An Introduction to the Organ World and Works of Giuseppe Gherardeschi (1759–1815)

The sights and sounds of Italy offer more inspiration than any score or treatise—they provide clues about the spirit of the music, where words and musical notation fall miserably short

What if I told you that there is surviving Italian organ music as splendid as Giovanni Gabrieli’s In Ecclesiis and as ethereal as Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere? A few months ago, I would not have believed it either. In fact, I was under the impression that compared to Italy’s glorious tradition of ensemble music, its organ music was of lesser importance, and its historical organs were pretty but small. On paper, every instrument looked the same—a single manual, one octave of pull-down pedals, and a stoplist consisting of a principal chorus (the Ripieno), a flute or two, and perhaps a Voce Umana.¹ Three months of studying organ in Italy with Francesco Cera radically changed my mind. I went intending to obtain a more complete picture of early organ music, having already spent time in France, Holland, and Germany. I left in love with a magnificent collection of keyboard music.  

My change of heart began not with the music but with the art and architecture of Italy. The entire country is like a giant open-air museum. Visitors can enter and experience the very places where Gabrieli, Frescobaldi, and so many others made music. That they were inspired by their surroundings is impossible to contest. These places are by definition inspiring. They were designed by the world’s greatest architects and filled with art by the greatest sculptors and painters from anonymous Roman masters to Pinturicchio, Raffaello, Michelangelo, Bernini, Tintoretto, and many others. Elaborate organ cases are among the most striking architectural features of many Italian churches and palace chapels. I began to realize that such glorious spaces where the organ had so much visual importance simply must have resounded with impressive organ playing. 

The instruments themselves also provided indisputable proof. They were far from boring. Though their stoplists were similar, their tonal character varied widely from region to region in a way that perfectly complemented the art and architecture of the area. What of the music that survived for these instruments? At first glance, it seemed simple to me, appeared not to require pedals, and certainly seemed an inappropriate choice for performance on modern instruments. Fortunately, all of this was only an illusion created by a style of musical notation that left many crucial interpretive decisions to the discretion of the performer, who would have been familiar with the contemporary musical style and performance practices. I learned why an understanding and appreciation of historical art, architecture, and instruments and a knowledge of the surviving repertoire and treatises are so crucial for today’s performer.  

Early Italian keyboard music is most successful when its interpretation is informed by historical sources and inspired by the conviction that it is the aural representation of Italy’s breathtaking visual splendor. Italy’s art, architecture, and music can be organized into regional schools based in four of Italy’s most historically important cities: Venice and Florence in the north, Rome in central Italy, and Naples in the south. Allow me to share some of the highlights of my journey to discover their art, historical organs, and keyboard music. 

Venetian Splendor 

Today, the city of Venice continues to exist mainly because of the tourists. Many of the locals have moved to the mainland. Nevertheless, the city’s colorful vibrancy and the remnants of its former grandeur are very evident. The reds, oranges, and yellows of the houses and shops, the green of the canals, the aquamarine of the lagoon, and the glistening white of the church façades are a feast for the eyes. Appropriately, Venice’s painters—Titian, Tintoretto and others—are famed for their use of color and the way that light seems to shine from within their paintings. Of the city’s 114 churches, the Basilica Cattedrale di San Marco is the most famous (Figure 1). One of the finest examples of Byzantine architecture, its exterior is covered with inlaid marble and carvings, while its interior glows with gilded mosaics. Besides its breathtaking opulence, the sheer size of the cathedral is impressive. Remarkably, at the time of Claudio Merulo (1533–1604), Andrea Gabrieli (1533–1585), and the rest of the illustrious line of musicians who worked here, San Marco was not a cathedral, but the private chapel of the Doge of Venice, and Venice was one of the richest and most important cities in the world! My impression of Venetian organ music changed completely when I examined it through the lens of Venice’s vibrant color palette and astounding splendor.

Organs of Northern Italy

The organs of northern Italy are characterized by their cantabile tone. Some also have much more colorful stoplists than organs in other parts of Italy. In 2006, Giorgio Carli completed the restoration of the 1565 Graziadio Antegnati organ of the Basilica di Santa Barbara, the private chapel of the duke of Mantua.  The organ’s case is beautiful. Its richly painted doors contrast with the white walls of the chapel. This instrument was built under the direction of organist and composer Girolamo Cavazzoni (1520–1577). Its 16′ plenum is glowing rather than brilliant, perfect for Cavazzoni’s music, which is closely related to choral polyphony. As was the norm in Italy until the 18th century, the organ is tuned in mean-tone temperament, but the keyboard has split keys (Figure 2), allowing the player to choose between D# and Eb and between G# and Ab, thus enabling one to play in many more tonalities and to better imitate the pure intonation that a vocal ensemble is able to achieve. The keyboard and pedalboard both have particularly long compasses, the keyboard from C to F5 and the pedalboard from C to A2. The music of Marc’Antonio Cavazzoni (1485–1550), Girolamo’s father, demands such a compass. This long key compass also permits the organist to play in different octaves, using the 16′ Principale at 8′ pitch, for example. The winding of this organ is a special treat. Rather than supplying an electric blower, Giorgio Carli installed an automatic bellow lifter to pump the bellows. This allows the player to experience the wonderful flexibility of playing on pumped wind without the trouble of hiring a person to pump the bellows.  

Near Mantua, in the Chiesa di San Tommaso Cantuariense in Verona, stands a well-preserved 18th-century organ built by Giuseppe Bonatti in 1716. It is a two-manual instrument with an unusually colorful stoplist and a lavish complement of special effects. The main manual controls the Grand Organo—the usual Ripieno plus a Cornetto (in two parts: 4′-22⁄3′ and 2′-13⁄5′), Trombe reali, and two flutes. An exquisitely crafted Regale with rare original parchment resonators mounted on a separate windchest like a Brustwerk is also playable from the main manual. The second manual controls the Organo Piccolo, a tiny 4′ echo division situated behind the player. Other special effects include a chorus of bird stops (Figure 3) and a Tamburo (a stop played by the lowest pedal note that imitates a drum using a cluster of bass pipes). The pedals are permanently coupled to the main manual, but this organ also includes an independent pedal reed and Contrabassi—octave of 16′ wooden pipes. The tone of the organ is sweet and elegant, thanks in part to its comparatively low wind pressure, a common feature of Italian organs. The wind pressure of this Bonatti organ is set at 53–55 mm. By contrast, the wind pressure of the comparably sized 1704 Schnitger organ in Eenum, the Netherlands, is set at 62.5 mm. The tonal variety and elegance of the Bonatti organ make it perfect for 18th-century music, including the music of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, who, incidentally, played this instrument while on tour in Italy.   

Music of the Venetian and Emilian Schools

The keyboard music of northern Italy reached its peak during the Renaissance. Its focal point was the Basilica di San Marco in Venice. The splendid polychoral tradition of the basilica profoundly influenced the organ music of the Venetian school. Composers of the Venetian school were responsible for some of the most important developments in keyboard composition of both the Renaissance and the Baroque. Marc’Antonio Cavazzoni’s collection, Recerchari, mottetti, canzoni–Libro primo, printed in Venice in 1523, is one of the most important examples of early 16th-century organ music. Cavazzoni was born in Bologna, where he probably received his musical training at the Basilica di San Petronio, and likely knew the famous 1475 Lorenzo da Prato organ there. Later he moved to Venice and was an assistant to Adriano Willaert at San Marco. Cavazzoni’s recerchari are particularly significant, because they are among the earliest free compositions for the organ. These recerchari are majestic pieces written in an improvisatory style. Like later toccatas, they investigate idiomatic keyboard figuration rather than counterpoint. While his father, Marc’Antonio, was a pioneer in developing idiomatic keyboard figuration, Girolamo Cavazzoni, organist at Santa Barbara in Mantua, was a master of imitating vocal polyphony at the keyboard. An understanding of the text of the chants, motets, and chansons on which many of his works are based is absolutely crucial for a successful interpretation.  

Claudio Merulo and Andrea Gabrieli worked together as organists at San Marco. Merulo was renowned and influential during his lifetime. Girolamo Diruta dedicated Il Transilvano, one of the most important treatises on Italian organ music, to him. Merulo’s toccatas were the first to alternate virtuosic and imitative sections, a technique that Frescobaldi and the North German organ school would use later. Also, foreshadowing the Baroque, they often use ornamental figures as motives. Merulo’s music is full of unique written-out trills and diminutions. Studying it is an excellent way to learn how to add ornaments to repertoire of the 16th and early 17th centuries. In comparison, Gabrieli’s music may seem rather subdued, but, in fact, it only lacks the profusion of notated trills. Presumably, Gabrieli would have added these in performance. His Ricercari ariosi are particularly beautiful adaptations of the polychoral style.  

Eighteenth-century Bolognese composer Giovanni Battista Martini (1706–1784) was highly esteemed during his lifetime, and attracted students from around the world. Leopold Mozart even asked his advice concerning the talents of his son. Nevertheless, his surviving compositions do not seem to justify his reputation. They are pleasant but simple pieces in galant style. Consider them in context, however, and the picture changes. The majority of these pieces survive in manuscripts written in Martini’s own hand. They are predominantly written in two-voice structure, but occasional figured bass symbols suggest that they were really sketches, and that the organist was expected to fill out the texture by adding chords. Some of Martini’s Sonate per l’Elevazione survive in both simple and elaborately ornamented forms, exemplifying how he might have actually performed them.² Playing Martini’s music as written is a little like stripping a Baroque church down to bare plaster walls. Far from being easy and uninspiring, these pieces are charming examples of Italian Rococo organ style and exciting vehicles for creativity.

Rome’s Legacy

Rome is sometimes called “the Eternal City.” It displays its long rich history in an abundance of art and architecture (Figure 4). Romans are proud of their heritage. In the past, Rome’s great noble families collected antiquities, displaying them in their palaces. The Farnese collection, now on exhibit in the Naples National Archeological Museum, is particularly impressive evidence that admiration of antiquity dates back at least to the beginning of the 16th century. Many of its more than 300 marble sculptures were unearthed in archeological excavations specifically conducted on behalf of Pope Paul III and other members of the Farnese family. These same noble families and the Roman Catholic Church employed contemporary artists as well, who left masterpieces from every historical era. The poignant perfection of High Renaissance works like Michelangelo’s Pietà in St. Peter’s Basilica, the dramatic lighting and gestures of Baroque treasures like Caravaggio’s Crucifixion of Peter in the Chiesa di Santa Maria del Popolo or Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Theresa in the Chiesa di Santa Maria della Vittoria, and the busy ornamentation of Rococo creations like the organ case of the Werle organ in the Basilica di Sant’Eustachio are all on display. In the churches, clouds of angels surround visitors, while the palaces seek to amaze them with marvels of architecture like Bernini’s and Borromini’s staircases, which compete for attention in the Barberini palace. For me, Rome’s deep appreciation of its long tradition of artistic excellence is the key to understanding the music written there.   

Organs of Central Italy

Only a few of Rome’s Renaissance and Baroque organs survive. As in many large wealthy European cities, pipe organs were replaced as fashions changed. Nevertheless, the smaller towns and villages in central Italy are home to a wealth of unique historical organs. It is far beyond the scope of this article to describe them all—the city of Rieti, where I spent much of my Italian sojourn, alone is home to 14 historical organs in varying states of playability. Let me begin by describing one of the oldest organs in Italy. It was built in 1509 by Paolo di Pietro Paolo da Montefalco, and is located in the Chiesa di San Francesco in Trevi, Umbria (Figure 5). This instrument is priceless for many reasons including its antiquity, its proximity to the birthplace of Girolamo Diruta, the way that it documents the history of organbuilding, and certainly also its beauty. Organbuilder Andrea Pinchi told me how thrilled he was to be given the opportunity to restore this instrument in 2005, having been convinced since he was a teenager that the case in the Chiesa di San Francesco held something very special. When it was first built, the organ consisted of a five-rank Ripieno and a Flauto in ottava.³ In the 17th century, a Flauto in duodecima was added, and in the 18th century the important Umbrian organbuilder Fedeli restored the instrument and added a Voce Umana and Cornetta. Because they reflect the historical development of the organ, these stops were all preserved in the restoration. The sound of this organ is bright and brilliant. The small Ripieno easily fills the sizable Gothic church. Like the Antegnati organ in Mantua, this was an instrument designed to imitate vocal music. Its extremely sensitive key action allows the player to create subtle text-like inflections by varying attacks and releases.

The organs that Frescobaldi played at St. Peter’s have long disappeared, but a splendid 17th-century Roman organ does survive to transport Frescobaldi’s sound world to the present day. The 1612 Giovanni Guglielmi organ in the Chiesa di Santa Maria in Vallicella (Figure 6) was restored by Ruffatti in the year 2000, but it continues to lack the international attention that it deserves. It is a large instrument based on 16′ pitch. The grandeur of the Ripieno is enhanced by many doubled ranks and by a trumpet. I was surprised to learn that a trumpet stop was a common feature of large Roman organs. The 1597 Luca Blasi organ of the Basilica di San Giovanni in Laterano, for example, also includes a trumpet. Perhaps the most eye-opening aspect of the Guglielmi organ is its narrow pipe scaling. The organ’s sound is bright, almost nasal, but crystal clear. It is simply impossible to cover up passagework even with the densest chordal accompaniment. The spectacular case of this instrument is also noteworthy. It is, as it were, created using ornamentation, including two giant sculptures of angels, and the entire case is sumptuously overlaid with gold.⁴ The matching case in the other transept of the church now contains an 1895 Morettini organ, which also merits a visit.

Music of the Roman School

Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583–1643) grew up in Ferrara, home of the great d’Este family. While Frescobaldi was young, many notable composers—including Claudio Monteverdi, Orlando di Lasso, Claudio Merulo, and Carlo Gesualdo—visited court. As a child prodigy studying with court organist Luzzasco Luzzaschi, Frescobaldi absorbed these diverse influences. In his early twenties, he decided to seek his fortune in Rome, and proceeded to write and publish some of the most important music of the 17th century and to pass on his skill to talented students from all over Europe.  

Frescobaldi’s music is like the city of Rome. It glories in tradition while being unafraid of innovation. Walking in the footsteps of Lasso and Palestrina, Frescobaldi composes masterful counterpoint, but juxtaposes it with flamboyant baroque figuration, skillfully incorporating affect figures. In his performance instructions that preface Il primo libro di capricci of 1624,⁵ he explains that in his music the metrical relationships that were so important in Renaissance music are now governed by the mood of the music. His sacred music, including the three Masses of Fiori musicali and the two extended elevation toccatas from his Secondo libro di toccate, is deeply spiritual. Frescobaldi masterfully communicates the meaning of the Mass liturgy into his settings. His elevation toccatas take the listener on a journey through contemplation, sympathy, and ecstasy. Though at first glance Fiori musicali seems like just another book of short pieces, when these pieces are considered together they form imposing Mass settings, and it becomes clear that this collection shares the monumentality of other early Roman Baroque sacred art like the baldacchino that Bernini designed for St. Peter’s Basilica (Figure 7).

Similarly, Bernardo Pasquini’s (1637–1710) music demonstrates both his admiration for the past as well as contemporary tastes. His output is extensive and varied, ranging from works like the Fantasia la mi fa fa and the Capriccio in G, which recall Frescobaldi’s contrapuntal works, to figured bass sonatas and versets, to variations, toccatas, and suites in a style similar to that of his friend and colleague Arcangelo Corelli, and foreshadowing the keyboard writing of his most famous pupil, Domenico Scarlatti.  

Michelangelo Rossi’s (1601–1656) music shows the other face of the Roman Baroque—the face that seeks to shock and amaze, especially by breaking the rules. During his lifetime, Rossi was best known as a virtuoso violinist. He also composed at least two operas and spent most of his life working as a court rather than a church musician. His ten keyboard toccatas are formally similar to Frescobaldi’s toccatas, but are full of startling effects and chromaticism that borders on the grotesque. In them, extreme virtuosity makes up for contrapuntal simplicity.  

Neapolitan Daring

Drama and audacity are a key part of Neapolitan art. For twenty-five centuries, Naples has brazenly lain in the shadow of Mount Vesuvius. It is a city of daring and a city of extremes. Emerging from the strange semi-darkness of the old city’s narrow streets, for example, one finds oneself confronted by the glittering brilliance of the bay. Neapolitan art and architecture express this too. Naples is famous for its seemingly quaint hand-crafted nativity scenes. Take a closer look, and you will find them full of drama enacted by humorous and grotesque characters. Behind a most forbidding fortress-like block façade, soars the opulent Baroque interior of the Chiesa del Gesù Nuovo, with its profusion of colorful frescoes, inlaid marbles, and priceless treasures. Similarly, the famous sculptures of the Cappella Sansevero, including Giuseppe Sanmartino’s The Veiled Christ, combine absolute technical perfection with gestures and facial expressions so full of pathos that they do not just invite an emotional response from their viewer, they force one. 

Organs of Southern Italy

My most memorable experience with southern Italian organs occurred during a trip to the town of Teggiano in the region of Campania. The south of Italy is full of secluded towns and villages and many undiscovered artistic treasures. Teggiano is home to several historical instruments, but the two most interesting were built around the turn of the 17th century—one in 1595 (Figure 8) and one in 1619 (Figure 9), only four years after the publication of Giovanni Maria Trabaci’s Secondo Libro de Ricercate et altri varij Capricci. Neapolitan-style instruments from this time period are extremely rare. Neither instrument is playable at this time.⁶ The restoration of the 1595 instrument is nearly complete, but has been suspended because of a lack of funding. The 1619 instrument, though magnificent, is still a ruin. Nevertheless, they still reveal much about Neapolitan organ music from the late Renaissance time. The pipe scaling used in these instruments is extremely narrow and would produce a sound as brilliant and arresting as the glaring Neapolitan sun. In addition, both instruments have very narrow cases that would act only as soundboards, and would not mix or soften the sound at all (Figure 10). 

The Neapolitan area was also home to talented 18th-century organbuilders, including Silverio Carelli. In 1784, Carelli built a beautiful instrument as a gift for the cathedral of his hometown of Vallo della Lucania. Its tone is sweet and full; several ranks including the Principale 8′ are doubled. Its keyboard and pedalboard are both fully chromatic, also in the lowest octave. The case is magnificent (Figure 11). Carelli spared no expense in building this instrument. He even included bagpipes, which could be used to play pastorali at Christmas time—so fitting in an area famous for its hand-crafted pastoral scenes.         

Music of the Neapolitan School

Like the Venetian school of keyboard music, the Neapolitan school flourished during the late Renaissance. Its leader was the Franco-Flemish composer Giovanni de Macque (1550–1614). He worked for the Gesualdo household and later as maestro di cappella for the Spanish viceroy. Giovanni Maria Trabaci (1575–1647) and Ascanio Mayone (1565–1627) served under De Macque as organists of the royal chapel. Their music is radical. De Macque’s in particular is full of daring harmonies and forbidden intervals. How it must have appalled proponents of strict Renaissance counterpoint! But then, it was written in Naples, not in Rome. As was the Neapolitan tradition, the music of De Macque, Trabaci, and Mayone is suitable for performance on keyboard instruments as well as on harp. It stands to reason that the composers assumed that the performer would make adjustments idiomatic to the instruments on which they chose to perform, adding a pedal part on the organ, arpeggiating chords on the harpsichord, and so on. Unlike Frescobaldi, none of the Neapolitan composers wrote prefaces including detailed performance practice instructions, but Trabaci does include an important word of warning in the preface to his Libro primo (1603).⁷ He writes that his music is carefully composed, but that study is necessary to discern the spirit of the music. Should the performer neglect to do this study, it will be their own fault if they did not succeed in realizing his intentions. Of course, it is impossible to know today exactly what Trabaci meant by this statement, but one thing is sure: in order to perform this Neapolitan music convincingly, it is crucial to study, determine the affect that the composer sought to convey, and then to do everything possible to communicate it as intensely as possible.

Conclusions

In conclusion, allow me to offer a few practical suggestions regarding interpreting the notation of early Italian organ music. Musical notation developed over the centuries to include more and more performance information. At first, however, it was simply a memory aid in a musical tradition that was transmitted orally. Early Italian notation of keyboard music gives no information about dynamics or registration, and little information about tempo or the use of pedal. Some composers, like Merulo, for example, notate trills and other ornaments, while others notate only the minimum of ornaments, and still others like Martini provide only a skeleton of their composition. Both the typesetting of modern editions as well as the moveable type in use in the 16th and early 17th centuries make this music appear rigid. Further, the time signatures and note values common at this time tend to be much larger than we are accustomed to today. Quarter notes in the music, for example, are often the same speed as what we would notate as eighth or even sixteenth notes today. As a result, this music can appear simple and boring at first glance. Performed with a good dose of imagination—and, as Trabaci reminds us, sufficient study—however, this music is completely captivating, and its exuberance is sure to attract music connoisseurs and first-time concertgoers alike.  

Diruta’s Il Transilvano (1593), Antegnati’s L’arte organica (1608), and Adriano Banchieri’s L’organo suonarino (1605), along with a good ear, are the best guides for choosing registration. In Renaissance music, a slow tactus permeates the music, and the relationships among meters help to establish a tempo. In Baroque music, the tempo is more flexible and governed by the affect of the music, as Frescobaldi discusses in the prefaces to his Libro primo di capricci and his two Libri di toccate. Historical Italian organs are the best source of information regarding pedaling. With the exception of some 18th-century organs, Italian organs have pull-down pedals with no independent stops, but they are very effective for reinforcing a cadence, harmonic sequences, or a cantus firmus. As Frescobaldi demonstrates in his two toccate sopra i pedali, the pedals can also be used to sustain pedal points. Most composers did not notate these pedal points, though their toccatas often feature extended passages decorating a single harmony. Adding a pedal point in these passages makes the organ sound much fuller and more impressive. Studying written-out ornaments and examples of diminutions in treatises like Silvestro Ganassi’s Opera intitulata Fontegara (1535) will help a performer to develop a repertory of ornaments. Playing from facsimiles of music that were published using beautiful copper engraving, like the toccatas of Frescobaldi and Rossi, allows one to avoid the uninspiring straightness of modern notation. As Frescobaldi counsels in the preface to his Fiori musicali, contrapuntal music should be studied in its original open score format. This is guaranteed to deliver much more coherent counterpoint.⁸   

Now is the perfect time to restore early Italian organ music from its relative neglect. Much music that was unavailable outside Italy has recently been released in excellent modern or facsimile editions, formerly unplayable instruments are being restored, research has uncovered helpful performance practice information, and new recordings of ancient instruments are allowing people around the world to experience their beauty for the first time.⁹ But, in my opinion, the sights and sounds of Italy offer more inspiration than any score or treatise. They provide clues about the spirit of the music, where words and musical notation fall miserably short.

The author thanks Francesco Cera for his assistance in preparing this article.  

Marijim Thoene received a D.M.A. in organ performance/church music from the University of Michigan in 1984. She is an active recitalist and director of music at St. John Lutheran Church in Dundee, Michigan. Her two CDs, Mystics and Spirits and Wind Song are available through Raven Recordings. She is a frequent presenter at medieval conferences on the topic of the image of the pipe organ in medieval manuscripts. Alan Knight has been music director of Ss. Simon and Jude Church in Westland, Michigan, for the past 11 years, during which time he earned the D.M.A. in organ performance at the University of Michigan under James Kibbie. There, he did research into Renaissance methods of organ improvisation and performed contemporary works of Rorem, Messiaen, Schroeder, and Kenton Coe. He has served as sub-dean of the Ann Arbor Chapter of the American Guild of Organists, organized new music festivals, and contributed to this year’s successful POE. He coaches and writes reviews freelance and has recently written a memorial acclamation for the new English liturgical texts. Photo credit: Marijim Thoene, unless indicated otherwise.

With unflagging dedication, enthusiasm, and vision, Marilyn Mason planned and organized the 51st Organ Conference at the University of Michigan. European guest artists included Jaroslav Tůma, interpreter of Czech music; Almut Rössler, artist, scholar, and teacher of Olivier Messiaen; and Helga Schauerte, interpreter and scholar of Jehan Alain. It was exhilarating to hear these three artists perform, as well to hear them instruct students and lecture. Many other outstanding performers and scholars participated in the conference, which featured the music of Franz Liszt, Olivier Messiaen, Jehan Alain, Alan Hovhaness, and others. The overarching theme of the conference was celebration—of the bicentennial anniversary of Liszt’s birth and the centennial anniversary of the births of Jehan Alain and Alan Hovhaness.  

Sunday, October 2, Hill Auditorium

The opening concerts were played in Hill Auditorium on the Frieze Memorial Organ. Joseph Balistreri, student of James Kibbie, opened the conference, with a memorized master’s degree recital that featured Bach’s Fantasia et Fuga in g-moll, BWV 542, Alain’s Aria, Duruflé’s Prélude et fugue sur le nom d’Alain, and Widor’s Symphonie Romane. His playing reflected an impressive technique and a bristling enthusiasm for each work, especially the Symphonie Romane, which he introduced by singing the chant, Haec dies (after the first reading on Easter Sunday), upon which the work is based. 

The evening recital was played by Timothy Tikker, a doctoral student of Marilyn Mason. His all-Liszt program included Präludium und Fuge über
B-A-C-H, S. 260 (1885/1870), two meditative pieces from Consolations, S. 172 (Adagio IV, transcribed by Liszt, and Adagio V, transcribed by A.W. Gottschlag), Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, S. 180, and Fantasie und Fuge über den Choral ‘Ad nos, ad salutarem undam’, S. 259 (1850), Liszt’s first organ piece. Tikker’s careful preparation of these pieces was apparent, as was his emotional investment. His thoughtful comments described Liszt’s stages of grief in Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen, S. 180, his anger and final resignation and acceptance of God’s will expressed in the Bach chorale, Whatever God Ordains Is Right. Tikker noted that the breakdown in western tonality began with Liszt’s Weinen, Klagen.

Monday, October 3,

Blanche Anderson Moore Hall

The day began with Czech organist Jaroslav Tůma, who presented a predominantly Czech program, along with Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543, and O Mensch, bewein’ dein’ Sünde gross, BWV 622. It was a special gift to be introduced to the repertoire of Bohuslav Matej Cernohorsky, Josef Ferdinand Norbert Seger, Jan Křtitel Kuchař, Jan Vojtech Maxant, and Anonymous from Moravia by such an exuberant artist who made us want to dance. Tůma exploited every possible color on the Fisk organ. His pungent registrations and light touch were especially enjoyed in the eleven movements of Suite of Dances from the Region of Haná by an eighteenth-century anonymous Moravian composer. The reeds, cornet, and flutes shimmered in excited dialogues. Tůma ended his recital with Suite for Clavier (Organ, Harpsichord or Clavichord) by Maxant—a piece of irrepressible circus joy, filled with foot-tapping waltzes and calliopes. 

1:30 pm First Congregational Church

German musicologist and organist Susanne Diederich, who has examined over 150 French Classical organs in situ, lectured on “The Classical French Organ and its Music 1660–1719.” Her handout included a succinct summary of the specifications of an R. and J. Clicquot organ dated 1690/1794 as well as a cabinet organ dated 1671 by Etienne Enocq; tables listing the composition of mixtures for a small and large instrument; a table listing families of stops, the combination of ranks involved, and corresponding French title of the composition; and D’Anglebert’s table of ornaments, which J. S. Bach copied. 

Registration and ornamentation of the French Classical School were demonstrated on the Karl Wilhelm organ by Kipp Cortez, a first-year organ student of Marilyn Mason, and Christopher Urbiel, D.M.A., former Mason student and music minister at St. Sebastian Catholic Church in Dearborn Heights, Michigan. Both performers played with conviction and energy. Cortez played Plein jeu Continu du 7e ton by Jacques Boyvin, Kyrie from Messe du 2me Ton by G.G. Nivers, and Récit tendre from Messe du 8me ton by Gaspard Corrette. Urbiel played Fugue from Veni Creator by de Grigny, Tierce en Taille by Boyvin, and Dialogue in D Minor by Marchand.

3:15 pm Hill Auditorium

Jaroslav Tůma, with Karel Paukert acting as translator and general bon vivant, offered a masterclass in improvisation. Performers included Marcia Heirman (former student of Marilyn Mason), Joseph Balistreri, and Colin Knapp (students of James Kibbie). Tůma suggested experimenting with these techniques in developing a theme: repetition, retrograde, interval expansion, keeping the direction the same; strong rhythmic underpinning; meter change; ABA form; pedal ostinato; skeletal harmony for accompaniment or a regular scale; drone. 

4:15 pm Hill Auditorium

A recital of the music of Jehan Alain was played masterfully by students of James Kibbie. Professor Kibbie made this music especially poignant by prefacing each piece with an explanation of the piece, or reading from Alain’s diary. Each student clearly felt great empathy with Alain’s music. The recitalists and works included: Andrew Lang, Première Fantaisie; John Woolsey, Variations sur un theme de Clément Jannequin; Benjamin Woolsey, Fantasmagorie; Joseph Balistreri, Aria; Colin Knapp, Deux danses à Agni Yavishta; Monte Thomas, Choral dorien; Matthew Kim, Variations sur Lucis Creator; Richard Newman, Deuils from Trois danses; Daniel Mikat (organist) and Sara B. Mikat (soprano), Vocalise dorienne/Ave Maria. A recording of Alain’s music by Prof. Kibbie’s students is available on the U of M website, .

8 pm Hill Auditorium

It is a great privilege to hear Almut Rössler play an all-Messiaen recital. Her connection to Ann Arbor began in 1974, when both she and Marilyn Mason met as judges at the Chartres Organ Competition. In a very quiet voice, Prof. Rössler spoke about the evolution of Messiaen’s style, saying that he considered the Ascension Suite to be in his “old style” and that his true style did not begin until his Nativity Suite. He began his Easter cycle, Les Corps Glorieux, immediately before World War II. In it is the enigmatic vision of what Prof. Rössler calls “the resurrection of the successors of Christ.” She gave a brief analysis of each of the seven movements. Her assistant, Nancy Poland, a D.M.A. graduate of Michigan and former student of Marilyn Mason, read the text accompanying each work. Included here is the text that accompanies the seven movements of Les Corps Glorieux (1939), and a brief synopsis of Prof. Rössler’s analysis:

1. The Subtlety of Glorified Bodies. “It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body” (I Cor. 15:44). “For they are as angels of God in heaven” (Matt. 22:30).

A.R.: “The music is totally unaccompanied monody. It is played in alternation on three different cornet stops of varying volume.” 

2. The Waters of Grace. “For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of water” (Rev. 7:17).

A.R.: “The strangely ‘fluid’ character of the music is achieved in two ways—by polymodality and registration.”

3. The Angel of Incense. “And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel’s hand” (Rev. 8:4). 

A.R.: “A monodic main theme in the style of certain Hindu ragas played on clarinet and nazard.”

4. The Battle between Death and Life. “Death and life have been engaged in one stultifying battle; the Author of life after being dead lives and reigns. He has said: ‘My Father, I am revived, and I am again with you’” (Missal, Sequence and Introit of Easter).  

A.R.: “Two armies clash in battle, represented by big chords, the theme of death begins . . . ”   

5. The Power and Agility of Glorified Bodies. “It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power” (I Cor. 15: 43).

A.R.: “The ability to pass through walls and traverse space with the speed of lightning is conveyed in music of powerful vitality. Vehement and robust are the resurrected, agile and strong. This section is monodic.” 

6. The Joy and Radiance of Glorified Bodies. “Then shall the righteous shine forth as the sun in the kingdom of their Father” (Matt. 13:43).

A.R.: “Radiance or splendor is the first attribute of glorified bodies, each of which is the source of its own light and its own individual luster, which St. Paul explains in a symbolical way when he says: ‘For one star differeth from another star in glory.’ These differences in degrees of radiance are mirrored in the shifting tone-colors.”

7. The Mystery of the Holy Trinity. “Almighty God, who with the only-begotten Son and with the Holy Ghost art one God not in the unity of one person but in three persons of one substance” (Preface for Trinity Sunday).

A.R.: “This entire section is devoted to the number 3. It is three-voiced, its form is tripartite, each of the three main subdivisions being in itself in three parts. The middle voice (the Son) has the straightforward tonal color of the 8′ flute; the other two (the Father and the Holy Ghost) mix the 16′ and 32′ with the 2′, in other words the very lowest with the very highest. The whole piece is in a remote, blurred pp, against which the middle voice stands out: by his incarnation the Son alone came visibly close to us.”

Also included in the program were Chants d’Oiseaux (IV, Livre d’orgue, 1951), and VI from Méditations sur le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité (1969), the Offertory for Epiphany, based on the text, “In the word was life and the life was the light” (John 1:4). It was a rare privilege to hear Almut Rössler, who has devoted her life to this music, present a profound expression of Messiaen’s sacred beliefs.

Tuesday, October 4, Hill Auditorium

At 9:30 am, Helga Schauerte’s lecture, “Jehan Alain: A Life in Three Dances,” reflected her life’s commitment to the study of Alain’s organ music. She was drawn to his music the first time she heard it—she had never heard anything so free. In 1983 Ms. Schauerte wrote the first English and German biographies of Alain. In 1990 Motette released her 1989 recordings of Alain’s complete organ works. The 1990 CDs were reissued in 2004 and include the addition of newly discovered recordings of Jehan Alain playing at the Temple in the Rue Notre Dame de Nazareth in Paris. Schauerte’s years of research, which led her to discover unknown manuscripts, and rugged determination culminated this year in Bärenreiter’s publication of her edition of Alain’s organ work in three volumes.

Schauerte observed that Alain’s life was mirrored in his masterwork, Trois Danses—Joies (Joy), Deuils (Mourning), and Luttes (Struggles). His youth was reflected in Joies; his grief on the death of his 23-year-old sister, Odile, who died in a mountain-climbing accident while protecting her younger brother Olivier, in Deuils; and his life in World War II as a soldier volunteering for risky missions in Luttes. Schauerte said Alain had a premonition of his tragic death, this “coincidencia” he expressed in his music, drawing, and poetry, and he, like Mozart and Schubert, crystallized his whole life’s work within a short period of time. She illustrated biographical details of his life with photographs of Alain’s parents; his childhood home; himself as a child, music student, mountain climber, and soldier; his siblings; his wife and three children; and the place where he was killed in action in Saumur. These were powerful images, filled with the beauty and exuberance of a life ended too soon. Schauerte also showed some of Alain’s whimsical drawings and read from his poetry and diary, offering intimate glimpses into his personality. She said he could be lively and wild one minute and contemplative the next. 

Schauerte stated that among her discoveries are findings from 14 autographed copies of Alain’s work owned  by Lola Bluhm and Alain’s daughter, and they are included in the new edition.  She noted that the only pieces with Alain’s own metronome markings are the Intermezzo and Suite. 

11:00 am Hill Auditorium

In Almut Rössler’s masterclass, Joshua Boyd, a freshman student of Marilyn Mason, played The Celestial Banquet. Prof. Rössler pointed out that these were early sounds for Messiaen—drops of the blood of Christ. In abbreviated form, I include her comments, which are invaluable to anyone playing Messiaen: 

The sound of water drops is achieved not by legato playing, but by movement of the leg straight down into the pedal with a sharp release. In the second edition he uses in the pedal registration 4, 22⁄3, 2, 13⁄5, a kind of cornet without a fundamental. Messiaen can be played on a North German Baroque organ, English and American organs; one must know what is adequate, what is the character, atmosphere, and emotional expression of the work. One must know the inner idea and how to achieve it. The second edition, 1960, is the most important one. Pay attention to slurs; some end at the end of the line, others go to the next line.  Always follow the slurs. Also pay attention to thumb glissandos.  

1:30 pm Hill Auditorium 

With her characteristic light touch Marilyn Mason, “the maker of organists” for over a half a century, shared her good luck “secret” with us. She said after one of her recitals at Riverside a woman congratulated her, saying that she was envious of her being so lucky to play so well. Prof. Mason replied, “Yes, and the more I practice, the luckier I get.” She continued, saying, “I always tell my students when they feel like giving up, that’s the time they need to really practice. Never give up.” She then introduced four of her former students who had received the D.M.A. and who proceeded to demonstrate that she’s right! Each of them played with dazzling technique, assurance, and passion. The performers, dates of their degrees, and their pieces follow: Shin-Ae Chun (2006), Prelude and Fugue on the name of A.L.A.I.N., Duruflé; Joseph Galema (1982), Allegro deciso from Evocation, op. 37, Dupré; Seth Nelson (2006), Troisième Choral en la mineur, Franck; and Andrew Meagher (2010), Prelude and Fugue, Jerry Bilik (b. 1933). This was the premiere performance of Bilik’s work, which was commissioned by and dedicated to Marilyn Mason. It features the Michigan fight song, Hail to the Victors (!)—the composer’s grin was as big as ours. 

3 pm Hill Auditorium

Peggy Kelley Reinburg, recitalist and Alain scholar, presented an informative lecture, “The Liturgical Potential in Selected Organ and Piano Compositions of Jehan Ariste Alain.” She demonstrated how Alain was influenced by the colors of the French Classical School by playing Clérambault’s Suite du Deuxième Ton. Her description of her visit to the Abbey where Alain played and composed his Postlude pour les Complies allowed us to absorb its stillness and peace. She quoted from his letter, “The abbey organ (Abbaye de Valloires) was beautiful especially after 9 pm,” and commented that this was his first composition written for organ. She suggested that the following pieces be used in a liturgical setting: (organ) Postlude pour les Complies, Choral Dorien, Ballade en mode Phrygien, Berceuse sur deux notes qui cornent, Le jardin suspendu; (piano) Choral—Seigneur, donne-nous la paix eternelle, Romance, Nocturne, Suite Façile—Comme une barcarolle, and Suite Monodique. Reinburg’s elegant performance of these meditative and serene pieces offered convincing support for her argument.

8 pm Hill Auditorium

Helga Schauerte’s years of researching Alain’s life and music were abundantly apparent in her recital. Not only was she at one with his music, breathing into it a deeply personal interpretation, but by playing two of Langlais’ pieces—one written in his memory and one dedicated to him—presented Alain the man, the self-sacrificing citizen. Included in her recital was Langlais’ Chant héröique, op. 40, no. 4, inscribed, “To the memory of Jehan Alain, fallen for France as a hero in the Defense of Saumur, June 1940,” and his Resurrection, op. 250, no. 4, inscribed, “dedicated to Jehan Alain.” Of all the Alain repertoire in the recital, which included Fantaisies nos. 1 and 2, Variations sur un theme de Clément Jannequin, Deux Danses à Agni Yavishta, Fantasmagorie, Litanies, and Trois Danses, for me it was in the Trois Danses that Alain’s spirit seemed to dance and leap. One of Alain’s daughters has thanked Schauerte for bringing his music to life, saying that her father lived on because of her. We all say thank you, Helga Schauerte!

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

9:30 am Hill Auditorium Mezzanine

Damin Spritzer shared her extensive research on René Louis Becker, a compilation of many published works as well as original manuscripts. As an Alsatian-born and educated musician and organist, Becker seems to have fit well into the early 20th-century American scene, first joining the faculty of his brothers’ music conservatory in St. Louis, Missouri, and then in a series of church positions in Illinois and Michigan, including his appointment as first organist of the Cathedral of the Most Blessed Sacrament in Detroit, Michigan. Spritzer is interested in studying the various organs of Becker’s experience, both in America and in Alsace, as a factor in shaping his organ compositions. It is not always possible to acquire information on these organs. Spritzer suggests his three organ sonatas, which are extended works, as a starting point to appreciate René Becker’s music. 

There are several choral works of Becker’s as well. Well-respected by his contemporaries such as Alexander Schreiner, Albert Riemenschneider, and others, Becker was one of the major organ figures of his day in America, though now largely forgotten and left to the past, even in the churches where he had ministered. However, renewed interest is beginning to flower with new recordings and publications. Becker’s works are not completely catalogued, partly due to discrepancies in opus numbers of works published in his lifetime and those in original manuscripts. Spritzer related that the selection of René Becker for research was suggested by Michael Barone. In this mammoth research task, the descendants of René Becker have lent their assistance. They were present for the lecture. 

10:30 am Hill Auditorium

Almut Rössler resumed the masterclass begun the day before on the stage of Hill Auditorium. With Nancy Deacon (Les Bergers) and Kipp Cortez (Le Verbe), she stressed counting the subdivisions of the beat to make the longer notes precise and the rhythmic texture secure as written. “‘Espresif’ does not mean ‘free’” was one of her comments. Also noteworthy was not breathing and lifting between phrases if there are no phrase marks (slurs) indicated. Always play a perfect legato with “old-fashioned” finger substitutions (from the methods of Dupré and Gleason) as well as the thumb glissando. All-important is locating the musical symbols and depictions and playing them according to their own nature, both by the manner of playing and in the registration. One must understand the titles and subtitles to execute the meaning and color of the piece, which is almost always objective. 

No matter who is on the bench in a Rössler masterclass, it is always a rewarding experience to receive her teaching, benefit from her inspiring musicianship, and to upgrade one’s awareness of Olivier Messiaen’s music, owing to her 20 years of close association and study with him. 

12:15 pm School of Public Health, Community Lounge

Brandon D. Spence performed for the audience of the Community Lounge, where those on Central Campus can enjoy an organ recital in the “Brown Bag” lunch recital series at the School of Public Health on the Létourneau organ. Included on his memorized program were Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, BWV 731, Bach; Two Meditations, Ulysses Kay; Fuga C-Dur, BuxWV 174, and Praeludium und Fuga g-moll, BuxWV 149, Buxtehude. Spence gave helpful comments on each piece before playing.

1:30 pm Hill Auditorium

Marijim Thoene presented an in-depth and authoritative lecture/recital of Alan Hovhaness’s eight organ works, indicating which are unpublished, as well as the published works (C. F. Peters and Fujihara Music Co., Seattle, Washington). Hovhaness is perhaps known more for his orchestral (Mysterious Mountain) and choral (Magnificat) music more than for his organ works. Discouraged by the criticisms of Leonard Bernstein and Aaron Copland of his Symphony in 1943, Hovhaness took the advice of the Greek psychic and mystic painter Hermon
di Giovanno, who persuaded him to study the music of his Armenian ancestors. Hovhaness then became organist for St. James Armenian Church in Watertown, Massachusetts. There he studied his Armenian musical heritage, which was not passed down to him through his family. Thoene noted his “turn toward the East” in musical language and played a recording of the beginning of the Divine (Armenian) Liturgy as well as a few notes on the sho instrument, a handheld, Japanese pipe organ of ancient Chinese origin. Hovhaness strove to incorporate the musical idiom of Eastern peoples into his compositional style and make their modalities his own. 

Thoene performed Organ Sonata No. 2, Invisible Sun, op. 385, Ms.; three pieces from Sanahin Partita for Organ, op. 69: 2. Estampie, 4. First Whirling, and 7. Apparition in the Sky; Hermit Thrush (Sonata No. 3, op. 424); and her own commission, Habakkuk, op. 434 (1995), which is Hovhaness’s last organ work (1995). In this piece, Hovhaness was asked to reflect on Habakkuk 3:17–19: 

Even though the fig trees are all destroyed, and there is neither blossom left nor fruit; and though the olive crops all fail, and the fields lie barren; even if the flocks die in the fields and the cattle barns are empty. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will be happy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is my strength, and He will give me the speed of a deer and bring me safely over the mountains. 

Thoene performed this stirring work in an exultant manner. Hovhaness created a new harmonic language in this last organ piece to express both the despair of the prophet and of the triumph of his enduring faith. Thanks to Thoene, this piece exists.

2:30 pm Hill Auditorium Mezzanine

Michael Barone celebrated other composers with anniversaries aside from those featured on the conference. Playing recordings of at least two examples each as well as some other discs of interest, Barone offered a very humorous journey from names such as Georg Boehm, Louis Couperin, William Boyer, Jan Koetsier, Nino Rota, Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, Enrico Bossi, Gustav Mahler, Gian Carlo Menotti, and Carrie Jacobs-Bond. In addition, the radio exponent of the pipe organ made a case for Franz Liszt’s influence on music in general and organ music being more extensive than commonly thought. Liszt envisioned the organ beyond a church instrument, giving an influential “push” for the organ in the music world. As inventor of the tone poem, he took the organ (as well as the piano) into the expression of emotional extremes. Several examples of Liszt’s smaller, meditative works intended for private reflection were played, showing that his output of organ music goes well beyond the “big pieces.”

8:00 pm Hill Auditorium

Gregory Hand completed the conference, sharing his project of recording the entire corpus of William Bolcom’s Gospel Preludes. He performed Preludes 1–6 (Books I and II) with intermission, followed by Preludes 7–12 (Books III and IV) in Hill Auditorium. Adding to the delight of this performance was the presence of the composer.

This conference was a mind-stretcher in organ literature. Each of the composers—Liszt, Alain, and Hovhaness—created a special musical language of their own. Additionally, their spirituality was wedded with their musicality, often taking on a very personal expression. Thus, a huge panorama of literature, much of it from our time, was offered to the conference participants for possible exploration. At the same time, the conference was a huge dose of spiritual music of a theological bent, from the Gospel Preludes of William Bolcom to the piano pieces of Jehan Alain to Messiaen’s Les Corps Glorieux to Langlais’ Resurrection to Hovhaness’s Habbakuk and many others—attendees took in much inspiration and food for thought. Thanks to Marilyn Mason, the presenters, and the attendees for another dynamic educational event for organ music at the University of Michigan.

Pascal Quoirin, St. Didier, France

Church of the Ascension, 

New York, New York

The Manton Memorial Organ at the Church of the Ascension, New York City, is the first French-built organ ever to be installed in New York City. The 95-stop, 111-rank instrument has been designed to play as large a part of the repertory as possible. The core of the instrument is a classical (baroque) organ of Grand-Orgue, Positif, Récit-Écho, and Pédale, played by a three-manual mechanical action console. A second console—this one with four manuals and electric action—controls that classical core as well as many other stops intended for symphonic and modern repertory.

The instrument is situated in the front of the church on two sides of the chancel, flanking the famed 1888 mural “The Ascension” by John LaFarge. Four organ façades—two on each side—include elaborate wood carvings of peacocks, inspired by the peacocks in the marble reredos, also from the 1880s. The beautiful carvings were the work of Babou Vauquois, wife of Pascal Quoirin.

Unknown to most Americans, Pascal Quoirin has spent his career restoring and building organs throughout the world. Major restorations include many of the great historic instruments of France, such as the Dom Bédos masterpiece at Sainte-Croix in Bordeaux and the Cavaillé-Coll organ in Saint-Cloud, France. Quoirin’s new organs include his recent instrument in the gothic Cathedral of Evreux, France, and instruments in other European countries, Japan, and Mexico. The Church of the Ascension’s instrument is his first organ in the United States.

The new organ is made possible by a grant from the Manton Foundation to honor the memory of Sir Edwin and Lady Manton, who were active members of the Church of the Ascension for over 50 years. The Mantons were avid lovers of music, particularly the music of Olivier Messiaen and other French composers.

The Church of the Ascension is the oldest church building on New York City’s Fifth Avenue and has been known for its music program for more than 100 years. The church is the home of the Voices of Ascension Chorus and Orchestra. 

Elaborate inaugural events took place in May and June and included a dedicatory Mass, three major organ recitals, two choral concerts, and the debut of the Ascension Organ Academy. Each concert had capacity crowds, and throughout the inaugural events the exceptional quality and range of the instrument were on full display. When the Quoirin team was presented to the audience they received a five-minute standing ovation.

This year the organ series begins on November 15 with Messiaen’s Meditations on the Mystery of the Holy Trinity played by Jon Gillock, followed later in the season with recitals by Louis Robilliard, Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini, and a Vierne Marathon with Christopher Houlihan. The Ascension Organ Academy will take place in June. For information, visit www.voicesofascension.org. 

—Dennis Keene

Organist and Choirmaster

The organ of the Church of the Ascension in New York: 

The musical goal

The goal of this organ was defined, little by little, during the course of conversations with Dennis Keene, titular organist of the new instrument and choirmaster of the Church of the Ascension in New York, and Jon Gillock, organist of international renown and, most recently, author of a book providing an analysis of Olivier Messiaen’s organ works.

From the beginning, the design of this instrument was not to correspond to a precise stylistic period (neo-classic, neo-symphonic, neo-baroque, etc.), but rather it had to lead, in terms of organbuilding, to a reflection on the best manner possible to perform a large body of music.

This reflection was nourished by several visits to carefully listen to a number of instruments (St.-Rémy de Provence, the Cathedral of Évreux) and in particular to that of the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris, representing the musical universe of Olivier Messiaen—Jon Gillock having suggested that we listen in detail to multiple combinations of sounds invented by Olivier Messiaen on this organ. Adhesion to this musical goal was immediate and natural for us because it is a process that is naturally inscribed in the history and evolution of the organ in general.

In effect, we observe that stylistic mutations are made most often by a progressive adaptation to an original model. That model transforms and evolves in step with the various styles of musical writing appropriate to each epoch: polyphonic, classical, romantic, symphonic, etc. It sometimes even happens that this evolution anticipates the imagination of musicians. That is the case with the instruments of Cavaillé-Coll in which his ideas preceded the compositions, among others, of César Franck.

The organ, therefore, is in perpetual evolution, and the history of the organ of Notre-Dame in Paris is a significant example: a Blockwerk from the Middle Ages was still present in the organ at the beginning of the 17th century; it was transformed by Cavaillé-Coll in the 19th century and, in its present state, it was completed and adapted to the modern techniques of today. All the marks of its evolution are still present, and the history of the French organ is inscribed there.

Organbuilding, furthermore, is continually subject to foreign influences, such as those of North Germany, Spain, Italy, etc. These also modify traditional practices and in each instance the organ adapts to new musical sensibilities. The experience acquired by organbuilders at the time of major historic restorations is, and still remains, absolutely necessary to understand and master the ensemble of the different aesthetics of organ design. This knowledge also permits a much more realistic approach in the design of a new organ voluntarily conceived in opposition to actual historic solutions.

Thus, we have explained the directions from which naturally ensued the general conception of the project: the organ was conceived first of all to be an appropriate instrument for interpreting modern repertoire of the 20th century and that of contemporary music. But, it is principally the music of Olivier Messiaen that was the dominating force in the conception of the whole.

The organ for Messiaen’s music, and particularly that of the Église de la Sainte-Trinité in Paris where he was titular organist for many years, is an instrument of Cavaillé-Coll modified to include several classical ingredients. It is principally this type of organ that inspired the composers of the epoch “Neo-Classic,” a term considered suspect today because of the numerous and unfortunate transformations made between the mid-1920s and 1968, sometimes in an irreversible manner, to masterpieces of the French patrimony of historic organs.

This concept of the organ, as badly realized as it was, nevertheless inspired many musicians (including Messiaen), and, in my opinion, it is unthinkable to ignore it. The purpose of this type of instrument, called “neo-classic,” was to allow one to interpret a large part of the Classical repertoire. But, that type of instrument is accepted with difficulty today by many organists and European organbuilders, because we think that it is really possible to propose more logical solutions thanks to knowledge acquired during the course of restorations of an historic character, whether it be instruments of the renaissance, classical, romantic, or symphonic periods.

And, it is this accumulated historic knowledge that has guided the conception of the organ at the Church of the Ascension. We find here, therefore, classical entities like the plenum, the jeux de tierces completely developed, the grand-choeur of reeds on their own chests, and a classic disposition of the divisions: Grand-Orgue, Positif, Récit-Écho, Grand-Récit Expressif, “large” and “small” Pédale.

A large part of the “classic” foundation of the organ is found in the case placed to the left of the choir: the Grand-Orgue, Positif, Récit/Écho, and an important part of the Pédale. These divisions are played with a suspended, mechanical action from the console located en fenêtre [attached console].

An identical case, facing the first, houses the Grand-Récit Expressif and the remaining pedal stops. The entire organ, which joins the two cases, to the left and right of the choir, with their respective façades facing the side aisles, is played from an electric console of four keyboards, a mobile console that can be placed in the center of the choir for concerts. It is at this console that one interprets most easily the contemporary repertoire or that of the 20th century, which, in general, was not written for direct mechanical action.

The cases were designed to integrate as harmoniously as possible with the architecture of the site. They are constructed of ash and walnut woods. The sculptured decorations are freely inspired by the Art Nouveau style, an echo of the Tiffany stained-glass windows of the church. The key motifs represent imaginary birds, recalling the birdsongs so dear to Olivier Messiaen.

Disposition and details of the instrument

The organ is divided into two groups situated in the choir of the church, on each side of the high altar. Two 16′ façades are therefore facing each other. These two entities also have an opening into the side aisles to the right and left of the choir to which we have applied two cases, one of which is composed of two superimposed 8′ façades.

The organ on the left comprises the major part of the instrumental structure: on the main level the Grand-Orgue, the Positif above, the Récit/Écho behind the Positif. The big foundation stops of the Pédale are on the bottom (Bourdons 32′ and 16′, Contrebasse 16′, Flûte 8′, Jeux de tierce 32′, Bombarde 32′, etc.). The whole rises in tiers to almost 43 feet.

The organ on the right is chiefly inhabited by the Grand-Récit Expressif of 21 stops; its main façade is formed by the pipes of pedal stops (Principal 16′, Violoncelle 8′). Between this façade and the expressive box of the Récit are placed the Bassons 16′ and 8′, the Plein Jeu, the Prestant 4′, and the Quinzième 2′ of the Pédale. The façade facing the side aisle is made up of the bass pipes of the Second 8′ of the Grand-Orgue. The rest of this stop, as is all of Second 4′, is found behind this façade.

The windchests of the Grand-Orgue number four: two large chests for 16′ stops and two others for the three reed stops: Bombarde, Trompette, Clairon. The 2ème Trompette (en-chamade) is the first stop on the foundation chest behind the façade. The configuration is the same for the Positif situated above the Grand-Orgue; the four chests have the same dimensions. 

The mechanical action of the keyboards permanently pulls two sets of pallets, one for the foundation stops with pallets longer than one foot, the other, shorter, for the reed stops. To facilitate the opening, the first two octaves of each chest are equipped with a special assist. The touch is supple and responsive for each keyboard. There are two possibilities for coupling the manuals among themselves, either electrical or mechanical.

The pipes are entirely cone tuned in the classic manner. Yet, certain stops have a tuning scroll: the Gambes and Voix céleste, the Aéolines, the Second 4′ and, of course, the Second 8′ of the Grand-Orgue. These two stops, the size of which was given by Cavaillé-Coll, are very strong, especially in the top, and are voiced with open toes. When one plays the registration of all the 8′ stops coupled together, the Second 8′ adds an effect of fullness, powerful, strongly crescendoing upwards. Thus, the sound of the organ is centered for the listener located in the nave.

The plenum in two planes, Grand-Orgue and Positif, is founded on the fundamental of the 16′, in the French manner, Grande Fourniture with its resultants of 102⁄3′, Fourniture, and Cymbale.

The Plein Jeu of the Grand-Récit Expressif is not a part of the plenum. It is rather to be used with the reeds, which the symphonic character favors. On the other hand, the Sur Cymbale on this keyboard is of the “neo-classic” type, narrow scale and high-pitched, voiced with low mouths and toes relatively closed. The use of such a stop figures in certain very special registrations of Olivier Messiaen. It is also the typical color of the neo-classical epoch that considered the effect of the Plein-jeux as an intense and penetrating light, whose goal was to illuminate the foundations of the organ. On the other hand, the classic conception interprets the Plein Jeu, the plenum, as the result of a synthesis of harmonics: one homogenous sonority with its vowel sound perfectly defined.

The reed stops differentiate themselves in three different ways.

The first: classic, copying the “Dom-Bédos” reeds of the Église Sainte-Croix in Bordeaux, for the reeds of the Grand-Orgue, Positif, and the Trompette, Hautbois, and Voix humaine of the Récit-Echo, with their distinctive reeds made of brass in the form of a “U”, 2/3 open.

The second: the Clarinette 8′ and the Basson 8′ of the Récit-Echo, the Basson 16′ of the Positif, with their “tear-drop” reeds, according to the measurements of Cavaillé-Coll, and the Bassons 16′ and 8′ of the Pédale, with their rectangular “tear-drop”, tin-plated reeds.

The third: the harmonic reeds of the Grand-Récit Expressif, with their reeds more closed, of the “Bertounèche” type (Bertounèche was a French craftsman who made the shallots of Cavaillé-Coll’s reeds; this little enterprise existed, remaining in productivity, until 1976).

The acoustic of the church, where the reverberation time is about three seconds, can appear very short, yet it has the advantage of eliciting no deformation to the sound. The bass has a flawless definition and does not invade the space, and the higher pitches sound without any aggressiveness. There are no curved surfaces in the interior architecture that could introduce disturbing reverberation.

—Pascal Quoirin

http://www.atelier-quoirin.com/

Photo credit: Tom Ligamari

David Enlow is organist and choirmaster of the Church of the Resurrection in New York, where he directs a professional choir. He is a member of the organ faculty of the Juilliard School in New York and sub-dean of the New York City AGO chapter. Enlow holds both an undergraduate and a master’s degree from the Juilliard School, where he studied with John Weaver and Paul Jacobs. He also studied at the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia and with John Tuttle in Toronto. He performs under the management of Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists. Enlow is a Fellow of the American Guild of Organists, where he won the S. Lewis Elmer Prize, and an Associate of the Royal Canadian College of Organists, where he won the Barker Prize. He has won several national performance competition first prizes, including those of the Arthur Poister Competition and the Albert Schweitzer Organ Festival USA. His choir at the Church of the Resurrection performs over fifty Mass settings each season, often with orchestra. While in Philadelphia he was sub-organist of St. Clement’s Church, and an assistant at the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ. Visit www.davidenlow.com for a concert calendar, sound files, and more.

César Franck’s organ works are part of many American organists’ repertoire, on many college or conservatory repertory lists, and on many recital programs (though some pieces are neglected without any good reason). With all that familiarity comes a sense that we all ‘know’ Franck, that we have, as American organists, developed a school of playing his music that is sensible and ‘authentic’—specifically, that we reproduce the sound and substance of the original expression as nearly through the original medium as possible. The trouble with this assertion is manifold: many organists do not know the totality of Franck’s music, for to understand him as a composer requires an approach from outside the organ literature; also, no American organ will ever be a Cavaillé-Coll; and most American churches do not appear or sound Parisian in any sense. Authenticity of expression cannot be found naturally in the instruments or settings we have here; to have a truly authentic Franck performance means that more thought and sensitivity are required, and that our criteria for authenticity must be shaken, and revised.

Franck as early music?

It almost seems that we treat Franck as ‘early music’; it is true that in the vanguard of early music performances the nineteenth century has been claimed as fertile ground for rediscovery (witness the period-instrument performances of works of Berlioz, Mendelssohn, et al.) but we largely think of nineteenth century (Romantic and post-Romantic) music as ‘our own’, a period of music that we understand readily and without being taught. There is no recording of the Franck Symphony on period instruments, no Violin Sonata, no A-Major Mass, and so on. Why then does Franck’s distinctive Cavaillé-Coll Récit division at Ste. Clotilde receive the dubious courtship of labored imitation and inspire the wagging finger of organ teachers? “No 16-foot reed tone!” they thunder, sometimes even in Franck pieces written for the Palais du Trocadéro organ, which had a massive, complete, and more useful Récit.  

The Franckian Récit

This case of the Récit particularly is one in which the approximation of the effect of Franck’s home organ can be troublesome. The Ste. Clotilde Récit was not only interesting in its specification, but in its position, distant in the rear of the case. So when the doctrinaire approach insists on registering the cantilena passages in the A-Minor and E-Major Chorals with a solo comprising the foundations and both Swell reeds, one of which is perhaps a large English-style chorus trumpet in a Swell division much more prominently placed, with the accompaniment on dull Choir stops with the box closed, the effect of such strong reedy presence and ineffectual accompaniment is not the authentic expression of the original distant, harmonically rich voice accompanied by the flutes of a Positif only half-way as far up, and therefore very present to the listener in the nave (in how many performances is the very fine and elaborate counterpoint Franck wrote in the accompanying voices of the first and third Chorals never heard! [Example 1]). In cases when the Swell trumpet and oboe drawn together are both too colorless and too loud, there is nothing authentic about it (unless of course they are out of tune!).

One solution, for example, at the American Symphonic organ of reasonable size is the Solo Corno di Bassetto 8′, or Swell Oboe 8′ if it is large enough, accompanied by the Choir Flûte Harmonique with or without the Bourdon 8′, or perhaps (if the solo is on the Swell) by an expressive Solo flute. This registration stays true to the proportion, character, and nature of the piece.

In passages when the full Récit is indicated, must we use no 16-foot stops? It is not as simple as ‘Ste. Clotilde had no 16-foot stops, so we may not use them.’ Is the effect brought across in all cases by the Swell without its Double Trumpet or Bassoon? Would Franck truly have left off the 16′ registers in all ‘full Récit’ registrations when performing his music at churches in which the Récit was large and complete? The answer cannot be categorical, at least not in the positive. To say that Franck would have emulated the Ste. Clotilde organ wherever he went is to belittle his intelligence. The parallel assertion is to say that Chopin’s piano music must always be delicate because he was slight and frail, ignoring his famous remark to an apologizing student who broke a string during the Polonaise Militaire: “Young man, if I had your strength and could play that polonaise as it should be played, there would be no strings on the instrument when I finished!” Composers’ original performances are not always the ones they hoped for, nor are they always to be emulated.

It is unique to Franck’s organ works that one original instrument is taken into such intense consideration, which is partly legitimate, given how widely organs vary from place to place, even in the work of the same builder in the same period. However, the educated pianist knows that elements of piano construction were different in the 1860s than today, and yet this is not one of the first elements he or she considers when developing an interpretation. The pianist who sits down to learn the accompaniment to the Franck Violin Sonata thinks not on refinements to double-escapement, but rather on supporting the solo line, on finding the best tempo, on form, on Franck’s intensely chromatic, constantly transforming harmony—on all the real musical material and not on the instrument the première was played upon, or the tempi of particular isolated performances.

This is not to say organists should not know everything there is to know about the Ste. Clotilde organ and French organs of Franck’s day generally, rather that the application of that knowledge must be a thoughtful, dynamic one and that the consideration of the musical material must come before all complications of the instrument. Where the form, balance, harmony, or tempo is injured by imitating the restrictions or peculiarities of the original instrument, those injuries must be overcome. Our situation nowadays is that they are not overcome, but almost reveled in.

Appropriate venues—and phrasing

There is another context in which many performers seem not to consider the circumstances of the origin of the Franck works at all: in the choice of when and where they should be performed, and which pieces. There is an air of unfortunate spectacle when the A-Minor Choral is played in a church or hall with no acoustical ambiance, on an organ of around twenty ranks. It would challenge the greatest interpreter to bring the drama and fire of the piece across in those circumstances. Plaintively, the question from the resident musician comes, “Am I never to play the A-Minor Choral on my church organ?” And the gentle but firm answer is that the instrument is not suited to it, and the wise, judicious musician will play instead the Prelude, Fugue et Variation, the Fantaisie in C, or perhaps the Prière on such an organ, and save the Chorals for instruments and settings which are equal to their demands.  

More importantly still, consideration of phrases based on their melodic and harmonic content, and their position in the larger form, is often lacking in performances of the Franck works. It is not enough to follow the dynamic indications in the Chorals, for example; they are very late works, and had not the same opportunity for revision and consideration before being published that others had. (The very odd swell action called for in the chorale statements of the A-Minor Choral can be overridden and replaced, with good justification [Example 2].) It is not thoughtful enough to play the repeated chords in the Pièce Héroïque half-value as Marcel Dupré might have indicated for a gallery organ in a church with eight seconds’ reverberation time, but their effect in the given room at the given tempo must be considered when determining how long they should be. Another common transgression of the nature of the music is in the cantilena sections of the first and third Chorals, and the C-Major Fantasy. In these, the problem is that they are played without any consideration of range. They are such vocal lines that a thorough examination of the natural high and low points of each phrase (and high and low points of whole sections) is vital (Example 3).

As it is with any revival of a work which belongs to an age now past, the truly authentic performance of Franck is the one which brings the essential substance of his expression to life. The rote learning and mimicry of stop combinations is no better in Franck than it is in the music of other great composers, and it may be worse. Rather, the ability to combine under the hands of one performer the intimate lyricism of the Violin Sonata with the overwhelming dramatic arc of the Symphony is one the organist is fortunate to possess. The organist must take up that mantle; the music demands no less.

Jay Zoller is organist at South Parish Congregational Church in Augusta, Maine, where he plays the church’s historic 1866 E. & G.G. Hook organ. He holds degrees from the University of New Hampshire and the School of Theology at Boston University. A retired designer for the Andover Organ Company, he currently designs for the Organ Clearing House and for David E. Wallace & Co. Pipe Organ Builders of Gorham, Maine. Zoller resides in Newcastle, Maine, with his wife Rachel. In addition to writing several articles about Heinz Wunderlich for The American Organist, Choir and Organ, and The Diapason, he has played in all-Wunderlich recitals in Hamburg, Germany in 1999, 2004, and 2009. His article, “Heinz Wunderlich at 90,” appeared in the April 2009 issue of The Diapason.

I  had never given much thought to organs or the organ culture in South Korea. My interests, along with, I suppose, those of many organists, lay in the direction of European composers. However, a recent trip to South Korea to visit family got me thinking about this subject, about which I knew nothing. The questions swirled around my head: What was the organ culture like in South Korea? Was it anything like our own? What kinds of organs were there in Korea? What did the organists play? Was there a South Korean style of organ composition? Do they play the same repertoire as we do? In this age of instant communication, I imagined that they must play Bach and Mendelssohn, just as we do, but how was I to know for sure?

Our visit was primarily centered in and around Daejeon, a city of about two million people. With my lack of knowledge of the Korean language, I would have gotten nowhere in my quest without the help of Rosalie Bowker, who is Board Chair at the Daejeon Christian International School, an organist herself, and a missionary to South Korea for over forty years. Her help in taking me to see organs, introducing me to Korean organists, and finding resources for me, was invaluable.

I make no claim that this report is complete, since my discoveries center around Daejeon. I hope that someone more knowledgeable will write about the nation as a whole.

A brief history of Korea

Korea is the only nation in the world where Christianity first took root without priests or missionaries, but solely as a result of the written word. Bibles, which had been translated into Chinese by Jesuits, were brought back by a Korean scholar on a diplomatic trip to Beijing in 1621. Korea has had a long friendship with China, which has lasted for centuries. As a big brother to Korea, China has had a profound influence on Koreans. However, Koreans transformed those influences into their own distinctive advances in fields such as literature, art, ceramics, printing, philosophy, astronomy, medicine, and astrology. As an example, Koreans invented metal moveable type in 1230, 200 years before Gutenberg. 

Geography has played an important role in Korean history. This small mountainous country sits in a strategic area surrounded by the larger and more powerful countries of China, Japan, and Russia. During its two thousand years of recorded history, Korea has suffered nine hundred invasions and five periods of foreign occupation. Its relationship with China has seen Korean kings embracing Chinese culture and receiving some protection in return for tribute to the Chinese Emperor.

When Japan was unified in the 16th century, its leader Hideyoshi Toyotomi attacked Korea as a first phase of an invasion of the Chinese mainland. This war, which left the country devastated, resulted in keeping relations acrimonious. Korea attempted to stay isolated until western influences in opening the country to trade during the 19th century left Korea vulnerable. In 1875 Japan forced exclusive trade with Korea and then flooded Japanese advisers and military personnel into the country. 

In 1905, America and Britain felt that Japanese control over Korea would prevent Russian expansion, and so Theodore Roosevelt traded Korea’s independence for U.S. control over the Philippines. The Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended the Russo-Japanese War, made Korea a Japanese protectorate. The Japanese then forced, despite protests and student uprisings, a Protectorate Treaty, which was followed in 1910 by a forced Treaty of Annexation, which made Korea a Japanese colony. The Koreans were treated brutally until the Japanese surrender after World War II.

The end of World War II brought about the arbitrary division of the country, by the West, at the 38th parallel. This unfortunate afterthought by the major powers in the post-war period has proven to be the one blunder that has caused inordinate trouble for the North and the South as they have grappled for advantage and supremacy over each other. 

A Korean guerrilla commander, Kim Il Sung, chosen by the Soviet Union to head its regime in the North, chose, with Soviet and Chinese backing, to invade the South and unite the country under communist rule. This conflict, in a fear of communist menace, drew in U.N. and U.S. troops and savage fighting. The Korean War claimed a huge number of casualties and devastated both halves of a country that had only just begun to recover from four decades of Japanese occupation. When the fighting finally stopped in July 1953, the front line was virtually at the 38th parallel, close to where it had all begun. A demilitarized zone was created, which has remained in place to this day. The North became a dictatorship under the thumb of Kim Il Sung and later his son, Kim Jong Il, and the country closed off from the rest of the world.

In the South, anti-communist dictatorships gradually gave way to democratic reform and growing trade with the world. Under President Park Chung Hee, conglomerates were formed, which made South Korea a major economic power. It is in this period of economic growth and democratic reform that our organ story begins.

Organ culture

As one might imagine after the widespread destruction during the Korean War, organs were not a priority and as a result were slow in coming. Gradually, however, South Koreans who had an interest in music began coming to the United States and to Europe for training. Those interested in studying the organ concentrated primarily on the United States and Germany, countries that offered organ curricula and good instruments to play. 

As time went on, students who returned to South Korea wanted similar instruments to play at home and often were able to have their church buy an organ from a builder that they had become acquainted with during their studies. Since there were no Korean organbuilders, they imported organs from the United States and Germany. Seoul, South Korea’s largest city, has the greatest number of pipe organs in the country. Wicks began the Seoul imports, followed by such builders as Brombaugh, Flentrop, Schuke, Rieger-Kloss, Ruffatti, Beckerath, Karl Wilhelm, Jäger & Brommer, Bosch, Pels & Van Leeuwen, Klais, and many others. The large six-manual Klais in the concert hall is a jewel in the collection, with its case designed after the traditional Korean plucked musical instrument, the “Komungo,” giving the effect of several instruments hanging from the wall. It boasts as well 40 French bells and 32 Korean bells in addition to 270 Spanish trumpets. The organ looks very impressive, although I have only seen it in pictures. We mustn’t forget the new Fisk organ installed in 2010 at Incheon, about twenty miles west of Seoul. 

There is an interesting story about the Klais in the concert hall. When it was new, apparently the organist at the time had the mistaken impression that it didn’t need regular attention for maintenance and tuning. The organ became almost unplayable before a new professor took over and had some much-needed maintenance done on it. There are a few German-trained organ technicians in the country who take care of the pipe organs, one of whom is the husband of an organist I will mention later.

Organs in Daejeon

Although churches seem to be located everywhere, Daejeon contains only five pipe organs. Many churches have electronic imitations and most have praise bands to accompany worship. Even churches with pipe organs often have a band as well. The organs include Rieger-Kloss, Oberlinger, Flentrop, Speith, and  Paul Fritts. 

We met Eunyoung Kim at the Baptist Church where she is organist. The church contains an organ built by Speith-Orgelbau of Reitberg, Germany. Although a fine tracker instrument, it is situated in an acoustically dry room. Dr. Kim played the last movement of the first Mendelssohn Sonata for me—it was exquisitely played, but the sound was almost sucked into the walls. This led us to a discussion of acoustics in South Korean churches. This is a subject too large to go into here, but suffice it to say that with carpeting all over and acoustical tile even in the rear of the organ there is no resonance at all. Her comment was that the Korean idea of acoustics is figuring out how many speakers a room needs. It is a situation that organists are trying to correct.

After a delicious lunch at a Korean restaurant recommended by Dr. Kim, she took us to see the organs at Southern Baptist University, where she is the organ professor. Unfortunately, a class was meeting in the auditorium, so we were unable to see that organ, but in a smaller, happily much more resonant room is an organ built by Paul Fritts. The lower manual contained a Hohlflöte 8′, Principal 4′, Quint/Cornet, and Octav 2′. The upper manual had Quintadena 8′, Spielflöte 4′, Gemshorn 2′, and Dulcian 8′. A Subbass 16′ and Gedackt 8′ rounded out the pedal division. Couplers were I/Pedal, II/Pedal, and II/I, and there was also a tremulant. I played the first movement of the Mendelssohn A-major Sonata and it had a nice effect. It is a delightful practice organ and often does double duty for concerts.

Eunyoung Kim’s husband is one of South Korea’s German-trained organ technicians, and I was sorry that I did not get to meet him as well. Surprisingly, Eunyoung Kim was working on a recital entitled “The Organ Music of America since 1950,” which she played after our trip was over. It consisted of music of David Arcus (b. 1958), Memorial Festival Overture and Ancient Wonders; John Behnke (b. 1953), Three Global Songs; Derek Bermel (b. 1967), Two Songs from Nandom; and David Conte (b. 1955), Pastorale and Toccata. 

On another day, Rosalie Bowker took my wife Rachel and me to Hyechon University to meet Mrs. Min Jin O, who is the university organist and who, when we met her, was preparing four students for a required recital. I asked if they would mind playing their prepared music for us and they gave us a remarkable program all played from memory. One girl played the Langlais Epilogue for Pedal Solo. A young man, who was autistic, had none of his usual symptoms when he was playing. We were impressed by every one of them. Their playing had confidence and vigor even without music in front of them.

The organ was built by Oberlinger and was located in a large room that looked as though it served for concerts as well as for worship. The acoustics here were much better than what we had heard previously. 

Organ miscellanies

Several universities in South Korea offer doctoral degrees in organ, so that an organ student need not travel to a different country to study. However, many do decide to work on degrees beyond their own borders. I got the impression that the two favorite places were Germany and the United States, although not limited to those. Dr. Kim remarked that you could often tell where they studied by the kind of repertoire they played. Of those students who choose to return to South Korea, there is a desire to have the kinds of organs they were exposed to where they studied and a desire for improved acoustics. As more organs are imported, it is a great opportunity to spread the gospel of better acoustics. The Koreans want the best of what the world has to offer and I don’t believe it will be long before churches begin to hear the difference that good acoustics can make.

There is a Korean Association of Organists that is active in South Korea. It sponsors seminars, festivals, and masterclasses as well as hosting visiting organists from other countries, much like the AGO does in the U.S. Their journal, which contains the usual news about organs and meetings, also publishes new music written by Korean composers. I was able to discover several new pieces, many centered around hymn tunes, but one composer in particular, Ju-Hwan Yu, had written a Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H in 2005, which I found fascinating and which I played in two recitals earlier this year. As in any other country these days, Korean organ recitalists play music of many countries and different time periods.

Postscript

I very much enjoyed my visit to South Korea and only wish that it could have been much longer. I am attempting this small article in hopes that someone with much more knowledge of Korea and its organ music might take up where I have left off and fill in many more details. It is an organ culture that is growing and trying hard to catch up with the West. 

I want to thank Dr. Rosalie Bowker, organist, musician, missionary, and Board Chair of the Daejeon Christian International School, without whose help none of this would have been possible. I also want to thank Dr. Eunyoung Kim and Mrs. Min Jin O, who provided information and visits to notable Daejeon organs. n

Bibliography

Breen, Michael. The Koreans—Who They Are, What They Want, Where Their Future Lies. Orion Business Books, 1998. 

Oberdorfer, Don. The Two Koreas, A Contemporary History. Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group, 2001. 

Becker, Jasper. Rogue Regime—Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea. Oxford University Press, 2005. 

Halberstam, David. The Coldest Winter: America and the Korean War. Hyperion Books, 2007.

Gavin Black is Director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].

Continuo, part I

The musical practice known as continuo playing was an integral part of ensemble music from about 1600 until about 1750—the dates that we assign to the “Baroque Period.” Indeed, it makes a lot of sense to define the Baroque specifically as the era in music history when continuo playing was the norm. During that period, almost every work of music that was not a solo keyboard or lute piece included a continuo part. (Exceptions, such as pieces for unaccompanied violin, or lute songs, probably amount to no more than five percent or so of the repertoire.) This includes sonatas, trio sonatas, works for larger instrumental ensembles, songs, cantatas, Masses, operas, and oratorios—arias, choruses, recitative, and so on. The practice of writing continuo parts certainly persisted into the second half of the eighteenth century—the “Classical” era—but became less common, less mainstream, less central to what was going on in the world of musical performance. Continuo died out early in the nineteenth century. (Mendelssohn, however, still included continuo parts in some of his sacred music in the 1830s.)

What is continuo? 

This month’s column will begin to answer that question, or, really, to address it in ways that I hope will be helpful to students. (Of course if any of us as organ teachers have students who have already studied continuo fairly deeply or who have specialized in it, then those students will already know or understand more than I am going to write about here. So this is, at least directly, for everyone else.) Next month I will outline in a fairly basic form my own approach to teaching the nitty-gritty practical side of creating and performing continuo parts at the keyboard, starting with how to read the notation, and I will discuss how to deal with the artistic choices that creating such a part entails.

I actually have a memory—a distant memory by now—of my own first encounters with the word “continuo.” These happened at a number of chamber music concerts on the Yale campus that I heard in the late 1960s, as a youngster just getting interested in music. There were pieces described as “Sonata for violin and continuo” or “Trio Sonata for violin, oboe, and b.c.” or other such phrases. (The word “continuo” and the expression “b.c.” are both abbreviations for basso continuo.) I noticed that some of these pieces turned out to have the wrong number of players, that is, a trio sonata might have four people playing. I still remember a sort of “Twilight Zone” feeling that I got looking at descriptions in the programs that seemed not to be written in any normal language that I could discern and that seemed not to correspond to what I was seeing on the stage. I vaguely remember asking someone (my father?) what it all meant and his not knowing either. I believe that we considered the possibility that it might be some sort of misprint.

I still get the very basic question—“What does ‘continuo’ mean?”—both from audience members at concerts and from (new) students. The basic answer is this: a continuo part is a line of music, mostly in the range of the bass clef, that forms the lowest part of the texture of a piece, that is meant to be played by one or more instruments in unison, and that is meant to be supplemented by notes not written by the composer: chords or bits of melody supplied by one or more of the performers. The choice of instrument or instruments is not, except in rare cases, specified by the composer. The performer’s process of deciding what “notes not written by the composer” to add is called “realizing” the continuo part. In the Baroque period this was almost always done by actual improvisation. Nowadays it is done either by improvisation or by planning and writing a part in advance.

Elements of improvisation

Part of this picture is that Baroque composers—from the most iconic such as Bach or Handel through thousands of others whom most of us have never heard of—expected the actual notes of their pieces to be different from one performance to another, with part of the note picture composed not by the “composer” but by any given performer. This often blows people’s minds: we associate the notion of a performer writing part of the music with certain kinds of twentieth-century experimental art—participatory or aleatory music. The music of the Baroque often seems to embody an opposite principle, one of rigorous form, often expressed through complex counterpoint. 

Sometimes the simple act of becoming aware of the nature of continuo accompaniment can reset a student’s sense of what Baroque music is all about, away from structure and control towards spontaneity and change, and, in a sense, away from the composer towards the performer. Of course, it is also true that a lot of Baroque keyboard and lute repertoire was improvised from scratch. In fact, we assume that something close to all of the keyboard playing that took place in the Baroque era was improvisation. However, in a funny way, improvised repertoire suggests a less radical departure from composer control than continuo accompaniment does, in that with improvised repertoire the performer is the composer.

Of course with continuo accompaniment, the additions to the music put in place by the performer exist within certain well-defined bounds—and we’ll come back to that below. However, it is clear from comparing all of the recordings of just about any piece of Baroque music that the differences between one player’s version of the keyboard continuo part and another’s can make a huge difference in the overall effect of a piece. And, again, this is something to which composers routinely ceded control.

The key to accompaniment

So why did composers give up control over a crucial aspect of their pieces—consistently and over a period of more than 150 years? I believe that the answer lies in the nature of accompaniment and in the nature of the instruments used for accompaniment during those years. There is a lot to say about accompaniment, whether of the continuo variety or of the obbligato variety, as represented by such things as Schubert song accompaniments. Great accompaniment requires all sorts of subtleties and sensitivities. However, one thing is absolutely fundamental, without which accompaniment runs the risk of being not just artistically sub-par but really grotesque: the ability to vary dynamics in a way that tracks what the other instruments or voices are doing. Without this basic ability an accompanist constantly runs the risk either of drowning out the other instruments or voices or of failing to support them adequately. If the keyboard instrument is one on which dynamic variation is inherently possible, say, the piano, then a composer can write accompaniments in which the note picture is fixed once and for all, that is, written by the composer as part of writing the piece. If, however, the accompanying instrument is, like the harpsichord or the Baroque organ, not capable of inherent dynamic flexibility, then it is important that the performer be allowed to change the number of notes being played at any one time in order to change the effective dynamics. A Schubert song piano part played as written on a harpsichord would be an almost pathetically ineffective accompaniment. It would fail to support a singer with a robust or just plain loud voice, it would drown out or at any rate compete too much with a light or delicate singer, and it would fail to reflect or mirror or complement nuances of dynamics executed by any singer. However, it is possible, in a piece with continuo accompaniment, to make the keyboard part of a whole passage louder or softer by choosing to play a thicker or thinner texture of added notes and chords. It is also possible to place an accent on certain notes or beats while allowing other notes or beats to be unaccented, again by actually playing more notes, a thicker texture, on the accented moments and fewer—or no—notes elsewhere. It is possible in the same way to respond appropriately to crescendo, diminuendo, and other dynamic gestures that singers or other players carry out.  

(I should mention that years ago I subscribed, without having really consciously thought about it, to the absurd idea that Baroque composers wrote continuo lines rather than obbligato accompaniments because their composing skills were too rudimentary to concoct complex accompaniments. In this story line, the development of “real” keyboard parts for chamber music and songs in the second half of the eighteenth century was a kind of progress, akin to the scientific progress that—genuinely—characterized that era. The notion that composers who wrote the elaborate, complex counterpoint that was routine in the seventeenth century couldn’t have written compositionally successful keyboard parts for their songs and chamber music is indeed absurd. However, I think that some people do fall into the trap of assuming some such thing, as we have a general tendency to believe that the passage of time brings progress. We feel that people of old simply couldn’t do a lot of what became normal or easy later on.) 

Some confirmation of the notion that the continuo texture really did serve the purpose I have described is found in this: when composers in the Baroque era wrote song accompaniments intended to be played on an instrument that had dynamic flexibility—namely the lute—they did write obbligato accompaniments. This gives us the lute song repertoire, with all of the notes of the pieces written by the composers.

Continuo instrumentation

The instrumentation of a continuo part is flexible. This is one of the reasons that the part is given the somewhat abstract name that it has. It is not the “organ” part or the “harpsichord” part. It was customary for a continuo part to be played by at least two instruments: a bass melody instrument playing the continuo line itself and a chordal instrument—keyboard or lute—also playing the written continuo line, but adding the extra notes and chords that we have been referring to. It was also common for more instruments to be involved. Typical combinations include cello and harpsichord; cello and organ; bassoon and organ; gamba, organ and lute; cello, double bass, and harpsichord, and so on. This flexible instrumentation is the source of my old confusion about the number of players on stage. A “solo” sonata can have anything from two players to four or, somewhat atypically, five; a “trio” sonata might indeed have only three players, but more usually will have four, often five or more. A continuo group for a large-scale piece—a cantata or oratorio or orchestral piece—can easily have half a dozen or more players.

Regardless of the exact instrumentation—which, again, is almost always at the discretion of the performers—the structure of the part is the same. The line actually written by the composer, the bass line, which is the foundation of the harmony of the piece, is played in unison by all of the instruments participating. Notes that are added by a keyboard player or lutenist are played only by that one instrument. Thus, most of the time it is the bass line itself that, within the texture of the continuo part, is the most prominent, with the added notes always somewhat in the background. (An organist performing a continuo part without the help of a melodic bass instrument should bear this in mind in planning registrations.)

Figured bass

So, if a keyboard player performing a continuo part is supposed to add notes to the texture, how is the choice of those notes to be made? The first answer is that they must be notes that are consistent with the prevailing harmony, and not in conflict with what is going on in the written parts. The player needs to have a way of knowing what that prevailing harmony is. This can be achieved by ear, for players who are skilled at such things, or by studying the score. However, this is also where the figures that are often written under the musical notes of a continuo part come into play. Those figures are in effect a short score of the harmonic picture of the piece. To some extent they indicate what notes the other instruments and voices are actually producing. Beyond that they indicate what other notes are consistent with the harmony implied by the notes being played or sung or by the harmonic logic of the piece. The system of figures is a system of abbreviations. As mentioned above, I will go into detail about how to read figures next month. The figures—or more accurately the figures in conjunction with the printed notes—never tell the keyboard continuo player what to play. They tell the player what the range of possibilities is for notes to be played, or, to put it another way, they tell the player by implication what notes are not available to be played. In many pieces the abbreviated nature of the figuring is taken to its logical extreme, that is, there are no figures. This in no way implies that the player is not meant to add notes and chords. It is not a situation in which anything different is going on. The player has to rely on other things—the listening and studying mentioned above—to glean the information that figures could have given.

From within the constellation of notes that would be acceptable to play at any given moment, then, how can a player make specific choices? This is both the most difficult part of continuo playing and its artistic/interpretive component. It is actually rare that a keyboard continuo player has to play notes—any notes—for the purpose of providing or filling out the harmony. This is true for two basic reasons. First, in most passages of chamber or vocal music, most of the harmony is provided anyway over the course of a beat or two, amongst all of the instruments or voices. (Clearly the thicker the texture, the closer this will come to being completely true.) Second, there is nothing in the rules or expectations of tonal music that says that every part of the theoretical harmony has to be present at all times. 

Instead, choices about exactly what notes to play (to add) at any given point are based on considerations that have nothing to do with completing the harmony as such. These are considerations of texture, volume, accent, rhythm, pulse, shaping of phrases or sections, and, very practically, both helping and not hindering the other performers. They all stem from the basic fact that adding more notes makes things louder and adding fewer notes or no notes makes things quieter. Thus “thicker chords on accented beats” is a simple but valid guideline, and there are plenty of others. More on this next month.