Who Are The Best Organists You've Heard Live?

[Florian 0]

Do you know Jennifer Bate's recording of this composition? I wonder if she played it at Westminster Cathedral also with this incredibly slow tempos...

[Peter Clark 0]

Do you know Jennifer Bate's recording of this composition? I wonder if she played it at Westminster Cathedral also with this incredibly slow tempos...

 

 

Hi

 

No but I recently got the Gillian Weir version. However I seem to remember reading somewhere that a video recording was made of her playing the Livre and I wonder if anyone else has any info on this?

 

Peter

[Florian 0]

Hi

 

No but I recently got the Gillian Weir version. However I seem to remember reading somewhere that a video recording was made of her playing the Livre and I wonder if anyone else has any info on this?

 

Peter

 

Gillian Weir is on the quicker side, as it is Olivier Latry. I have to confess that I prefer the Livre in these rather flowing performances - the cycle is long enough

[Jeremy Jones 0]

Jennifer Bate's British premiere of Messiaen's Livre du Saint Sacrement was a very special occassion. The setting - Westminster Cathedral - was perfect for this music, as the incense still hung in the air and the iconography and decor of the building added to the mystery of and theological propositions suggested by the music. As icing on the cake, Messsiaen himself was there. I think that of all the organ recitals I have been to, this one will always be for me that which will never be superceded.

I certainly still remember that evening, if not praps for the right reasons. I came up to London with a group from Bristol and we were late so found seats right at the back of the Cathedral. Anyone who knows WC will know that is probably not the safest place to sit for an hour or so of Messiaen, however well played! Nonetheless, a memorable occasion.

[Peter Allison 0]

Hi

 

No but I recently got the Gillian Weir version. However I seem to remember reading somewhere that a video recording was made of her playing the Livre and I wonder if anyone else has any info on this?

 

Peter

It was played on the tv, I have the video hanging around somewhere, but it was not labeled

probably cause i had just come in and needed to use the VCR

Peter

[Guest delvin146]

I think Paul O'Grady's pretty hot, when he does the organ game

[harrispeter@onetel.com 0]

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It's amazing how Germani's name comes up time and time again. Was he the greatest of his generation, I wonder?

 

He certainly left an indelible impression on me as a 15-year-old, when I first heard him. Oddly enough, I can still recall the feelings I had on the lengthy journey home. Before that, I just didn't realise how good organ-music and organ-playing could be: in a word, stupendous.

 

Sadly, I never heard his equal as a Reger exponent, the late Anton Heiller.

 

MM

I was never lucky enough to hear Germani live in concert but it was his Bach recording at Alkmaar which lit my musical fires at the age of 16. My school music department had a copy which I must have worn out comprehensively playing it over and over again in sheer excitement at the novelty of the sounds I was hearing.

[MusingMuso 0]

I was never lucky enough to hear Germani live in concert but it was his Bach recording at Alkmaar which lit my musical fires at the age of 16. My school music department had a copy which I must have worn out comprehensively playing it over and over again in sheer excitement at the novelty of the sounds I was hearing.

 

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If you have never heard the organ at Alkmaar live, then beg, borrow, steal, sell gold, silver, your left kidney....anything....but go hear it.

 

The trouble is, when you've heard an organ THAT good, and in such a wonderful acoustic, and when you know that there are wonderful historic (and new) instruments only a few miles in almost any direction, you never really want to come home again.

 

MM