JAV Surround Sound Frederick Teardo Recording

JAV Recordings has released one of the first audiophile high resolution surround sound recordings of a pipe organ (96khz/24bit, Multichannel 5.1) that is also available as an internet download. The recording features Frederick Teardo in his first solo recording playing a historic Johann Andreas Silbermann instrument in Strasbourg, France.

Dr. Frederick Teardo, a 31-year-old rising star in the American organ scene, who has won numerous organ competitions and played concerts across the country, chose to make his first solo recording with JAV Recordings. Teardo holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Yale University and is currently associate organist at Saint Thomas Church Fifth Avenue in New York City. Fittingly, this recording was made in another church named for Saint Thomas— the Thomaskirche in Strasbourg, whose historic Johann Andreas Silbermann pipe organ was built in 1741.

This disc features French-influenced organ music of J.S. Bach, as well as works by the French Baroque composers Nicolas de Grigny and Jacques Boyvin. The character of this instrument reflects both French and German baroque tonal influences, which makes it an exceptional choice for this recording.

JAV Recordings hired noted German sound engineer Christoph Martin Frommen to make this Surround Sound recording, using high bit rate digital converters and seven DPA Brüel & Kjaer microphones. When listening to this recording on a surround sound playback system the results are remarkable. The spatial relationship and ambient environment of this 16th-century Gothic church are faithfully reproduced, as well as the crystal clear sound of the Silbermann pipe organ.

A 24-page booklet with an essay about the music and the organ, a biography of the artist, and numerous photos are part of the package. The recording is available in CD format, iTunes download, high-resolution stereo and Surround Sound. The booklet is available in PDF format with the downloaded file. For full details visit http://www.pipeorgancds.com.

JAV Recordings will be releasing Daniel Roth playing Widor's Symphonies #9 & #10 at Saint-Sulpice in time for Christmas 2012. This recording will be available as a physical CD, an iTunes download and a 5.1 Surround Sound Download.

JAV Recordings entire catalog will be on iTunes soon. Go to iTunes and search on "pipe organ".

Related Content

Catching up with Stephen Tharp

Reflections ten years later

Joyce Johnson Robinson

Joyce Johnson Robinson is editorial director of The Diapason. 

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An interview with Stephen Tharp appeared a decade ago in The Diapason (“A conversation with Stephen Tharp: Catching up with a well-traveled recitalist,” January 2004). At that time, Tharp’s discography included six recordings, and he had made over twenty intercontinental tours. Among the topics discussed were Tharp’s many concert tours, his advocacy of new music, and interest in transcriptions. In the decade since, Tharp has continued his travels and performances, and received many accolades. He presently resides in New York City, where he serves as associate director of music at the Church of Our Saviour. Stephen Tharp will be the featured performer at the closing recital of 2014’s American Guild of Organists national convention in Boston.
 
 
Joyce Robinson: Our previous interview’s title called you a “well-traveled recitalist,” and that seems truer than ever today. Tell us about your concert tours (and how you keep track of all those recitals!).
 
My grandfather, who was director of personnel management at Blue Cross/Blue Shield in Chicago for some 40-plus years, and also a lecturer at both Northwestern University and University of Chicago post-World War II, was a real business model for me. He was the ultimate paper hoarder, keeping track of all of his correspondence, lectures, and so forth, throughout his life. For better or worse, he taught me to keep a paper record of everything I’d accomplished. 
 
Of course, I let go of a great deal with time, but, as far as concert programs go, I have saved one copy of everything I have ever played. Consequently, after 1,400 concerts, I am glad I can look back, trace them, and keep track—like keeping a diary. My 1300th solo recital was at St. Laurenskerk in Rotterdam, on their very large Marcussen organ, in November 2008. A few days later, in St. Martin, Dudelange, Luxembourg, was the concert that coincided with my Jeanne Demessieux Complete Organ Works CD set (Aeolus Recordings) “release party,” where the recording was officially made available to the public for the first time. It remains my largest recording project to date, which I will discuss more a little later. The recording led directly to a series of three concerts in October 2010 at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, wherein I played the complete organ works of Demessieux.
 
On July 30, 2013, I performed my 1400th solo concert, for the organ festival in La Verna, Tuscany (some of which is up on YouTube). This is the place, on top of a mountain and a 90-minute drive from Florence, where Francis of Assisi spent his later years on land that was bequeathed to him. It is a picturesque spot surrounded by forests untouched for some 900 years; in the center is a basilica where there is a regular summer festival of organ concerts catering to an immense tourist crowd that packs the house for recitals starting at 9 p.m. (when the temperature cools down enough for a full church to be tolerable). A small group of friends and colleagues celebrated afterwards with a private meal that included regional wines.
 
What is awesome for the organ in central European culture is that festivals like this, well attended, grow on trees. In Germany alone, you could hit a series every weekend for two years without repeating yourself—funding in place, quite often new organs, and audiences that support its continuation. There seems something about Old World culture that’s founded in the deepest roots, centuries of traditions under them, that maintains a thriving life no matter what the come-and-go cultural shifts of any given generation—a kind of condensed richness around which you can build an entire life. 
 
As for my own tours, 1,400 concerts means too many to name. Standouts include the Gewandhaus, Leipzig; the Igreja de Lapa in Porto, Portugal; Victoria Hall, Geneva; the Frauenkirche, Dresden (which was only recently reconstructed); the inaugural organ week of the new Seifert organ at the Cathedral in Speyer, Germany, with its 14-second acoustic—a whole new character for Alain’s Trois Danses; Ben van Oosten’s glorious festival in The Hague; twice at the Berlin Cathedral, with another concert set for summer 2015; Cologne Cathedral (with its 5,000 regular concertgoers during the summer Orgelfeierstunden, encouraged to bring their own lawn chairs if necessary and seat themselves in the aisles, which they do, going wild over a program of Guillou, Alain, Dupré, and Litaize); the summer festival at St. Bavo, Haarlem (there are no words for the experience of playing this organ); playing the de Grigny Messe on the Dom Bedos at Ste. Croix in Bordeaux, and so on. In addition to that, my one and only action-packed trip without jetlag adjustment, over six days, for concerts in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Riga. Twice to Hong Kong, twice to Korea, twice to Australia. Every memorable moment outside the box would take a book. But connect all the dots over time and it’s the richest and most diverse menu of experiences I could ever have imagined. And as an American, it is seeing the forest from outside the trees, in spades, and that has determined a great deal for me.
 
 
You’ve also been busy with recordings. Would you summarize these, and tell us about your experiences making them? 
 
This is a discussion of but a few of my projects. Ultimately, audio and video recordings are one’s most powerful tools. How one can spread the word on Facebook, iTunes, or YouTube puts global exposure at your fingertips, which is wonderful. Listening as a child to LPs of many organs, I often fantasized about getting to these instruments one day, either to perform on them or record them myself. One of my greatest battery chargers, the kind that continues to inspire in the long term, has been recording a number of these landmark instruments, both for JAV Recordings and the Aeolus label in Germany. 
 
The first opportunity like this was St. Sulpice, Paris, where I recorded in October 2001, a somewhat nervous traveler given the horrific events of September 11 the month before—and amplified by a flight over to Paris on a plane that was mostly empty. In 2005 I was back in St. Sulpice for two more projects. A large choir, comprising several groups, was assembled to record the Widor Mass, op. 36, for choir and two organs (main and choir organ), which was never before recorded in St. Sulpice. With Daniel Roth at the grand orgue, Mark Dwyer and I played musical benches with the orgue de choeur in the front of the church. In the two days that followed that project, I had the great pleasure of recording Dupré’s Le Chemin de la Croix there. Dupré recorded this years before in St. Sulpice on LP, which went out of print. So, my recording is the only one available of this entire work on the organ most associated with the composer.
 
In the summer/early fall of 2008 I made two more recordings for JAV within a month of each other, which were released at different times. One is my organ adaptation of J. S. Bach’s Goldberg Variations on Paul Fritts’s stunning magnum opus instrument at St. Joseph’s Cathedral, Columbus, Ohio, and the other a mixed repertoire recording on the Christian Müller organ of St. Bavo, Haarlem, the Netherlands. My first experience with this famous organ was as a student when, at age 20, I spent three weeks at the Haarlem International Organ Academy as the result of a generous scholarship from Illinois College. That experience was life-changing in that it turned my thinking upside down and, consequently, permanently re-directed the way I would conceive performance as it is informed by music history and aesthetics, standards that remain in place to this day. I can’t fully express how thankful I am that this was an experience I had at a young age, when these influences had the chance to be the most powerful.
 
On this side of the pond is the first commercial recording of the Casavant organ Opus 3837 at the Brick Presbyterian Church in Manhattan. This instrument, a cooperative design between director of music Keith Tóth and Jean-Louis Coignet, is a masterpiece. A synthesis between the French symphonic and American orchestral, the organ covers music from Jongen to Tournemire to Hakim to Guilmant, in a warm acoustic environment. There is also my Organ Classics from Saint Patrick Cathedral in New York City—all somewhat lighter fare, some organ solo, some organ plus trumpet, aside from a few heftier pieces by Cook, Vierne, and Widor. It was a great pleasure to have been able to make these two recordings.
 
All of my commercial CD releases from St. Sulpice thus far are on JAV, and all engineered by the outstanding Christoph Frommen, who also owns the Aeolus label in Germany. It was with Frommen, and for Aeolus, that I embarked upon my biggest recording project to date: The Complete Organ Works of Jeanne Demessieux. I had played much of her music starting as early as my college years, but to document all of her organ solo works on recording was an exciting and challenging prospect. Too many stereotypes were also floating around about this music: that it was a language worth little more than an extension of Dupré’s harmonic idiom, more cerebral than communicative, and not worth the effort. I sought to prove this very wrong. 
 
At the time of the recording, several pieces remained unpublished, and so Chris Frommen and I sought copies of these in manuscript form from Pierre Labric, one of Demessieux’s more famous students, who generously shared the scores with us for this project. These are, specifically, Nativité, Andante, and the Répons (the one for Easter being the only score from the set previously published), now printed by Delatour in France. 
 
We needed an electric-action organ for certain pieces, most importantly the treacherous Six Études, so some of the recording was done on the Stahlhuth/Jann instrument at the Church of St. Martin, Dudelange, Luxembourg, an organ of great color and strength. For the remainder of the release, we chose the great Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. Ouen, Rouen, France, an instrument closely associated with Demessieux’s life. This is such a splendid oeuvre that was too long overlooked. If you don’t know the music, investigate it.
It is with Aeolus that I will release my next recording, the Symphonies 5 and 6 of Louis Vierne. Symphonies 1–4 are now available with Daniel Roth, and my release will complete the set, hopefully later this year. All were recorded again at St. Sulpice.
 
One additional recording must be mentioned, as it appears as a single track on iTunes and is not part of any CD. In September 2010, as a part of one of Michael Barone’s Pipedreams Live! concerts, I played the world premiere of a work I’d commissioned for the occasion from George Baker, Variations on ‘Rouen.’ It is also composed in memory of Jehan Alain, and so there are harmonic and motivic nods in that direction, very much on purpose. That first performance was played at the Meyerson Symphony Center, Dallas; my recording of the piece, made as well at St. Sulpice, is what is available on iTunes. There is also a YouTube concert video of my live performance of it at the St. Louis Cathedral Basilica in Missouri from the summer of 2013.
 
 
You are also a composer and arranger, creating both transcriptions and original compositions. Are any of these published? Do you have any plans for future works?
 
I have only one published organ work, my Easter Fanfares, composed in 2006 as the result of a commission from Cologne Cathedral in Germany. Two new high-pressure en chamade Tuba ranks had been added to the instrument at the west end of the cathedral, which they wanted to play for the first time at Easter in 2006. My work was composed to be the postlude for that occasion. It is structured, at surface level, like an improvised sortie with the architecture of a written composition, with all melodic and motivic material throughout derived from only two sources: Ite Missa est, Alleluia, the dismissal at the conclusion of the Mass, and the Easter sequence Victimae Paschali Laudes. The piece is dedicated to the Cologne Cathedral organist Winfried Bönig, and is published in a collection of organ music specifically written for the Cologne Cathedral organ called Cologne Fanfares. It is published by Butz Musikverlag of Bonn. There is a JAV YouTube video of me playing the work at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, made a few years ago. 
My only other fairly recent solo organ work was occasion-specific, my Disney’s Trumpets, written for the organ at the Walt Disney Hall in Los Angeles, where I premiered it in concert in March 2011. It is a short, agitato fanfare designed to highlight the various powerful reed stops of this particular instrument, heard both separately by division and, at times, altogether. I kept the unique visual design of the façade in mind. In musical terms, this is reflected in short riffs, which appear rapidly, flinging gestures into many directions at will. And as with the organ’s façade, which appears random to the eye amidst an underlying cohesive structure, so is true in this work, where an overall architecture gives proportion to what seems irregular. As an added layer of tongue-and-cheek, I used as the model for the riffs a motive from a song by David Bowie, of all things. (I don’t remember the name anymore.) I have only played Disney’s Trumpets that one time.
 
I also have an ongoing list of organ transcriptions, which I’m getting to little by little. Those are premiered here and there from time to time; Chopin, Dukas, Stravinsky, Bartók, Mussorgsky, Liszt. I have also toured quite a bit with David Briggs’s colorful transcription of Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé and two rather demanding organ adaptations by a gifted Italian colleague, Eugenio Fagiani, namely J. S. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 3 and Ravel’s La Valse.
 
 
You have received several awards in recent years. Tell us about those.
 
There are two particular awards about which I feel especially honored. One is the 2011 International Performer of the Year award from the New York City chapter of the American Guild of Organists, the only award of its kind specifically for organists from any professional music guild in the United States. It is a recognition of long-standing accomplishment whose list of recipients is truly global, and I tie with Dame Gillian Weir for the youngest in the award’s history (received, respectively, at the same age in our early 40s). The other is the Preis der deutschen Schallplattenkritik, Germany’s highest critic’s award for recordings, which I received for The Complete Organ Works of Jeanne Demessieux release on Aeolus. Imagine some 140 judges looking at an assortment of releases and ripping apart everything from sound quality to performance to graphic design to music notes scholarship. This is the prize. The recipients are chosen under great scrutiny, more so than voted for (and there is a big difference). It is, for me subjectively, the ultimate compliment. Other recipients at that time include the Philadelphia Orchestra, Marc-André Hamelin, and Cecilia Bartoli.
 
 
Beyond your solo career, you have also worked as a church musician. Are you presently doing so?
 
In September 2013 I was offered the position of associate director of music and organist at the Church of Our Saviour (Roman Catholic) in Manhattan by the newly appointed music director and organist, Paul Murray, a long-time friend and colleague in the city with whom I have collaborated on many previous occasions. Ironically, it was in this very church that my wife Lena and I had our son Adrian (born January 5, 2013) baptized. This music program embodies high standards of choral singing—we have an all-professional choir—use of chant, a rich palette of choral and organ repertoire, and no-nonsense liturgical organ improvisation, something I was not doing in New York City since my days at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The mission statement of the church has been beautifully summarized by Mr. Murray as follows:

 
In the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council, it was made clear that the Church’s musical heritage, namely chant and polyphony, was to be preserved. At the Church of Our Saviour in New York City, it is my goal to build a liturgical music program that is in concurrence with the admonition of the Second Vatican Council, by developing a professional music program offering music of the highest caliber to the Greater Glory of God.
 
Paul and I have a great rapport as professional colleagues, devoid of the drama that all too often accompanies working relationships. In this regard, I’ve struck gold. The church is also very supportive of my travels. Everything about this position is a match, the kind one hopes to find but rarely does. It is a special centering for me that provides a constant in my artistic life as other things continue in different directions.
 
I must also make mention of post-Easter April 2008, when I was asked to be the official organist for the New York City visit of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI. I was contacted by the current director of music at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Jennifer Pascual, who was in charge of music for all events for the Pope’s visit. The organist at the cathedral had been taken ill, and I was asked to cover all televised events from St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church in Yorkville (in Manhattan), St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and, yes, Yankee Stadium, which took place outdoors. I was struck primarily with how this church leader in his 80s, not some young pop star, captivated these massive gatherings with an energy that was palpable. Music for each of the three occasions was different, involving soloists, choirs, and instrumental ensembles, rehearsals for all of which occurred in under two weeks. It was quite moving to be in the center of the energy that radiated from these huge events. And my days at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in the mid-1990s had prepared me for live television, which is always exhilarating.
 
 
What are your thoughts about the future? 
 
Becoming the father of a little boy who is now 1-1/2 years old has become the ultimate filter. My shifts in priorities have been herculean, in a way that a parent understands. I am very sensitive to the passage of time one doesn’t see again, so there is this intolerance for the irrelevant, the counter-productive and the trivial.
 
The most important thing for me to remember is why I have always done what I do, as that unshakably justifies how I must continue. It is critical for me to remember that I was never media-constructed at a young age. In fact, that approach in this country during my 20s, under management, completely failed. I have, however, taken decades to build where I am, and am one who is given the respect on a global platform that I probably sought above all else. It’s an Old School approach to achievement—and it stems from the kind of teaching I had—the kind that leaves you a library of references, not just a membership, and that you don’t accomplish overnight. It must be earned.
 
This all underscores one aspect of my musical life that has become even more pronounced. I consider myself a very serious artist, not an entertainer, one who believes that an audience knows the difference between putting before them a substantial product and just celebrity. If what you speak reaches people profoundly, they remember not only you as the vehicle but the statement, the music itself, and musical memories that matter. You see, this is what will actually save our instrument. Popularity alone is not enough. Actually moving an audience is vital, as this instigates a curiosity for more, which has direct impact on literacy, not merely fascination. It is not possible to produce book after book without addressing the literacy of your readers and then claim you have “saved the book.” There is a big difference between selling an audience tickets and keeping them there. That said, every teacher has to make decisions: one cannot build rockets by continuing to play with blocks. And if nobody curates the collection, what will all of the newly schooled have to hear beyond Concerts 101? 
 
It is no great secret that I have a mostly European career. My own passion for the lineage of such long-rooted, historically aware and layered culture seems to be a marriage with the demand for it from the large (and multi-aged) audiences that continue to want programs of real meat and substance. I feel that I am most inspired engaging an environment wherein, no matter what other globalization invades, the baby isn’t simply discarded with the bathwater. This will continue as my direction for the future, regardless of what else happens. It’s taken me years to evolve to this point, but this article documents part of the journey.
 
 

Stephen Tharp's Discography

 
Naxos Recordings 8.553583
 
Ethereal Recordings 108
 
Ethereal Recordings 104
 
Capstone Records 8679
 
Ethereal Recordings 123
 
 
JAV Recordings 130
 
JAV Recordings 138
 
JAV Recordings 161
 
JAV Recordings 160
 
JAV Recordings 162
 
Aeolus Recordings 10561
 
JAV Recordings 178
 
JAV Recordings 172
 
JAV Recordings 185
 
JAV Recordings 5163
 
 
Christopher Berry (cond.); Stephen Tharp (org.); the Seminary Choir of the Pontifical North American College, Vatican City State
Duruflé Messe “cum Jubilo”; sung chants; organ improvisations
JAV Recordings 181
 
Christopher Hyde (cond.); Camille Haedt-Goussu (cond.); Daniel Roth (Grand Orgue); Stephen Tharp (Orgue du Choeur); Mark Dwyer (Orgue du Choeur); Choeur Darius Milhaud; Ensemble Dodecamen
Widor Mass, Op. 36 plus motets; choir/organ works by Bellenot and Lefébure-Wély; organ improvisations by Daniel Roth
Recorded at St. Sulpice, Paris, France
JAV Recordings 158
 
Richard Proulx (cond.); Stephen Tharp (org.); The Cathedral Singers
Recorded at St. Luke’s Church, Evanston, Illinois
GIA Publications, Chicago
 
Maxine Thévenot (cond. and org.); Stephen Tharp (org.) 
The Choirs of the Cathedral of St. John, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Raven OAR-926
 
Maxine Thévenot (cond. and org.); Stephen Tharp (org.); Edmund Connoly (org.) 
The Choirs of the Cathedral of St. John, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Raven OAR-954
 
Maxine Thévenot (cond. and org.); Stephen Tharp (org.); Edmund Connoly (org.) 
The Choirs of the Cathedral of St. John, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Raven OAR-955

 

Basic Organ Recording Techniques: Part 1

by Joseph Horning
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A skill of great value to most organists is the ability to make recordings of music on the organ. As students we have teachers and colleagues to give feedback on our playing, but when formal study ceases do we stop learning new works? Most organists are continually learning new music and reworking old pieces for performance in concert and/or church. We rely primarily on our own musical taste and experience, of course, but who is listening to us--objectively and with complete attention--when we grapple with the often difficult and complicated process of working up a piece on the organ? A tape recorder will give us an excellent idea of how we're doing--if we use one. Robert Noehren reports that he records about half of his practicing, enabling him to listen to and analyze his playing.1 Why don't more organists use tape recording as a learning tool? Many say they would like to, but either they "don't know how to do it" or think "it's too much of a production" to be practical.

 

The purpose of this article is threefold:

1) to give organists a set of basic tools and techniques with which they can, easily and quickly, make diagnostic tape recordings of their own playing;

2) expand on the above with more advanced techniques to achieve recordings suitable for mastering on cassette or CD;

3) give professional techniques, some unique to recording the organ, which can help organists who are working with sound engineers achieve the highest quality recordings.

The information in this article comes from the author's personal experience, research on the subject, experimentation based on the research, and in-depth interviews with some of the leading professional sound engineers who specialize in recording the organ and who have generously shared their knowledge and techniques:

Michael Barone, Pipedreams

John Eargle, Delos International

Frederick Hohman, Pro Organo

Michael Nemo, Towerhill

Jack Renner, Telarc International

David Wilson, Wilson Audiophile.

The footnotes give either background information to supplement the text, or specific information on sources of items mentioned in the text.

Selecting Microphones

The function of the microphone is to convert sound energy into electrical energy which can be recorded. There are two basic types: dynamic and condenser. Dynamic microphones are generally lower in quality and price, and they are not recommended for the rigorous challenges of organ recording.2 Condenser or electret condenser microphones do require a power source (usually an internal battery) and can give very high quality recordings at a quite reasonable price. Some of the experts recommended less-expensive condenser mikes marketed by: Audio-Technica, Beyer, EV, Nakamichi, Shure and Sony.

Frequency Response

Since the frequency of low CC of a 16' pipe is 32 cycles per second (or Hz), the minimum microphone frequency response you need for organ recording is 30-15,000 Hz. For quality microphones, the frequency response specification is given like this: 30-15,000 ±3.5 dB, or 20-18,000 ±3.0 dB. The first spec means that from 30Hz (just below 16'CC) all the way up to 15,000Hz (which approaches the upper limit of hearing), sounds recorded by the microphone will be within a range no greater or no less than 3.5 decibels from the mean, which is pretty good. The second spec indicates a higher quality microphone, which at a low limit of 20Hz "hears" well down into the 32' range (low CCC of a 32' pipe is 16Hz), up through the range of human hearing and which, at ±3.0 dB has a slightly flatter (better) frequency response curve than the other microphone. Some pro mikes respond down to 5 Hz, which is lower than CCCC of a 64' stop!

Polar Response Pattern

Another key microphone characteristic is the polar response pattern, which simply refers to the direction in which the microphone "listens." An "omnidirectional" microphone picks up sounds equally in all directions--top, bottom, left, right, front and rear.3 On the other hand, a "cardioid" (sometimes referred to as "unidirectional") microphone is directional--it responds to sound from a broad angle in front of the microphone and rejects sound from the rear. While there are other response patterns (hemispherical, supercardioid, figure of eight, etc.), these are subsets of the two main types. Both omnidirectional and cardioid microphones can make excellent organ recordings, and in certain situations one may be preferred over the other.

It should be noted that you don't necessarily have to choose between the two types when purchasing a microphone, however, if you get a microphone with interchangeable "capsules." The Nakamichi CM-100 condenser microphone, an excellent microphone which the author uses, has a list price of $150 with a cardioid capsule, and an interchangeable omnidirectional capsule is available for $30.4 Since you may need both omnidirectional and cardioid pickup patterns, depending on where you are recording, microphones with interchangeable capsules are most attractive (see Fig. 1).

Stereo vs. Mono Mikes

Of course you want to make stereo recordings, but should you use one stereo microphone or two monophonic microphones to do it? In general, you have a great deal more flexibility with two monophonic mikes. A "stereo" microphone is simply two mono microphones in one housing. There are two categories: the big, high-quality and very expensive professional version and the small, inexpensive and generally inferior amateur version. The former type is too expensive for amateur recording, and the latter usually doesn't have sufficient frequency response for organ recording.5 However, a mid-priced "stereo" microphone can be a convenient solution for personal recordings made with recorders which have a single stereo miniplug microphone input (more details on this follow).

PZM Microphones

One of the best microphone values, and an excellent choice for personal recordings of the organ, is the "pressure zone microphone" or PZM from Radio Shack (catalog no. 33-1090B) which sells for $60 each.6 The Radio Shack PZM is a low impedance condenser microphone with a 1/4" phone plug. The advantage of the PZM mike is that it allows great freedom in placement (you can tape them to walls, or lay them on the floor or on top of the console--no microphone stands required), they have excellent clarity and frequency response. The pickup pattern is "hemispherical," which means that they are omnidirectional above the plane upon which they are lying (see Fig. 2).

Plugging the Mikes In

On one end of the cable is the microphone and on the other end is a plug. Making sure the microphone plug is electronically and physically compatible with the recorder input is a challenge which requires forethought and planning. Professional equipment--microphones, mixers and recorders--use a low impedance (150 to 600 ohm) system that usually announces itself by the presence of a "balanced" 3-wire XLR plug. This allows long cable runs without hum via XLR extension cables.

Semi-pro microphones (such as the Nakamichi CM-100 mentioned earlier) also use the balanced low impedance system. The microphone itself has an XLR plug (see Fig. 3) and the supplied microphone cable has an XLR on one end and a 1/4" phone plug on the other. This cable is, in effect, an adapter which converts the balanced XLR to an unbalanced 1/4" phone plug. Phone plugs used to be the standard for microphone inputs on home audio gear7 and continue to be the standard on semi-pro equipment. If you need to extend the cable for proper microphone placement, use XLR 3-wire extension cables (the kind with a male plug on one end and a female plug on the other).8 This will prevent hum, whereas the less-expensive shielded extension cables with 1/4" phone plugs on either end will quite possibly cause hum.

The Stereo Miniplug Input

If your recorder9 has a single, stereo miniplug mike input, you have a potential problem. In order to use two mono mikes with 1/4" phone plugs, you need a "Y" adapter with two 1/4" female mono connectors on one end and a stereo male mini (3.5mm) plug on the other (see Fig. 4). This is not an easy item to find, but trying to "create" one from the various plugs and adapters commonly found in electronics stores is a recipe for disaster--it is virtually guaranteed to cause hum (see Fig. 5). The Hosa Company markets the correct part (model YMP-137)10 through independent audio/electronic supply stores.

Another solution, if your recorder has a single stereo miniplug input, is to purchase the best semi-pro stereo mike which terminates in this kind of plug. The Audio-Technica AT822 is a high-quality mike of this type with a frequency response of 30-20,000 Hz. It sells for a pricey $350,11 but it does plug right in and works well. The "under $100" stereo mikes don't have sufficient bass response for organ recording.

As an alternative to using the stereo miniplug microphone input, you can use a mixer and go directly into the "line" inputs.12 The "mixer" solution--which we will discuss shortly--is required if the recorder has no microphone inputs at all.

Cassette vs. DAT

There are basically two choices for a recording medium: cassette tape and digital audio tape (DAT). We will ignore a myriad of other systems such as the digital cassette, the digital minidisc, the recordable CD, 1/4" reel to reel, and recording on "hi-fi" videotape as they are either marginal, impractical or inferior.

Everybody is familiar with cassette tapes. They are great for making personal "analysis" recordings because the tape itself is inexpensive, you can listen to the results in the car, etc. While the original recorded cassette can sound great on playback, the inherent noise level of the medium makes it a less good choice if your goal is to make master tapes for release on cassette or CD.13

Because of its superior quality, digital audio tape (DAT) is an excellent medium for personal analysis recordings and more ambitious projects as well.14A home DAT or portable DAT recorder will cost a minimum of $550, and professional portable models cost from $1500 to $4000. DAT 120-minute tapes are about $10 each.

Cassette "Deck" Challenges

There are some challenges to using home cassette decks--the A.C. "plug into the wall" models which are a component of a home stereo system--for location recording. As virtually none of the newer models have microphone inputs, a "mixer" is required between the mikes and the "line" inputs on the recorder (this is also true of home A.C. DAT decks). Further, few newer cassette decks allow you to plug in headphones and listen to playback, and of those which do very few have a volume control for the headphones. This is mandatory for playback in the field, but a mixer solves this problem too, as we shall discuss. Also, many low-to-midpriced cassette recorders suffer from excessive wow and flutter distortion, which is particularly annoying on the sustained tones of the organ. The bottom line: it is not a good idea to purchase an A.C. home cassette deck for location recording. If you own an older model with microphone inputs and a headphone output with volume control, you are all set (see Fig. 6). However, if you own a newer model cassette deck without these features, we'll show you how to make the best use of it.

Portable Location Recorders

Battery-operated portable recorders designed for high quality music recording--with mike inputs and full headphone capabilities--are not a common item.15 The Sony Walkman Pro series has two cassette recorders: the WM-D3 at $250 and the WM-D6C at $350.16 These are quality cassette recorders. The rugged WM-D6C especially is a fine recorder and a good value. They will do well for personal analysis recordings. Their performance must be compared with the Sony TCD-D7 DAT portable, however, which at a "street" price of $550 makes substantially superior recordings. All three of these Sony recorders have a single stereo miniplug input for the microphone, stereo miniplugs for the line inputs and outputs, plus a headphone jack and volume control.

Using an Audio Mixer

Suppose that you have a perfectly good home cassette deck or home DAT deck without mike inputs. You want to do some analysis recording with it, and you don't mind unhooking it and taking to the church. In addition to the microphones, you will need a mixer to convert the microphone's output into a "line" input the recorder can use. I will confess to "mixer paralysis"--I didn't understand the button-laden beasts and steered well clear of them. This was a mistake I finally rectified, as Rudy Trubitt points out in his excellent book written for the beginner titled Compact Mixers:

Beneath its dizzying array of controls, a mixer actually has some important similarities to a home stereo receiver. A stereo receiver has controls that let you switch between different components of your hi-fi system, and also enables you to set overall volume, the balance between left and right speakers, and tone controls to shape the overall sound. A mixer does many of these things as well, and in addition allows you to control and combine or mix sounds from many different sources [such as two or more microphones] at once.17

For stereo recording, mixers need controls called pan pots. Inexpensive "mixers" designed for the party DJ market. including those sold by Radio Shack, lack this essential feature. Michael Barone and other audio professionals recommend the Mackie MS1202 compact mixer, which is specifically featured in Mr. Trubitt's book. It is priced at $299, which is very inexpensive for a fully professional mixer.18 I have found mine to be small, light weight, easy to use and of excellent quality (see Fig 7).

A mixer will also enable you to listen to playback in the field from recorders which have no headphone volume control or no headphone output at all. Simply run a patch cord from the line output of the recorder to the line input of the mixer. This is very simple to do and gives new utility to recorders with neither headphone volume control nor headphone output (see Fig. 8).

Setting the Record Level

To achieve the cleanest recorded sound, you want to record the loudest sections of the music at the loudest level possible on the tape without causing distortion.19 To set the recorder properly, simply play the loudest section of the music to be recorded at a given session20 and adjust the record level so you get the appropriate reading on the VU meter.21  The "appropriate reading" on the VU meter is different for different mediums.

With DAT, you never want the level to exceed 0dB on the DAT recorder's VU meter, so--while the loudest chord is being held--advance the record level control so that the meter reads 0dB.22 Once the level is set, you don't need to touch it again for the duration of your recording session.

There are three different kinds of cassette tape: Standard (Type I), Chromium Dioxide or CrO2 (Type II), and Metal (Type IV).  Type II tape can accept a louder signal than Type I without distortion, and Type IV can accept a louder signal than Type II. The record level should be adjusted with Type I tape so that the peak level is 0dB on the VU meter. With Type II the peak level should be +1dB and with Type IV it is +3dB. Note that these last two settings will have the peaks in the red of the VU meter, and that's fine as long as no audible distortion results.

When choosing cassette tape, skip the somewhat noisy "standard" tape and try the CrO2 (Type II) tape recorded with Dolby B sound reduction. This is a good compromise on price and compatibility,23 and it gives excellent quality on playback. There will be a switch on the recorder which you need to set at "CrO2" or "Type II" or "High Bias," which are three ways to refer to this one kind of tape. Depending on your situation, you may also want to experiment with "metal" tape (Type IV) and Dolby C, which, all other things being equal, gives the highest quality on cassette.

Listening to Playback

One of the requirements for location recording is a good set of headphones. The best designs have circular padded cushions which completely surround each ear and provide some degree of acoustic isolation. You are shielded from noise in the room, and people in the room are less likely to be annoyed by playback from your earphones. Quality headphones provide a lot of sound for a reasonable price. The Sony MDR-V600 dynamic stereo headphones the author uses have clean, lifelike sound with a frequency response which extends well down into the 32' range.24 Priced around $100, they come with a clever screw-on adapter which converts the integral stereo miniplug to a 1/4" stereo phone plug (see Fig. 9). This is very handy as small portable recorders have a miniplug headphone output, and mixers and other audio gear have a 1/4" phone jack.

Stands and Safety

Anyone who can imagine a tall microphone stand crashing down amidst a sea of pews appreciates that basic safety rules must be followed at all times to protect life and property. Use only a stable microphone stand and if necessary, weigh down the base with sandbags.25 Attach the mike cable(s) to the top of the stand with cable ties,26 allowing a bit of slack between the cable tie and the mike, so the weight of the cable doesn't pull on the mike. Run the microphone cable down the stand and either tie it around the base of the stand or preferably attach it securely with a cable tie. Then if the cable gets an unexpected jerk, the force will act on the relatively stable base of the stand and not on the very unstable top.

Microphone stands for organ recording should ideally allow you to position the microphones 20' or more in the air, which precludes many less-expensive audio stands. Audio engineers often use heavy-duty motion picture lighting stands adapted to accept the 5/8" thread which is the audio industry standard.27 Michael Barone recommends, in levels of increasing capability and cost: 1) Shure microphone stands, 2) Bogen light stands, 3) the Ultimate Support system.

If the public is in the room, the microphone cables must be taped down to the floor lengthwise with 2" masking tape so no one trips. These precautions are necessary because no recording is important enough to risk injuring someone, and we live in a very litigious society.

In Part II we will look at one of the most critical aspects of the art of recording--microphone placement.

Notes

1.              Correspondence of September, 1995.

2.              Dynamic mikes don't require a battery. If the microphone you are considering requires a battery, it is not a dynamic mike.

3.              Omnidirectional microphones tend to become more directional--and less omnidirectional--above 3000 Hz, so it is important to point them toward the sound source. Because the response from the sides and back of the mike begins to fall off above 3000 Hz (pitches at and above 3000 Hz are an important component of the harmonics of most 8' voices), you get enough directionality to maintain a clear sense of left and right.

4.              For a list of dealers, contact: Nakamichi America Corporation, 955 Francisco St., Torrance, CA 90502, (310)538-8150.

5.              A frequency response no lower than 50 Hz, which is typical for inexpensive stereo mikes, won't pickup the bottom octave of a 16' Bourdon.

6.              Crown International of Elkhart, Indiana, manufactures a full range of PZM mikes for the professional.

7.              Home audio recorders no longer have microphone inputs, and portable amateur recorders often have a single stereo miniplug input for the microphones.

8.              XLR extension cables cost about $16 per 25' or $47 per 100'.

9.              Such as the Sony Walkman Pro or the Sony DAT portable (TCD-D7).

10.           For availability contact: Hosa Technology, Inc., 6910 E. 8th St., Buena Park, CA 90620.

11.           For availability contact: Audio-Technica, 1221 Commerce Drive, Stow, OH 44224.

12.           In most cases there will be two RCA jacks for the left and right channel inputs, and you will use a standard RCA male-male patch cord to connect the mixer to the recorder. But on some portable recorders you may find a stereo miniplug line input, in which case you need a patch cord with two RCA male connectors on one end (for the mixer) and a male stereo miniplug on the other end (for the recorder).

13.           There is no escaping the fact that the cassette started life as a lowly medium for dictation. The ultra-slow 17/8" per second tape speed and the narrow tape width cause a certain amount of hiss despite the best efforts of tape recorder designers and Dolby® noise reduction systems.

14.           Because DAT is digital and cassettes are analog, comparing them is like comparing apples and oranges. All cassette recorders have measurable wow and flutter distortion from tape speed fluctuations, whereas DAT machines generally have no measurable wow and flutter. The frequency response, signal to noise ratio, dynamic range and overall distortion specifications of the best cassette machines are not as good as even the less-expensive, amateur DAT recorders.

15.           There are some less expensive (approx. $100) portable cassette recorders by Aiwa with a stereo mike input and a headphone output. They have neither Dolby noise reduction for the record function nor a record level control (AGC only), very important features for reasonable quality with cassettes.

16.           These are "street" prices--the lowest purchase price I could find--not list prices.

17.           Rudy Trubitt, Compact Mixers, published in 1995 by Hal Leonard Corporation, 7777 W. Bluemound Rd., P.O. Box 13819, Milwaukee, WI, 53213, page 3.

18.           Available from the "Pro Audio" department of Guitar Center stores nationally. Inquire at 7425 Sunset Blvd., Hollywood, CA, 90046, (213) 874-1060 for a list of locations.

19.           This technique maximizes the "signal to noise ratio." The "signal" is the music and the "noise" is the tape hiss and amplifier hum. Since the noise is at a more-or-less constant low level, the louder the music level the more it stands out from the noise. While softer than the loud sections, the quiet portions of the music will also sound as clean as possible.

20.           If the session extends over several days, use one level setting based on the loudest piece. The only exception would be a program with one or two loud pieces and many softer ones. I would consider using one level setting for the loud work(s) and a louder recording setting for the softer pieces, as this will maximize clarity among the latter group.

21.           The recorder's "VU" meter allows you to set non-distorting recording levels consistently. It has numbers in decibels (dB), with a range of positive numbers (+1, +2, +3, etc.) "in the red" above zero dB and a range of numbers "in the black" below (-1, -5, -20). The range of numbers below zero dB is where most recording takes place. The meter can take two forms: an older style needle which swings on a pivot throughout the meter's range, and the newer style LEDs which illuminate (no moving parts to break).

22.           This is generally true, but also consult the recorder's instruction manual.

23.           Not every tape player, especially in cars, has a setting for Metal (Type IV) tape or Dolby C noise reduction. Playing metal tapes and/or Dolby C tapes in a machine set up for Type II tape and Dolby B will result in a significant loss of fidelity.

24.           They are also excellent for listening to organ CDs on a portable CD player--you can pick up many nuances that you might miss when listening via speakers. The claimed frequency response is 5 to 30,000 Hz.

25.           Fully sealed 15# sandbags in a "saddlebag" configuration for this purpose are available from motion picture equipment supply houses and some professional audio supply houses.

26.           The Lowel-Light Company, 140 58th St., Brooklyn, NY 11220, phone (800) 334-3426, makes secure and inexpensive reusable plastic cable ties which are available in larger photo stores. Velcro cable ties are also available.

27.           The author uses the Lowel KS stand ($135) which will extend to 8' (see footnote 26). The Lowel KP extension pole ($58) allows 5' of extension, and you can use several of those (sandbags are essential if you use extension poles). On the very top you need the Lowel Tota-Tilter T1-36 ($25), a 1/4-20 to 3/8 screw thread adapter (available in most photo stores) and a special 3/8 to 5/8 screw thread adapter thread available from Alan Gordon Enterprises, 1430 Cahuenga Blvd., LA, CA 90028, (213) 466-3561. The microphone holder screws into the 5/8" thread.

 

Other articles in this series, and by Joseph Horning, etc.:

Recording the organ part 2: Microphone placement

Chorale Preludes of Johannes Brahms

Recording the sound of a pipe organ in church

Microphone arrangement for recording a pipe organ

Dresden’s Frauenkirche: Once a Silbermann, now a Kern

Joel H. Kuznik

Joel H. Kuznik visited Dresden in 2003 and 2004 while attending the Leipzig Bachfest, once on a daytrip and once on festival excursion to hear Silbermann’s last organ in the Hofkirche or Cathedral, which was completed after his death by his one-time apprentice, Zacharias Hildebrandt. In same years Kuznik also went on Bachfest excursions to hear the two Silbermanns in Rötha. In the past several years he has had over twenty articles published in four journals, including The Diapason. Recordings of the organs are available through OHS.

Default

Dresden has a new Frauenkirche with a new organ. The original “Church of Our Lady” was a striking architectural achievement by Georg Bähr, city architect and master builder, whose design dominated the Dresden skyline for over 200 years. It was Germany’s largest Protestant (Evangelical-Lutheran) church, seating 3200, and popularly known as the “stone bell” because of its enormous dome rising over 320 feet. The organ was built by the renowned Saxon builder, Gottfried Silbermann, and played by Bach in a two-hour recital on December 1, just days after the dedication in 1736.1
The new Frauenkirche was dedicated almost 270 years later on October 30, 2005. The old church had collapsed in 1945 after a two-day Allied bombing blitz created an inferno that incinerated the church’s interior. The ruins, tons of stone, lay like a grim memorial pile until the fall of the Wall in 1989 and the reunification of Germany made fund-raising and rebuilding a possibility. The cornerstone was laid in 1992, and thirteen years later the monumental reconstruction at a cost of $210 million was dedicated with three days of celebratory services, as The New York Times announced, “A Symbol of War’s Horrors Is Reborn in Dresden as a Testament of Hope and Healing.”2 See the church’s website in English: .
The new organ was intended to be part of that healing process. A reconstruction of the Silbermann was considered, but in the end the church’s Organ Commission asked Daniel Kern of Strasbourg to present a proposal for a new organ that would not be a copy of Silbermann, but for which Silbermann would serve as a model. Kern’s plans and concept raise questions, which are best answered in his own words, outlined in an informative commentary on the organ’s design at .
When he visited Dresden in 2003 to get an impression of the church, which was still shrouded in scaffolding, Kern was struck by the sign “Creating Peace—Building Bridges.” He writes, “In that moment it was clear to me [that my mission was] to create a musical, cultural, and peace-making bridge—to build a work in which the Saxon (via Gottfried Silbermann), Alsatian (via Andreas Silbermann) and Parisian organ culture (via Cavaillé-Coll) could be united in sound.”
Kern has never been inspired by the strict reconstructions of Gottfried Silbermann except for his great organ at Dresden’s Hofkirche (Court Church) and Kathedral, a short walk from the Frauenkirche.3 So instead of another reconstruction, Kern proposed “to offer the musical life of Dresden [an organ that would bring] new horizons and possibilities.” The Organ Commission agreed and chose Kern in February 2003. The organ was installed a little over two years later in May 2005 at a cost of $2.1 million.
Silbermann’s organ had three manuals: Hauptwerk, Oberwerk, and Brustwerk. Kern has added a fourth: a Récit Expressif after Cavaillé–Coll. The two specifications look almost identical—compare the stoplists—with Kern adding a few stops here and there and a Récit that increases the organ from 43 ranks to 65. The placement of the divisions within the new organ case, a replica of Bähr’s original plans, is also close to Silbermann’s layout: the Brustwerk and Pedal at the bottom, the Hauptwerk high in the façade with the Oberwerk above that and the Récit directly behind it.
The suspended tracker action for all four manuals was built in the “classical” style and with solely “classical” materials. [Where Kern uses the word classical, we might understand historical.] The manuals can be coupled mechanically, but an assist can also be used, especially in the large Romantic pieces where many stops and couplers are needed. For the Brustwerk there is a mechanical transposer that shifts the pitch to 415 Hz to accompany older music. The Silbermann was tuned in meantone, while the Kern is in equal temperament.
The pipework for the three historic manuals (HW, BR and OW) and pedal is made according to the “classical models and scales” of Gottfried and Andreas Silbermann. The principals and reeds are of 87.5% tin, while the flutes and Gedackts contain more lead. For the pipes of the Récit, Kern used Cavaillé–Coll’s scaling and alloys. The principals and reeds are 75% tin, the Bourdon and flutes 33%. The Swell is modeled after Cavaillé–Coll’s organ of St. Sernin in Toulouse.4 The organ is tuned at 442 Hz at 18° Celsius (64.4° F), whereas Silbermann used chamber pitch 410–415 Hz.1
In voicing the organ, Kern has given himself a complex, challenging balancing act of creating “a classical brilliance in the mixtures for the plenum, a singing strength in the principals, gravitas in the reeds and bass stops, color and poetry in the mutations and reeds, and subtlety and clarity in the flutes and strings.”
This builder has great confidence in his ability and the success of the Frauenkirche organ. For Romantic and 20th-century repertoire, Kern believes it is possible to integrate a large Swell without compromising the historical core of the organ. By providing principals, wide flutes, narrow strings and a Voix Celeste, he feels it is possible to create a stylistic breadth that also embraces the Romantic and symphonic repertoire. The results draw not only on the inclusion of the Récit, but also “on our experience with scaling and voicing” in creating a comprehensive tonal palette.
“The instrument is, structurally and tonally, in decisive respects (including wind supply from six bellows, internal layout and intonation), closely based on the Silbermann organ. It has, however, been modified to meet contemporary requirements . . . . The Kern organ combines numerous virtues of a historic organ with technical advantages of a modern concert instrument. Thus an organ has been created which meets both the new and the historic requirements for church music in the Frauenkirche.”5
The Kern Company was founded in 1953 by Alfred Kern, whose work was warmly supported by Dr. Alfred Schweitzer. The company is internationally known due to its restoration and reconstruction of many instruments by Clicquot, Cavaillé-Coll, and Andreas Silbermann. They have also new instruments in France, Germany, Japan, and one in the USA at University Park United Methodist Church, Dallas. In 1977 Alfred Kern’s son, Daniel, who had apprenticed in other firms, took over the company.

Frauenkirche Dresden—Organ Music: Bach & Duruflé. Samuel Kummer, organist. Hybrid Multichannel Surround-Sound. Carus CD 83.188, ©2005. Available through Albany Music Distributors, 800/752-1951 or online at ; also available from the Organ Historical Society, 804/353-9226; .
Bach-Vivaldi Concerto in D Minor, BWV 596; Trio on “Herr Jesu Christ,” BWV 655; Pièce d’orgue, BWV 572; Partita on “Sei gegrüßet,” BWV 768; and the Duruflé Suite, op. 5.
The proof, they say, is in the pudding, here the sound—and also in the playing—in this debut CD of the Kern organ and the Frauenkirche organist released on the day of its dedication, October 30, 2005. The organ was commissioned in February 2003 and installed a little over two years later in May 2005. This recording was made last September.
Performer. Samuel Kummer won the post as organist of the Frauenkirche over a field of 38 applicants. A native of Stuttgart, he studied organ and improvisation there at the Hochschule for Music and the Performing Arts and upon graduation in 1987 received an award in improvisation. He has been a prize-winner in international organ competitions, taking First Prize at the “Concours l’Europe et l’Orgue” at Maastricht.
He has performed recitals in Germany, the Netherlands, the Baltic States, Poland, Hungary, Guatemala, and in the USA at the Mormon Tabernacle. He has appeared at the European Organ Festival (Maastricht) and the International Bach Festival (Warsaw). Before his appointment at the Frauenkirche, he served as district Cantor at St. Martin’s Church, Kirchheim/Teck. He began his duties in Dresden on July 1, 2005. Performance. Kummer’s program reflects two roles of the Kern organ—Silbermann and Cavaillé-Coll, Bach and Romantic. He presents four Bach genres: concerto, chorale prelude/trio, chorale partita, and JSB’s “French” piece, a favorite among Germans. The room has a reverberation of 71?2 seconds, but Kummer’s Bach is nonetheless brisk, energetic, and articulate with a straightforward rhythm that could benefit from a dash of Viennese warmth. By contrast, his Duruflé has a musical sweep and unfolding shape that engages the ear. As much as he may love Bach, his heart, his passion, seems to be French Romantic.
Registration./ Registrations are carefully documented,6 and Kummer strives to meet the composer’s expectations with interesting results and by the idiomatic inclusion of tierces to enrich Saxon plenums and of flutes to mellow French solo reeds. For Bach, Kummer uses the transparent, bright resources of the Silbermann HW/OW, whereas the Cavaillé-Coll Récit dominates and richly colors the Duruflé, proving the organ to be something of an ingenious, ingratiating chameleon. “A program rich in stylistic contrasts demonstrates the amazing tonal versatility of this organ.”7
Production. Carus has presented an attractive, well-engineered multi-channel surround-sound SACD/CD that will delight audiophiles and rattle bass woofers, making it possible to count the beats of the 32' Fagott at the end of the Bach Pièce. This issue by Carus is distinguished by a clarity of ambient sound and a brochure with beautiful photos, informative essays, and helpful notes. Refer to the German or French text for full comments with a structural diagram on “Sei gegrüsset.” Overall—splendid contribution and an admirable debut for the Frauenkirche organ and organist Samuel Kummer.

Dresden’s Frauenkirche: Once a Silbermann, now a Kern

Joel H. Kuznik

Joel H. Kuznik visited Dresden in 2003 and 2004 while attending the Leipzig Bachfest, once on a daytrip and once on festival excursion to hear Silbermann’s last organ in the Hofkirche or Cathedral, which was completed after his death by his one-time apprentice, Zacharias Hildebrandt. In same years Kuznik also went on Bachfest excursions to hear the two Silbermanns in Rötha. In the past several years he has had over twenty articles published in four journals, including The Diapason. Recordings of the organs are available through OHS.

Default

Dresden has a new Frauenkirche with a new organ. The original “Church of Our Lady” was a striking architectural achievement by Georg Bähr, city architect and master builder, whose design dominated the Dresden skyline for over 200 years. It was Germany’s largest Protestant (Evangelical-Lutheran) church, seating 3200, and popularly known as the “stone bell” because of its enormous dome rising over 320 feet. The organ was built by the renowned Saxon builder, Gottfried Silbermann, and played by Bach in a two-hour recital on December 1, just days after the dedication in 1736.1
The new Frauenkirche was dedicated almost 270 years later on October 30, 2005. The old church had collapsed in 1945 after a two-day Allied bombing blitz created an inferno that incinerated the church’s interior. The ruins, tons of stone, lay like a grim memorial pile until the fall of the Wall in 1989 and the reunification of Germany made fund-raising and rebuilding a possibility. The cornerstone was laid in 1992, and thirteen years later the monumental reconstruction at a cost of $210 million was dedicated with three days of celebratory services, as The New York Times announced, “A Symbol of War’s Horrors Is Reborn in Dresden as a Testament of Hope and Healing.”2 See the church’s website in English: .
The new organ was intended to be part of that healing process. A reconstruction of the Silbermann was considered, but in the end the church’s Organ Commission asked Daniel Kern of Strasbourg to present a proposal for a new organ that would not be a copy of Silbermann, but for which Silbermann would serve as a model. Kern’s plans and concept raise questions, which are best answered in his own words, outlined in an informative commentary on the organ’s design at .
When he visited Dresden in 2003 to get an impression of the church, which was still shrouded in scaffolding, Kern was struck by the sign “Creating Peace—Building Bridges.” He writes, “In that moment it was clear to me [that my mission was] to create a musical, cultural, and peace-making bridge—to build a work in which the Saxon (via Gottfried Silbermann), Alsatian (via Andreas Silbermann) and Parisian organ culture (via Cavaillé-Coll) could be united in sound.”
Kern has never been inspired by the strict reconstructions of Gottfried Silbermann except for his great organ at Dresden’s Hofkirche (Court Church) and Kathedral, a short walk from the Frauenkirche.3 So instead of another reconstruction, Kern proposed “to offer the musical life of Dresden [an organ that would bring] new horizons and possibilities.” The Organ Commission agreed and chose Kern in February 2003. The organ was installed a little over two years later in May 2005 at a cost of $2.1 million.
Silbermann’s organ had three manuals: Hauptwerk, Oberwerk, and Brustwerk. Kern has added a fourth: a Récit Expressif after Cavaillé–Coll. The two specifications look almost identical—compare the stoplists—with Kern adding a few stops here and there and a Récit that increases the organ from 43 ranks to 65. The placement of the divisions within the new organ case, a replica of Bähr’s original plans, is also close to Silbermann’s layout: the Brustwerk and Pedal at the bottom, the Hauptwerk high in the façade with the Oberwerk above that and the Récit directly behind it.
The suspended tracker action for all four manuals was built in the “classical” style and with solely “classical” materials. [Where Kern uses the word classical, we might understand historical.] The manuals can be coupled mechanically, but an assist can also be used, especially in the large Romantic pieces where many stops and couplers are needed. For the Brustwerk there is a mechanical transposer that shifts the pitch to 415 Hz to accompany older music. The Silbermann was tuned in meantone, while the Kern is in equal temperament.
The pipework for the three historic manuals (HW, BR and OW) and pedal is made according to the “classical models and scales” of Gottfried and Andreas Silbermann. The principals and reeds are of 87.5% tin, while the flutes and Gedackts contain more lead. For the pipes of the Récit, Kern used Cavaillé–Coll’s scaling and alloys. The principals and reeds are 75% tin, the Bourdon and flutes 33%. The Swell is modeled after Cavaillé–Coll’s organ of St. Sernin in Toulouse.4 The organ is tuned at 442 Hz at 18° Celsius (64.4° F), whereas Silbermann used chamber pitch 410–415 Hz.1
In voicing the organ, Kern has given himself a complex, challenging balancing act of creating “a classical brilliance in the mixtures for the plenum, a singing strength in the principals, gravitas in the reeds and bass stops, color and poetry in the mutations and reeds, and subtlety and clarity in the flutes and strings.”
This builder has great confidence in his ability and the success of the Frauenkirche organ. For Romantic and 20th-century repertoire, Kern believes it is possible to integrate a large Swell without compromising the historical core of the organ. By providing principals, wide flutes, narrow strings and a Voix Celeste, he feels it is possible to create a stylistic breadth that also embraces the Romantic and symphonic repertoire. The results draw not only on the inclusion of the Récit, but also “on our experience with scaling and voicing” in creating a comprehensive tonal palette.
“The instrument is, structurally and tonally, in decisive respects (including wind supply from six bellows, internal layout and intonation), closely based on the Silbermann organ. It has, however, been modified to meet contemporary requirements . . . . The Kern organ combines numerous virtues of a historic organ with technical advantages of a modern concert instrument. Thus an organ has been created which meets both the new and the historic requirements for church music in the Frauenkirche.”5
The Kern Company was founded in 1953 by Alfred Kern, whose work was warmly supported by Dr. Alfred Schweitzer. The company is internationally known due to its restoration and reconstruction of many instruments by Clicquot, Cavaillé-Coll, and Andreas Silbermann. They have also new instruments in France, Germany, Japan, and one in the USA at University Park United Methodist Church, Dallas. In 1977 Alfred Kern’s son, Daniel, who had apprenticed in other firms, took over the company.

Frauenkirche Dresden—Organ Music: Bach & Duruflé. Samuel Kummer, organist. Hybrid Multichannel Surround-Sound. Carus CD 83.188, ©2005. Available through Albany Music Distributors, 800/752-1951 or online at ; also available from the Organ Historical Society, 804/353-9226; .
Bach-Vivaldi Concerto in D Minor, BWV 596; Trio on “Herr Jesu Christ,” BWV 655; Pièce d’orgue, BWV 572; Partita on “Sei gegrüßet,” BWV 768; and the Duruflé Suite, op. 5.
The proof, they say, is in the pudding, here the sound—and also in the playing—in this debut CD of the Kern organ and the Frauenkirche organist released on the day of its dedication, October 30, 2005. The organ was commissioned in February 2003 and installed a little over two years later in May 2005. This recording was made last September.
Performer. Samuel Kummer won the post as organist of the Frauenkirche over a field of 38 applicants. A native of Stuttgart, he studied organ and improvisation there at the Hochschule for Music and the Performing Arts and upon graduation in 1987 received an award in improvisation. He has been a prize-winner in international organ competitions, taking First Prize at the “Concours l’Europe et l’Orgue” at Maastricht.
He has performed recitals in Germany, the Netherlands, the Baltic States, Poland, Hungary, Guatemala, and in the USA at the Mormon Tabernacle. He has appeared at the European Organ Festival (Maastricht) and the International Bach Festival (Warsaw). Before his appointment at the Frauenkirche, he served as district Cantor at St. Martin’s Church, Kirchheim/Teck. He began his duties in Dresden on July 1, 2005. Performance. Kummer’s program reflects two roles of the Kern organ—Silbermann and Cavaillé-Coll, Bach and Romantic. He presents four Bach genres: concerto, chorale prelude/trio, chorale partita, and JSB’s “French” piece, a favorite among Germans. The room has a reverberation of 71?2 seconds, but Kummer’s Bach is nonetheless brisk, energetic, and articulate with a straightforward rhythm that could benefit from a dash of Viennese warmth. By contrast, his Duruflé has a musical sweep and unfolding shape that engages the ear. As much as he may love Bach, his heart, his passion, seems to be French Romantic.
Registration./ Registrations are carefully documented,6 and Kummer strives to meet the composer’s expectations with interesting results and by the idiomatic inclusion of tierces to enrich Saxon plenums and of flutes to mellow French solo reeds. For Bach, Kummer uses the transparent, bright resources of the Silbermann HW/OW, whereas the Cavaillé-Coll Récit dominates and richly colors the Duruflé, proving the organ to be something of an ingenious, ingratiating chameleon. “A program rich in stylistic contrasts demonstrates the amazing tonal versatility of this organ.”7
Production. Carus has presented an attractive, well-engineered multi-channel surround-sound SACD/CD that will delight audiophiles and rattle bass woofers, making it possible to count the beats of the 32' Fagott at the end of the Bach Pièce. This issue by Carus is distinguished by a clarity of ambient sound and a brochure with beautiful photos, informative essays, and helpful notes. Refer to the German or French text for full comments with a structural diagram on “Sei gegrüsset.” Overall—splendid contribution and an admirable debut for the Frauenkirche organ and organist Samuel Kummer.

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