by Charles S. Brown
Charles S. Brown is a former organ faculty member at the University of North Texas, Denton, and formerly organist/choirmaster at St. John's Episcopal Church, Dallas. His first two plays with organ music, Mon Cousin (music of Bach and Walther) and Queen of Hearts (music of Bach, Handel, Haydn, and others), were premiered in Dallas in March and November of 1996. One of his current performance projects is Il Dottore's Magic Music Pipe and Puppet Show.
On April 7, 1997, at 6:00 p.m., the first Triennial Dallas International Organ Competition began with three 30-minute recitals by James Diaz of Indianapolis; Christian Schmitt-Engelstadt of Rhein,German; and Neil Cockburn of Dundee, Scotland. The competition continued at 8:00 that same evening with recitals by Tobias Frankenreiter of Ellwangen, Germany; Jeremy Bruns of Shreveport, Louisiana; and John Schwandt of Appleton, Wisconsin. The next night, Junko Ito of Tokyo, Japan; S. Wayne Foster of Melbourne, Florida; Erik Suter ofChicago; Holger Gehring of Ludwigsburg, Germany; Kenneth Cowan of Thorold, Ontario; and Yuichiro Shiina of Tokyo performed.
Each of the recitals consisted of a Buxtehude free work (either the great F Major Toccata or the great E Minor Prelude), a Bach trio sonata (either No. 2 or No. 6), and the first movement of Dupré's Second Symphony . The organ was the three-manual, 51-stop C. B. Fisk, Op. 101, in the Caruth Auditorium of Southern Methodist University's Meadows School of the Arts.
The twelve competitors, ranging in age from twenty-two to twenty-nine, had been chosen at screening auditions held in Stuttgart, Germany (January 7-11, 1997), Dallas (January 20-23), and Gifu, Japan (January 27-31). At that time, each had played Couperin's Tierce en taille (from the Gloria for the parishes), Bach's Prelude and Fugue in G Major (S. 541), the trio on Allein Gott (A Major) from Bach's Eighteen Chorales, Brahms' A-flat Minor Fugue, and the Messiaen Transports de joie.
On April 10, 1997, Yuichiro Shiina, Kenneth Cowan, Christian Schmitt-Engelstadt, James Diaz, Holger Gehring, and Wayne Foster advanced to the semi-finals and played hour-long recitals (two a day for three days) on the Lay Family Organ (C. B. Fisk, Opus 100) in the Meyerson Symphony Center. Each program consisted of De Grigny's Ave Maris Stella, Bach's Jesus Christus, unser Heiland (4/4) and Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr' (tenor cantus) from the Eighteen Chorales, Persichetti's Shimah b'koli, and one of three 19th-century German works: the Reubke Sonata, Reger's Wachet auf, or the Reger Second Sonata.
Late in the evening on April 12, Yuichiro Shiina, Holger Gehring, and Wayne Foster were named finalists and, on April 15, 1997, in the Meyerson Symphony Center, each played a Bach work for solo organ followed by William Bolcom's Humoresk for organ and orchestra with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under associate conductor Keri-Lynn Wilson. For the Bach work, assigned by lot, Mr. Shiina performed the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue, Mr. Gehring the Fantasy and Fugue in G Minor, and Mr. Foster the great E Minor Prelude and Fugue. After hearing the three performances of the Bolcom, jurors Robert Anderson, Marie-Claire Alain, Gillian Weir, Hans Fagius, Ludger Lohmann, Martin Haselböck, and Tsuguo Hirono retired to rank the finalists, while Mary Preston, Dallas Symphony Association organist and curator of the Fisk organ, Opus 100, played Dupré's Evocation Symphony.
Evocation. A calling forth. What was all this calling forth from me? Why after twelve yars of avoiding organ recitals and organists' conventions, was I sitting riveted to my chair, listening to organ playing for parts of eight days?
When the competition began, it was my intention to sample a few of the preliminary recitals, then choose the one or two semifinal programs that interested me most and, perhaps, if I were in the mood, take in the finals.
I heard the first three recitals on April 7, but not the next three. On April 8, I sat through five performances of the Dupré as well as assorted Buxtehudes and Bachs, decided I would listen to Mr. Shiina's Buxtehude (the F Major Toccata), then leave, to beat the crowd, you understand.
But I didn't leave. I heard every note Mr. Shiina played, and every note was a revelation. The organ could sing after all. The organ was a wind instrument after all. A Buxtehude prelude could be connected into a whole. The pedal part in the slow movement of a Bach trio sonata could be smoothly elegant as well as sensitively articulate. Every statement in a sequence could sound as if it had caught light from a different source. A prickly 20th-century piece could begin assertively, grow in intensity, and arrive at the last chord in a dramatic yet satisfying resolution of ten minutes of turmoil. The organ could be played as if it were an extension of the organist and the organist an extension of the music.
I made up my mind. This deep-bowing young man from Japan, a young man from a very young organ culture, should win. It would be the Zen thing to have happen. Mu.
But Mr. Shiina did not win. Wayne Foster did.
On April 15, 1997, at approximately 10:00 p.m., Stewart Wayne Foster of Melbourne, Florida (and Stetson University and the L'École Normale Supérieure de Musique de Paris and the University of North Texas) won the first Triennial Dallas International Organ Competition. As he should have. The jury made the correct decision, and that is another story.
In his preliminary recital, Mr. Foster played the Buxtehude E Minor properly, with appropriate registrations, but with a tendency to fussiness and more formal disjunction than the piece deserves. The sixth trio sonata was similarly detail-conscious--until the last movement, that is. In the middle of the Allegro, Mr. Foster stopped playing around with the piece and started playing it. Or better, he started letting it play him. One particular trill did it, and I thought: Wayne Foster will go far in this competition. His Dupré told me he would go far. The Preludio was assertive, even overplayed, the sections carved in such high relief that the entire piece became intelligible to someone who did not know it. A singular achievement.
This was going to be an interesting competition.
A contest between a natural musician and a natural showman or perhaps, so as not to prejudice my judgment against Mr. Foster before all the rounds had been played, a contest between a musician/showman and a showman/musician.
And, if either Mr. Shiina or Mr. Foster should stumble, there were others already on the field, ready to take his place. Mr. Diaz' proficiency and professionalism or Mr. Schmitt-Engelstadt's brute drive or Mr. Gehring's intriguing musical choices might push one of them to the front. But, for now, it was a duel, and the duelling ground would be the Fisk Op. 100.
The organ for the preliminary round, Op. 101 in Caruth Auditorium, is a kindly instrument, gentle, honest but forgiving; it doesn't bite either the hand or the ear. It seems well suited to study and teaching but is not particularly interesting for virtuoso displays. In other words, a good source of fiber but not a feast.
The Meyerson organ, on the other hand, is sui generis; it presents challenges and temptations in degrees most organists never face: the pedal is heavy rather than clear, powerful reeds dominate the ensemble, the principal choruses glitter rather than bind, the full organ thresholds pain, and there are problems of balance which only long familiarity with the instrument or a second pair of ears can resolve.
The battlefield was set, the weapons drawn. Mr. Shiina played first, Mr. Foster last.
In De Grigny and in Reger's Wachet auf, Mr. Shiina handled the organ aggressively but conservatively. He took no chances with the registrations. He shaped the music beautifully. No note was out of place. But in Allein Gott, the accompaniment was too loud for the solo line and, in Shimah b'koli, Mr. Shiina seemed to be at a loss how to treat Persichetti's twelve-tone idiom, musically, registrationally, and temperamentally.
Mr. Foster's semi-final performance was virtually faultless. (If anything, it was too smooth.) His grand jeux were clear; he sounded as if he, or someone, had considered how to make Jesus Christus, unser Heiland more than a sight reading exercise; he gave us a true tierce en taille in Allein Gott; and he chose to play the Reger Second Sonata, the only contestant to do so, and played it well. But, as in the preliminary round, it was his sympathy for and assured approach to a twentieth-century work, this time the Persichetti, as well as his almost unbelievably flawless handling of the Fisk Op. 101, that made his performance memorable.
Advantage, Mr. Foster.
When the final round started on April 15, I was uncomfortable. During the preliminaries and the semi-finals (4:30 and 6:30 p.m. on spring weekend days), I had been able to sit where I liked or as far away from other people as I liked; just me and the performer, if I liked. The finals, however, were almost sold-out. I felt crowded and super-sensitive to any restlessness my imagination might project onto the large number of non-organists sitting around me.
After hearing three Bach works played almost throughout on unrelieved plenums, I was even more uncomfortable. How could we expect to win new audiences for the organ this way? Wouldn't all these organ-concert neophytes go away thinking "how dull"?
Mr. Shiina maintained the same bel canto touch in the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue he had displayed on April 8 and April 10, but I found myself tiring of such perfect roundness when the music called for more contrast, more brio, some electricity. Mr. Foster sustained the same polished, stylistically accurate, technically fluent, and registrationally superior effect he had shown earlier-- there were no missteps I could detect--but my attention wandered: each section of the E Minor had the same expressive posture as the others; the whole lacked growth or at least variety. So far, a lackluster evening.
Score, tied.
After intermission, Mr. Shiina and the orchestra began the first reading of the Bolcom, another piece I did not know. Immediately, I was disappointed the competition committee had chosen to balance "authentic" Bach with a colorless work that had a merely obbligato organ part, a part I was obliged to strain to pick out from the egregious orchestral texture. I dreaded hearing Humoresk twice more.
When Mr. Foster and the orchestra began the third reading of the Bolcom, surprise! I was attracted to it, then amused, then delighted, then pleased and pleased and pleased again. The piece swung, the organ sounded snazzy, the rhythms were jazzy, the textures gassy, it ended with flair. A real crowd-strummer. A winner. Worth every two bits of the $25,000.00 first prize, as well as the audience prize of $5,000.00, an appearance with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra in a future season playing a commissioned work by Samuel Adler, and representation by a major organists' management agency (Phillip Truckenbrod).
Mr. Shiina took home the second place medal and $10,000.00, and a fitting and honorable second place it was. I admired, and what's left in me of the little boy envied, Mr. Foster's achievement. But I was, and am, grateful to Mr. Shiina for letting me hear on three different evenings a way of playing the organ that first touch to last was pure music, pure singing, a way of touching the organ that, if I were to play or teach again, I would use as a touchstone.
Two young men and two young stories.
But there was a third story that undergirded, passacaglia-like, The First Triennial Dallas Internatinal Organ Competition from its inception several years ago on into its assuredly successful future. The story of a man, an organist and teacher, who has labored on the playing fields of Dallas, Texas, and Southern Methodist University since 1960. The story of Robert Anderson.
On the face of it, the Dallas International Organ Competition is the work of high-profile movers and shakers: Eugene Bonelli, president of the Symphony Association; George Schrader, former Dallas City Manager; H. Ward Lay, whose family and businesses gave the Meyerson organ and much of the money for the competition and its prizes; and the executives of such powerhouses as Frito Lay, Inc., the Dallas Foundation and American Airlines. But at heart, the competition is, I suspect, Robert Anderson's child and largely the result of his unremitting and dedicated nurturing. Dallas owes a number of fine organists and fine organs (especially the two Fisks) to Bob Anderson's imagination, his perseverence, his intensity, and his zeal for excellence. Now Dallas, and the world, owes him even more.
There were, of course, other stories being written during the competiton. One, expanded at length in The Dallas Morning News, concerned contestant Jeremy Bruns, a home-town boy from the small home-town of Muleshoe in East Texas, who had arrived at the competition by way of Texas Tech University, the Eastman School of Music, and First United Methodist Church of Shreveport, Louisiana, with the unstinting encouragement of his family, teachers, and friends. For him, as with all the other contestants, the competition will be a part of the way their stories continue, with some, perhaps, ultimately playing a more important part than in the stories of Yuichiro Shiina, Wayne Foster, and Robert Anderson.
For example, James Diaz is a formidable technician, in his white tie and tails the perfect picture of a concert artist, but, please, more involvement with, less detachment from, the music. I want to experience your immediate experience of what you are playing. I am not interested in a matter-of-fact recital of the music's attributes.
Christian Schmitt-Engelstadt plays with fire, with wild hares sprung from his imagination, but, please, be their master, not their slave, or they will overwhelm what you play.
Kenneth Cowan has chutzpah. He played the Bach trio sonata and the Reger Wachet auf from memory. A lapse in the Reger aside (and it is insignificant in the non-competitive scheme of things), please let me enjoy those moments in the music, and they are many, that are not hard-driven, not percussive.
Holger Gehring is an accomplished player, whatever that gray phrase means. He was an appropriate choice as a finalist (and the third prize winner of $5,000.00) because he sustained a high level of accuracy and made distinctive interpretive decisions throughout the competition. But, please, Mr. Gehring, don't let eccentricities and quirks render your performance willful instead of purposeful. Any desired effect has its own interior logic, its own natural processes, and, as anything else, fails when burdened with a whim.
Driving home after hearing the first three contestants on April 7, I recalled Antonin Artaud's admonition to actors: be like "victims burnt at the stake, signaling through the flames" (The Theater and Its Double). I recalled it again driving home from the finals.
Artaud was a madman. He explored the dramatic arts from a lunatic cell. But how much we can learn from madmen. And how fascinating it is to watch an immolation, where the writhings of the immolated are clearly communicated to the audience at the instant they are happening.
The intensity of a competiton has something of the auto-da-fé about it. Even for the listener, it burns in a way a recital does not. All that is missing, all that was missing in Dallas in April, 1997, is a way of playing the organ in which the performer's inside is consistently on the outside and that inside-on-the-outside is consistently on fire, with the unmistakably costly gestures of fire.
Artaud's sacrifice is probably too much to ask of young musicians who will require many kinds of experiences over may years in order to mine and store the fuel for their own musical fires. But that is the mountain-peak ideal, the volcano, as it were, toward which The First Triennial Dallas International Organ Competition points and toward which it has pointed me. That is where the competition becomes part of my own story, and perhaps part of your story, too.
