All Episodes

Although we’ll never be able to find a definitive Bach organ, we do know where he played and the sorts of instruments which influenced him. On this week’s show, we’ll visit the church in Arnstadt, Bach’s first important job, drop in at the Castle Church in Lahm, where he helped a cousin with the organ design, and at Altenburg Palace where, later, his best pupil, Krebs, was employed. We’ll hear an instrument by Silbermann, who Bach respected but with whom he did not see eye-to-eye, also the new organ at Saint Thomas Church, Leipzig, modeled after one in Bach’s hometown, and the extraordinary Hildebrandt masterpiece in Naumburg, which we think Bach designed. Bach traveled the countryside as Germany’s foremost recitalist, and we follow his footsteps to hear the sounds he knew and the organs which were important in his growth as an artist. Come with us to Arnstadt, Altenburg, Naumburg, Leipzig and Lahm, as we revisit history and celebrate Bach’s Royal Instruments.

It’s J.S. Bach, but with a difference. An entire additional voice grafted onto a simple two-part invention makes a fiendishly difficult trio, but that’s just for starters. This week, we take a step beyond our usual understanding of Bach and listen to some of his most challenging scores brought to the edge by provocative modern interpretors. We’ll hear a jazzy reworking of the Air on the G-String, a Dutch rock musician’s take on the famous Toccata, and Porter Heaps’ Swinging After Bach. From youthful virtuosity to arrangements beyond-the-pale, performers, composers and transcribers visit with the great master from Leipzig and invite him out for a real trip. Be prepared for excitement and surprise as we take Bach on the Wild Side.

They’ve come a long way, from motherhood and home life to professions and entrepreneurial adventures. This week’s broadcast celebrates the contributions of women as composers for the organ. From modern day talents such as Libby Larsen, Margaret Sandresky and Emma Lou Diemer, to the once neglected pioneering energies of Maria Theresa von Paradies, Gracia Baptista and Fanny Mendelssohn, we’ll enjoy a variety of styles and textures including thoughtful chorale-preludes, graceful dances, and vigorous toccatas. Christa Rakich provides anecdotal introductions and performances recorded at Columbia University Chapel in New York City on Women’s Work and the ‘better half’ of organ music.

Major works are played by some bright new stars in the organ firmament, recorded in competition at the Calgary International Organ Festival.

They earned their gold, and you’ll hear why as this week’s show features prize-winners from Canada’s renowned Calgary International Organ Competition. Vincent Dubois surprised even himself, while the improvisations of Laszlo Fassang, the deft playing of Canadian music by Jonathan Oldengarm, Iveta Apkalna’s Bach, and Clive Driskill-Smith’s excellent ensemble guaranteed these artists a share in some of the best money a young organist can earn. We share their musicianship, and their moments of glory with you, in the second of three broadcasts in a series of Calgary Festival Highlights. Don’t miss a note of it, they won’t.

They are fleet of foot and finger, and are the hope for our future. This week, revel in the talent of an international array of soloists, recorded during one of the world’s most prestigeous contests for young players. You may already know about Bach and Widor, even Messiaen, Middleschulte and Calvin Hampton. But soon you’ll know why they applauded mightily for Christian Schmitt, Hyun Jung Kim, Eva Bublova and Cameron Carpenter. Prizes of up to $25,000 were offered. Can you pick the winners. Tune in for Part 1 of 3 in a series of Calgary Festival Highlights.

Old world resonances come together in new world experiences on this week’s show, it’s a discovery of colorful and unusual works on African-American themes. Noel DaCosta adapts Nigerian tunes in his Ukom Memory Songs for organ and percussion, Dezsö Antalffy transforms Black spirituals in a splendid solo fantasy from the 1930s, and Pulitzer Prize-winner George Walker evokes images of craggy heights in his new solo titled Spires. Mickey Thomas Terry provides personal glimpses to repertoire which juxtaposes light and shade with vivid result. Duke Ellington’s urbanaty, southern spirituals and Nigerian funeral chants all figure in our program of music on African American themes. We’re blending Black and White together, with colorful results, this week’s broadcast.

We may properly give Handel credit for inventing the organ concert, but as this program reveals, Italian composers were on the scene, both before and afterwards. The true father of the ‘concerto proper’ was Arcangelo Corelli, whose grand works proved attractive to an English arranger. Vivaldi included the organ amongst groups of other solo instruments, and Bach transformed Vivaldi’s string pieces into recital music for virtuoso organists, who also are well served by Alfredo Casella’s Romantic Concerto from 1926, a sonorous extravagance. Join us for this special collection, Concertos a la Carte.

The sound of music creates a sense of place, but on this week’s show we fill that place with images and colors through works inspired by stained glass windows in churches and cathedrals. From the Rose Windows at the Sacred Heart Basilica in Paris, or the Church of Saint Ouen in Rouen expressed through works of Henri Mulet and Marcel Dupré, to the picturesque Tiffany windows at First Presbyterian, Topeka, Kansas, and some movements commissioned on their behalf from composer Dan Locklair, you’ll be amazed at the juxtaposition of these art forms. See the light and hear the colors - organ works on pictoral themes - as they resonate through Windows of Opportunity.

Obviously, his fingers do the talking. Though he’s spending most of his energy as a guest conductor; and leading revelatory performances by his Vienna Akademie Orchestra, Austrian recitalist Martin Haselböck still savors his first love, which is the pipe organ. This week, we’ll enjoy his lively playing and insightful commentary in selections from Bach to Bruckner. Recorded while in concert on the recent Fritz Noack instrument at the Chapel of the Saint Paul Seminary in Minnesota, you’ll be impressed with his interpretation and technique. Listen to performances of Haydn, Heiller, Froberger and Muffat, plus an improvisation combining Ach, du lieber Augustine and Deep River. Experience the energy of Martin Haselböck Live! Recorded during a special Pipedreams Live! event at the Saint Paul Seminary Chapel in Minnesota.

We trace back root causes on this week’s show, exploring composers in Italy, who laid the foundations for much of what we enjoy in classical music today. And organbuilders, too, whose instruments in Bologna, Treviso, Turin and Pistoia retained an unparalleled degree of simplicity of design and purity of sound across four centuries of European history. Their unique character blooms in the special idioms of Frescobaldi, Pasquini, Valeri and others, as we discover during A Sojourn in Italy.

What’s past was yesterday’s future. In this week’s program we take look in both directions by summing up happenings in the year 2002 and projecting our future into the new year. We’ll have snapshots from a European tour, birthday celebrations for some noted composers, a few highlights from superb concerts we’ve attended, and reflections on important personalities who have gone to their reward. Trumpets sound forth, ancient pipes sing out, and persuasive personalities make the case for the King of Instruments as we celebrate the New Year and savor highlights from the Old. This week we take our annual look back & forward by pondering the pages in An Organist’s Yearbook.

Our songs are without words, colorful portraits painted with tones alone. This week, Paul Manz spins tuneful improvisations around familiar holiday melodies, and then Olivier Messiaen infuses mere chords and rhythms with an almost iconic presence. Shepherds and Magi, heavenly hosts and eternal purposes hover above a mother and child in Bethlehem, as we meditate upon the magic of the season and the mysteries of faith. Nine recitalists, from Germany, Britain, Sweden, the United States and France retell the story of The Nativity of the Lord in a unique expression for holiday reflection.

The charm of folk tunes and the charismatic character of an international array of instruments and soloists enlivens this program of seasonal fare. Franz Lehrndorfer improvises at Saint Boniface Church in Munich, Ann Labounsky plays the work of her famous teacher Jean Langlais, and Todd Wilson shows off the Skinner organ at Cleveland’s Severance Hall. We offer holiday music of the shepherds and angels from around the world. Listen to variations from Munich and Dieppe, hymn preludes from Cleveland and Tacoma, and fine-wrought fantasies from Methuen and Fort Lauderdale as part of A Christmas Festival.

It is a procession of hope, a progression from darkness into light, the weeks of Advent anticipation. But this week, we’ll rush the season a bit, mixing music of joyful abandon with other scores perhaps just a bit reticent and watchful. Joel Martinson, John Rutter, William Mathias and Richard Purvis give fresh interpretation to prophetic scripture, while organists John Gowens, Guy Bovet, Richard Cummins and Frederick Hohman apply the King of Instruments to a celebration of the King of Kings. Poetic reflections and exuberant outbursts proclaim a holy season, with overriding hopes for peace on earth. With carols and anthems, preludes and dances, let instruments and choirs lift your spirits in anticipation of Christmas as we Prepare the Way.

The professional journals show an incredible stream of new organs, but when the national newspapers herald the installation of some lovely instrument, you get a convincing sense that the pipe organ is still a viabile medium for our modern times. In this week’s program, we celebrate two new instruments in Minnesota: the Noack organ at Saint Paul Seminary Chapel, and a new Casavant at Incarnation Lutheran Church, a Saint Paul suburb. We’ll also travel to the cathedral in Treviso, Italy, for a continental perspective. With music from Mozart to Messiaen, David Jenkins, Diane Belcher and Eric Lebrun put three new organs through the motions, proving that the art of the king of instruments is alive and well in the 21st century.

There is nothing like the spontaneity of a live performance. In most cases, you simply had to have been there. To help the rest of us out, this week’s show brings the thrill of it all to our door. Savor the excitement when young virtuoso Raina Wood plays at Emory University, when John Ogasapian explores byways of American music at Saint Thomas Church, New York, and when the duet team of Dee Ann Crossley and Nancy Lancaster make the House of Hope Fisk organ in Saint Paul really sing. All of our music was recorded In Concert and you’ll hear it as it happened.

From sprightly Renaissance dances to grandious symphonies, this week’s show celebrates the many diverse elements which make organ music so remarkable, and a mirror of changes in western culture. Style, emotion, compositional and mechanical ingenuity all play a part in creating music of joy and contemplation, of restraint and exhultation. Whether in folk-song improvisation or anthem accompaniment, flashy toccata or rhumba-inspired trumpet voluntary, the pipe organ does it all. Listen to newly released compact discs from around the world in this sonic spectacular.