Happy 50th birthday to Scottish composer James MacMillan.
Since first singing his sumptuous The Galant Weaver, I have had great appreciation for MacMillan's compositional skill and style. The choral music -- much of it sacred -- is a real delight.
For your reference, the organ works include:
- Gaudeamus in Loci Pace - a favorite of mine, works well on small organs, lots of bird noises -- Scottish bird noises.
- White Note Paraphrase - hilariously referred to as White Noise Paraphrase at an online music retailer
- the short, lovely Wedding Introit that quotes the Irish folk song "She moves through the fair"
- and the much larger Le Tombeau De Georges Rouault
There's also A Scotch Bestiary, a work for organ and orchestra.
Labels: MacMillan, organ music
American Symphonies for Organ
David Diamond wrote his Symphony for Organ in 1987, thus culminating the tradition of the American "organ symphony" in the last century. The beginning of the American tradition dovetails nicely with the late Symphonies of Louis Vierne.
Warning: There's a doctoral thesis here somewhere. If you write it, you owe me $20. If you are already writing it, sorry I spilled the beans.
Symphonic nomenclature
With regard to the title, the term "organ symphony" has always been a bit of a colloquialism. Widor and Vierne simply titled their large multi-movement solo organ works "Symphonies". Only in America do we then pound the term "organ" into the title of symphonic works for the solo instrument. This becomes either a descriptive title ("Symphony for Organ") or a full-fledged proper name ("Organ Symphony"), a term that brings to mind the Saint-Saëns Symphony No. 3, the orchestral symphony that prominently features loud organ chords in the final movement.
No American composer has actually given their work the title Organ Symphony, but this is the title that Gunther Schuller will use when referring to Leo Sowerby's Symphony for Organ.
From Widor to Copland: American beginnings
The strands of the organ symphony movement in America begin with Aaron Copland. His Symphony for Organ and Orchestra (1924) was in many ways the first major work of his career. While not a solo organ work, it does of course feature prominent writing for the instrument. There are also obvious ties to the French organ symphony genre. The organist for the work's premiere was Copland's composition teacher Nadia Boulanger. Boulanger studied organ with Louis Vierne, and composition with Charles-Marie Widor, the two titans of the French organ symphony.
Leo Sowerby: a large American organ work
In the same year that Vierne wrote his last symphony, Leo Sowerby wrote his first: the Symphony for Organ. Written in 1930, the work was published in 1932 (See Robert Parris's dissertation). Vierne's final symphony, written after a tour of the United States, maintained his favored five-movement structure. The "Dean of American church music" left us with a non-traditional, three-movement work with a quintessentially American character. The first movement begins "very broadly" outlining the expansive sweep of the American landscape. The second movement is marked "fast and sinister", arguably description of the frenetic pace and character of American life. The third, composed first, is a telestic passacaglia.
Eventually this article/dissertation will have to be expanded to include a study of F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, published two years after Sowerby's Symphony for Organ. Common themes: Americans in France, American Francophilia in the early Twentieth Century, acting, love, etc.
Gunther Schuller: reinventing the past
Gunther Schuller's Symphony (1981), the fourth work titled "symphony" that he composed, is scored for solo organ. In his Musings you can read that he was describing his own forthcoming work a "four-movement Symphony for Organ" and says that it is "perhaps the first of its kind since Sowerby's Symphony for Organ Symphony of 1936."
Discounting Sowerby's own smaller Sinfonia Brevis (1965), Schuller is likely correct in his assumption. The intervening years were largely devoid of organ symphony composition, but the 1980s saw a flurry of activity; beginning with Schuller's three such works composed by major composers.
Schuller is, however, misinformed about some of the details of the larger Sowerby work. First of all, Sowerby called the work "Symphony for Organ" not Organ Symphony and the work was written in 1930. This errant date seems to have popped up in the New York Times a few years later.
Mr. Schuller believes that his symphony may be the first essay in this form since Leo Sowerby's Symphony in G (1936); he may well be right. In any event, this is a major work.Mr. Schuller seems to have built his symphony around the pattern established by Charles-Marie Widor, complete with a toccata finale. He has neither Widor's gift for melody nor the French composer's ability to create irresistible musical sequences that, heard once, are impossible to forget. But Mr. Schuller's harmonic sense is sure, his conception grand, and he displayed an acute understanding of the organ's innate power and possibilities.
Page, Tim. "RECITAL: NEW MUSIC IN VILLAGE" New York Times 22 April 1985. Emphasis added
Here again there are problems. The Sowerby Symphony for Organ is called "Symphony in G" and the date again is given incorrectly as 1936.
William Albright: bridging the gap
There are some notable omissions in the organ symphony movement. Ned Rorem studied composition with Sowerby and might have been a logical torch-bearer for the American organ symphony. His "organ books" fall short of symphonic stature, but share the genre with William Albright, another composer of the American livre d'orgue movement. Albright has also composed a Symphony for Organ.
The Symphony for Organ, which arguably occupies a dominant position in Albright's oeuvre, was commissioned by the University of Evansville and the Friends of UE Music with the support of the Indiana Arts Commission and the National Endowment for the Arts. The work, completed in July 1986, was premiered by Douglas Reed (to whom the work is dedicated) on the Holtkamp organ in Wheeler Concert Hall at the University of Evansville on 4 November 1986. Percussionist Ted Rubright assisted. This thirty-minute work consists of four movements in which an overall conceptual simplicity contrasts with a richness of subtle musical detail. In the booklet accompanying his recording of Chasm (William Albright, Music for organ and Harpsichord [Arkay Records AR6112]), Reed notes:The work grows out of the genre of large multi-movement compositions for solo organ developed primarily by the late nineteenth and early twentieth century French composers, Charles-Marie Widor and Louis Vierne. Each movement explores a primary color: principals (first movement), flutes (second movement, ["Cantilena"]), reeds and mixtures (third movement, ["Tarantella macabra"]), and foundation stops including strings and celestes (fourth movement, ["Ritual"]).
Mary Ann Dodd. "Symphony for Organ: Organ Solo with Percussion." Notes Sept 1997.
Albright's addition of percussion in the final movement of what is otherwise a typical organ symphony is analogous to Saint-Saëns use of the organ at the end of his Symphony No. 3 or the use of trombones in Beethoven's choral and orchestral Symphony No. 9. In all these cases, the introduction of a "foreign" element expands the boundaries of the work as it draws to a close. Like Sowerby's Passacaglia, a teleological goal is evident.
Percussion is a natural ally to the organ as many organs include percussive effects including the classic zimblestern, and those effects associated with French storm fantasies: the rossignol, the effet d'orage, and, rarely, the rain machine. Lou Harrison's earlier Concerto for Organ and Percussion (1973) makes full use of the relationship.
This article will be continued.
Labels: Albright, David Diamond, organ music, Schuller, Sowerby
Eby Mani has been adding Caleb Simper scores to the Choral Public Domain Library; there are three so far.
And now, some organ music.
Labels: CPDL, organ music, Simper
For a long time now I've been toying with the idea of recording all eight of the "Little Preludes and Fugues" formerly attributed to J. S. Bach (1685-1750), currently attributed to no one in particular.
They're fun little pieces and a good way to show off an organ, I think. Recording all eight would allow the performer to try contrasting registrational possibilities within the whole project and within each work.
Anyway, I'm done toying with the idea. I've got new organ shoes, a digital recorder, and I've even glanced at some of the Preludes and Fugues I didn't play before.
I think I'm ready to stop toying with this idea and actually follow through on it.
Here's an early test run of the first Prelude and Fugue in C Major (BWV 553).
Labels: Bach, organ music
The lights went out pre-Organ Pump, and evil laughter ensued from the crowd. I <3 Oberlin.tweet from horrorwine
Glad to see that the Organ Pump is still going strong at Oberlin and that the experience is still memorable.
Organ Pump? What's an Organ Pump?
Labels: Oberlin, organ music
American poet Charles Bernstein counts from one to a hundred [mp3].
If you ask me, this is a spoken interpretation of Herbert Howells Master Tallis's Testament.
The reading is powerful lesson to organists. Even with limited means (pipes, air) we can be exceedingly expressive.
Labels: literature, organ music
Today sees the release of Arvo Pärt's latest CD, In Principio.
Among the pieces on this disc is Mein weg hat Gipfel und Wellentäler, composed for organ in 1989. On this recent recording, however, it is performed in an arrangement for strings.
It will be interesting to see given this piece's prominent re-release if it shows up on organ programs with any increased frequency.
Labels: organ music, Pärt
Super-hip music critic Alex Ross runs into James Kennerley at St. Mary the Virgin in New York City:
Before a Tuesday-evening service, I heard a brief recital that included Buxtehude’s chorale prelude "Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern." Shimmeringly varied timbres, evocative of starlight, made me want to know more about the player, who was listed as James Kennerley. He turned out to be a bespectacled British lad, aged twenty-four, a Cambridge graduate and a former organ scholar at St. Paul's Cathedral. He was appointed music director of St. Mary's last month."I'm incredibly happy to have this instrument," Kennerley told me, seated at the console. “It has this fantastic range of sounds, from high stops to reedy French trompettes to the colossal bass”—he pressed a low C with his foot, frightening a few tourists in the nave below—"and it takes on great beauty in the height and width of this space." While I looked on, he let loose a fast-figured, at times piercingly dissonant improvisation, with reposeful tonal chords to close.
Ross, Alex. "Cheap Seats". The New Yorker, 2 Feb 2009.
Labels: Alex Ross, organ music, St Mary the Virgin (New York)
Louis Marchand (1669-1732)
The IMSLP has a number of free scores for organ and harpsichord.
One collection that has entered the public domain and is hence available through IMSLP is Alexandre Guilmant's editions of music of the French Organ School: the ten volume Archive des Maitres de l'Orgue.
This collection includes works by Louis-Nicolas Clerambault, François Couperin, Nicolas de Grigny, Jean-Adam Guilain, the bow-tie-wearing Louis Marchand, Jean Titelouze and others.
If you don't play the organ, you have our sympathies, but you can browse by instrument.
Labels: French Organ School, organ music
Parishioners at St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue heard a movement form Three Pieces for Organ (2000) by Aaron Travers as part of the prelude this past Sunday.
Aaron Travers (b. 1975) holds degrees from Oberlin and Eastman and is on the faculty of Northwestern University.
The structure of the movement performed at St. Thomas, "Here and There", could be likened to a Howells Psalm Prelude or Christopher Rousse's "Elegy" from the Flute Concerto. Soft, crescendo to apocalyptically full, then soft again.
The 11:00 a.m. service from January 18 is still available from St. Thomas webcasting.
Labels: organ music, St Thomas (New York), Travers
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