hold or support these views myself, but I can understand to some extent those who do.  As I've said before on here more than once, until the organ world starts to comprehend the mindset of the 'customer' for the organ in its broadest sense, things are unlikely to get better, and they might even get worse.

[DQB123]

Alas, even my Alexa, which tells me about all kind of international days hadn't a clue that it was International Organ Day.  Ah well... there's always next year.

 

[AndrewG]

From Google April 21st is:

World Curlew Day · National Tea Day · World Creativity and Innovation Day · National Yellow Bat Day · National Chocolate Covered Cashews Day

Is it any surprise the media don’t necessarily pick all these up?

International organ day is a pretty new concept. And an attempt by RCO to promote itself. Time will tell whether it takes off.

 

[bam]

It was interesting to hear one of Cesar Franck's chorales used as the intro music to Kenneth Clarke's 'Civilisation', the first episode of which was rebroadcast by the BBC last Saturday evening.  He was standing opposite Notre Dame in Paris.

[Adnosad]

12 minutes ago, bam said:

It was interesting to hear one of Cesar Franck's chorales used as the intro music to Kenneth Clarke's 'Civilisation', the first episode of which was rebroadcast by the BBC last Saturday evening.  He was standing opposite Notre Dame in Paris.

Yes, No. 3 in A. An excellent musical intro to an excellent series despite its shortcomings and omissions which Clarke himself was prepared to admit to in the preface to his book of the same title. 

[Adnosad]

On 21/04/2024 at 10:27, Colin Pykett said:

I shouldn't imagine the BBC has anything against the organ per se.  Rather, it probably has more to do with meeting the interests of the majority of listeners.  The BBC quite likely thinks that there wouldn't be much point wasting even more hundreds of kilowatt-hours of RF energy by broadcasting to an R3 audience which is already tiny enough as it is.  The organ just isn't up there at all when it comes to matters like this.  Example - how many people actually knew it was International Organ Day yesterday?  It's not just the BBC as  I listened to a good few hours of Classic FM on and off throughout the day and it never figured at all.  Then there's its repertoire - although large, much of it is regarded as absolute rubbish by an educated musical public, and they have a point.  The majority of people I meet deride things like Franck's L'Organiste even if they've come across it, Elgar's Vesper Voluntaries, S S Wesley's later output consisting of endless Andantes etc, and so on. Even some of the latter's finest pieces such as the Larghetto in F sharp minor or the Andante in F are in the 'slow and funereal' category which typifies much organ music in the mind of many, and bores them to death.  And, of course, a definite downside is that you have to go to church more often than not to hear live performances.   And so it goes on.

At the time I thought the BBC did us a favour by broadcasting a homage to the organ, lamenting the way it is vanishing, at Christmas 2022.  What a bitter taste arises now that we know more about the man who presented it, himself an organist, though the blame for that can hardly be laid at the door of the BBC.  But from time to time, programmes like this show that they do at least try.

I'm not saying that I hold or support these views myself, but I can understand to some extent those who do.  As I've said before on here more than once, until the organ world starts to comprehend the mindset of the 'customer' for the organ in its broadest sense, things are unlikely to get better, and they might even get worse.

Echo your opinions on this subject completely.  

I think that trying to educate classic FM listeners into the exciting world of organ music would only result in even more overkilling of 565, Widor V, et.al.

" Radio 3 Breakfast Music " doesn`t fare much better either ( IMHO only of course )   

Who in their right mind at Aunty Beeb would ever select say, the Canonic Variations as an easy start to the day?

The organ per se and the music that goes with it will always be  ( IMHO only again ) viewed in Marmite terms.   Try sexing it up and you will still have problems.

[Barry Oakley]

I tend to agree with what has already been expressed, although it’s marginally better than it once was. Georgia Mann, for example, does her best. But how do you educate the listening public to know there’s more than the Widor Toccata which has been hackneyed to death. I now turn the sound off whenever it’s broadcast.

 

[Colin Pykett]

10 hours ago, Barry Oakley said:

... But how do you educate the listening public to know there’s more than the Widor Toccata which has been hackneyed to death. 

Personally, I don't see this as too much of a problem.  My circle of friends and extended family are not, by and large, anything like as attracted to the organ as I am but I've never had any problem in making them just sit down and listen to the damn thing from time to time, on the basis of "how can you say you don't like something if you've never even tried it"!  Poulenc's concerto seldom fails to work its magic, on one occasion leaving a 20-something youngster open-mouthed in astonishment bordering on rapture - admittedly, he was a bass guitar player in a pop band as well as running his own recording studio, so he had an educated and innate feeling for music beyond the organ.  It helped that I belted it out at realistic volume on big speakers though - one has to be immersed in a realistic acoustic for pipe organ music to work properly in my view.  Some time afterwards he received a commission to make a CD for a quite well known pop client, and persuaded him to include some riffs and other background snippets made on a big Compton theatre pipe organ.  Beforehand I had no idea he was doing this until he invited me along to the recording session so that I could have a go afterwards!  So his previous introduction to the organ via Poulenc had obviously made an impression and resulted in positive consequences.

The Poulenc is a case in point in other ways as well.  Written to a commission from an aristocrat, I believe this was his first composition for the organ and that he himself was not an organist.  Perhaps these are reasons why the work seems to speak so powerfully to other non-organ music buffs?

On a similar occasion I did the same thing with the final movement of the Saint-Saens organ symphony, and learnt something myself - the guinea pig on this occasion told me that one of the themes has been used by a pop singer, which I did not previously know.  In so many words, she also said how much she enjoyed the sheer simplicity of nothing but scales in C being used in a masterly manner to weave such powerfully-emotive music, together with the integration of piano and organ sounds with the orchestra.

The Saint-Saens also came into its own when I was conversing with a psychologist (another non-organist), and we veered towards the interesting psycho-acoustic phenomenon that our perception of musical pitch seems to go flat as volume is reduced fairly rapidly.  Interestingly, I had already noticed exactly this effect on the same Saint-Saens recording after the final tutti chord is released.  As the reverberation dies away on this particular disc, the effect can be heard distinctly.  I played it to him and he made a note of the piece and the CD so that he could use it as a future object lesson.

So perhaps the moral here is that the organ can speak at many levels to many people if the circumstances are propitious enough.  Maybe one lesson which can be taken away is that arranging various types of interactive events, or informal lecture-demonstrations of the sort hinted at above, might be more effective than merely expecting people to file meekly into church and sit silently through a "recital" (what an awful and out-of-date image that word conjures up!) where the player says nothing and might not even be seen from start to finish.  There's nothing new in this idea of course, but such events don't seem to be staged often enough in my view.

Sorry for yet another over-long diatribe.

[Rowland Wateridge]

Saint-Saëns can be heard played live by Olivier Latry at Winchester Cathedral this week.  I don’t know which work by S-S.  The programme includes music by Bach, Gigout, Vierne and Alain so, understandably, French works predominate.  

Additionally Olivier Latry will improvise - an opportunity to hear him not to be missed by those who can come: Saturday 27th April at 6.30 pm.

[Rowland Wateridge]

Update on Olivier Latry’s recital: Saturday 27th April at 6.30 pm

Eugène GIGOUT (1844 – 1925) :
Grand Chœur dialogué

Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835 – 1921) :
Extracts from The Carnival of the Animals (Tr. Shin-Young LEE) 
– Aquarium
– Aviary
– The Swan

Johann Sebastian BACH (1685 – 1750) :
Prelude and Fugue in E minor BWV 548

Louis VIERNE (1870 – 1937) :
Troisième Symphonie :
Adagio

Jehan ALAIN (1911 – 1940) :
Aria

Marcel DUPRÉ (1886 – 1971) :
Prélude et fugue en Sol mineur op. 7/3

Olivier LATRY (1962 – ) :
Improvisation