Westminster Concert Organ Series 2007-2008

November 4, 2007 Concert Notes


Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897): The Academic Festival Overture

In 1879 Breslau University conferred a Doctorate of Philosophy on Brahms and in return he composed this lively overture based on four student songs. The best known of these is ‘Gaudeamus igitur’, but Brahms holds back from using the theme till it appears as the stirring finale.

Arrangements of orchestral works for the organ has a long history stretching back to Bach’s own Vivaldi concerto arrangements. Edwin Lemare, the arranger, is fairly faithful to the original, though Christopher Herrick has corrected a few small harmonic errors. Lemare’s decision to cut 46 bars near the end has not been changed as it helps the piece to sweep forward rather effectively to its final climax.



Iain Farrington (b. 1977): Stride Dance, Song and Fast Dance from Fiesta!

Educated at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he was Organ Scholar, Iain Farrington is among the leading organist-composers of his generation, as well as having a formidable reputation as a solo and accompanying pianist.

These three short but strikingly brilliant pieces are from a seven-movement suite for organ entitled ‘Fiesta!’ The first movement of this suite, ‘Celebration’, was a birthday present from the composer to Christopher Herrick, and the ‘Stride Dance’ and the ‘Fast Dance’ are in the same exuberant mood.

‘Stride Dance’ has an edgy, jazzy but dangerously unpredictable rhythmic pulse. The foot wants to tap but tends to misplace the beat in a delightfully intriguing way. ‘Song’ is more relaxed, with an ornamented melody soaring gently over a rich harmonic texture, underpinned by a stomping bass. A smoke filled jazz cellar is evoked. If ‘Fast Dance’ is a dance it is a virtuoso dance for the fingers, joined near the end by the feet. Only an ace dance company could come near to doing it justice!



Louis Vierne (1870 – 1937): Carillon de Westminster

Vierne was organist of Notre Dame from 1900, having been a pupil of Widor and César Franck. His main organ works are the six Symphonies, the 24 Pieces in Free Style and the 24 Fantasy Pieces. The Carillon de Westminster comes from this last collection and is a celebration of the Big Ben chimes (slightly incorrectly transcribed) in a long crescendo from a distant echo through to a grand tintinnabulation. It was dedicated to the famous English organ builder, Henry Willis.



Dietrich Buxtehude (1637 – 1707)

Buxtehude was organist first in Helsingborg, at the time a Danish town and now Swedish. He crossed the narrow strait to Helsingør for his next job, which is definitely still a Danish town. But it was with the move to Lübeck in Germany that he finally became settled for the next 38 years. He did all the usual things connected with his post as organist, but he also reinstated his predecessor’s spiritual concerts on five Sunday afternoons in the year, called Abendmusik, at which he performed extended oratorios.

His considerable output of original and inspired organ music is perhaps his best known legacy, partly because of the well known four week visit paid by the young Bach to study his organ playing which turned into sixteen weeks, getting Bach into a lot of trouble when he returned home.

Bach will have learnt from Buxtehude’s use of the pedals as an equal partner in the musical texture and he must also have been greatly impressed by the range of compositional techniques employed by the great man, often within the space of one piece.

It must be emphasised that Buxtehude was not a stone age forerunner of Bach, but a fully fledged brilliant and expressive composer in his own right. While we tend to idolise Bach in modern times, it is refreshing to experience other voices who have a huge amount to offer and enchant us. What better time than his 300th Anniversary year to open our ears to Dietrich Buxtehude’s organ music?



Petr Eben (1929 -): Hommage à Buxtehude

Petr Eben studied at the Prague Academy and later taught at the Charles University. He is particularly well respected for his large output of colourful and dramatic organ music. In 1987 Eben was asked by the Schleswig-Holstein Festival to write a piece for the 350th Anniversary of Buxtehude’s birth.

Using themes from two well-known Buxtehude organ pieces, the fanfare-like pedal solo from the Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne in C and the fugue theme in his G minor Prelude and Fugue, Eben has composed a disciplined and delightful work in North German toccata form: toccata-fugue-toccata-fugue-toccata. The piece sweeps forward in a gloriously logical manner and with a great sense of joie de vivre.




George Shearing (b. 1919): Amazing Grace

A blind pianist born in poor circumstances in Battersea, London, George Shearing rose to greater and greater fame as a jazz musician particularly through his BBC radio appearances. In 1947 he moved to the USA, recording for MGM, appearing frequently on TV and even playing with some of the major American symphony orchestras.

A set of variations on early American hymn tunes, including this piece, were arranged for organ by the composer with help from his editor, Dale Wood, who was also an organist. Shearing would stand over Mr Wood making suggestions such as soloing out lines, or indicating a warmer registration, full organ, soft célestes or a brighter nazard! The organist has a pretty free hand to bring out the spirit of these variations on ‘Amazing Grace’ to maximise their effect.



Mons Leidvin Takle (b. 1942): Festmusikk

Based in Kristiansand, Norway, Takle is an organist-composer who studied in Stockholm, Copenhagen, Chicago and New York. Festmusikk is the last piece in a collection called Våg å leve (Dare to live), a set of very extrovert, no holds barred, somewhat over the top compositions.


Intermission



George Frederic Handel (1685 – 1759): Arrival of the Queen of Sheba

This is an arrangement of an orchestral Sinfonia from Handel’s Oratorio ‘Solomon’. Arrangements of this sort have an honoured history - Bach arranged many Vivaldi Concertos for the organ. In fact it was quite normal for Baroque composers to rearrange their own music for different purposes. Bach’s Christmas Oratorio was culled almost exclusively from various secular Cantatas. Handel borrowed from himself all the time.

The concertante style of this well known and popular piece is particularly effective on the organ with the contrast of full orchestra (ripieno) against the solo group being mirrored on the organ by the change from one keyboard to another.




Marcel Dupré (1889 – 1971): Prelude and Fugue in G minor

Marcel Dupré became one of the best-known organists in the world. He studied with Guilmant and Widor and he succeeded Widor in 1934 as organist of Saint-Sulpice in Paris nearly thirty years after becoming his assistant there. Dupré was organ professor at the Paris Conservatoire and then Director. He had gained the Premier Grand Prix de Rome in 1914, but the War prevented his taking up the award. Instead, he occupied himself with the composition of three preludes and fugues. They were published soon after the War and remain Dupré’s finest contribution to the organ repertory.

The Prelude and Fugue in G minor is the most frequently heard. Against a lively-spinning movement on the manuals, the pedals sing out the main theme of the Prelude in long notes. Later, when this tune is quietly harmonised in seven parts, the player’s right hand supplies four, and – by an almost acrobatic process – his feet the remaining three voices, while the left hand continues the spinning. The strongly rhythmic Fugue in six-eight time ingeniously introduces the tune of the Prelude, presenting it finally as a chorale between two stretti that goad the piece to its last three chords.



J. S. Bach (1685 – 1750): Trio Sonata No. 4 in E minor [BWV 528]

‘Bach produced them for his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, so that he could prepare himself to be the great organist he later became. One cannot praise their beauty too highly. They date from the years of the composer’s fullest maturity…’ This description of the Six Trio Sonatas by Bach’s biographer Forkel was written more than fifty years after the composer’s death, but there is no reason to doubt its accuracy.

The sonatas represent Bach at his most human and relaxed. This is real chamber music for the organ, each of the three voices requiring its own nuances of phrasing, articulation and musical projection.

The vivace movement of Trio Sonata No. 4, which follows directly from the brief slow introduction, was originally scored for oboe d’amore and viola da gamba over a continuo bass in one of Bach’s numerous cantatas. Similar earlier versions exist of the beautiful andante and the opening passage of the vigorous dance like poco allegro.



Luigi Boccherini (1743 – 1805): Minuet

This minuet must be easily the best known piece by this rather obscure Italian composer and cellist. After studying in Rome he moved around from Vienna to Paris, to Madrid, and even to the Prussian Court with his chamber ensembles. He wrote and played over 120 string quintets, 100 string quartets, and 100 other chamber music pieces. Twenty symphonies and a number of virtuoso cello concerti complete the list.



Marcel Lanquetuit (1894 – 1985): Toccata in D

Dupré, at the age of fifteen, taught his first organ pupil, Marcel Lanquetuit, who was later to become his assistant at St..Sulpice in Paris. This typical French toccata has busy jostling chordal passagework in the hands, set against the theme which is heard either in the pedals or singing through in a higher voice. The piece is dedicated to Dupré’s father.