Episodes: 2000

We reflect on the passing of time on our next Pipedreams broadcast. The old year now is gone and done. So are a number of wonderful musical friends whom we will honor and miss. But, we’ll also celebrate some intriguing new instruments, check up on the Wanamaker Organ in Philadelphia for a progress report on the ongoing restoration there, sample some recent recordings - including a disc which just won a ‘golden ears’ award from a popular audiophile journal and stop down in Mexico, where fireworks and the village band added to the excitement of a visit from some Norwegian performers.

It’s a feast for the ears on this week’s broadcast. We’ll have choice and charming confections from home and abroad, including Dale Wood’s evocation of a Cold December, a Richard Purvis song about wee lambs, and a mechanical music-box version of White Christmas. We’ll also visit Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Minneapolis, the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool, England, and Brangwyn Hall in Wales in search of the proper ingredients for our holiday party.

We raise a joyful noise on our next Pipedreams broadcast, exploring the talents of a marvelously multi-faceted fellow whom you might best know from his keyboard collaborations with the Paul Winter Consort. But Paul Halley does so much more. We’ll hear him with his Connecticut-based Chorus, Angelicus and Gaudeamus, in recital at Spivey Hall near Atlanta, improvising on seasonal songs, and in his landmark recording of late-night music from the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City. Spirituality and spirited performing become one in the same, as Paul Halley shares his unique gifts.

It’s not your usual sort of seasonal surprise on this weeks Pipedreams program. To prove the universality of the Christmas theme, we’ve conducted a global search and it has uncovered some extraordinary jewels, including a French Noel, variations from The Netherlands and South Africa, and settings of familiar tunes from Sweden, Norway, Germany, Austria, Lebanon and the United States.

There’s a song in the air and it’s about change. The future is just around the corner… but not quite, not yet. On this week’s broadcast, we’ll ponder the problem of the unknown, with music for Advent, including an atmospheric pharaphrase by Hans-Andre Stamm, a collection of Bach chorale-preludes, and an improvised symphonic movement by Marcel Dupré that he recorded with compelling persuasiveness in his 79th year.

One of the delights about the organ is its virtually limitless repertoire, and this Pipedreams program explores some of that as we sample a collection of the latest releases of pipe organ repertoire on compact disc. Hear pieces by Bach’s favorite pupil, a work for organ and cello by written by one Paris Conservatoire professor for himself and a colleague, a canny combination of organ sound with an electronically synthesized harp, a quiet bluesy Arietta by African American pianist Thomas Kerr, and a sonorous symphony by Alexander Guilmant which will make your speakers rumble.

When George Fredric Handel needed to draw crowds to performances of his new oratorios, he discovered that they’d come to see HIM play the organ. Now that’s star-power. And although the ravages of time have been less kind to some of his contemporaries, Handel’s concertos, and specifically those written for the organ, are still among the most delightful concert works ever devised from that period.

He heralded the Common Man, and the uncommon organist, too. With a Fanfare, a Preamble, a Passacaglia and a symphony composed in Paris for his teacher’s debut in New York City, we explore some characteristic yet surprisingly little-known organ works by one of America’s most famous composers.

Grandeur and majesty. Passion and poetry. These are the elements of a new musical style that evolved in Paris in the latter 19th-century which revolutionized the art of the organ. On our next Pipedreams broadcast, we’ll hear two ‘firsts’ - two symphonic works for solo organ by Charles-Marie Widor and his pupil and, ultimately, competitor, Louis Vierne. Inspired by the sonorities of the lavish new instruments designed by master organ builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, both Widor, who was the first to call a composition an organ symphony, and Vierne created musical masterpieces that are both a challenge to play and a joy to hear.

The nine competitors have been thinned to three with the ultimate challenge just on the horizon. On our next Pipedreams broadcast, we take you to the Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas where three young artists vie for the gold prizes on a Texas scale totaling over $50,000 in cash and awards! Bach prevails in the company of Brahms, Bill Bolcom and Max Reger, while Gunther Rost, Bradley Hunter Welch and James Diaz pull out all the stops in this most prestigious of American contests for young masters of the king of instruments. Tune in and hear the exciting conclusion of the finals of the Dallas International Organ Competition 2000, this week on Pipedreams.

To play the organ is a challenge under any circumstance. Manipulating all of those keyboards and pedals and buttons really keeps you on the edge. Can you imagine what must it be like to play the organ in competition? Well, that’s more pressure than I could tolerate, but on our next Pipedreams program you’ll hear nine young artists put it on the line, for prizes of up to $30,000, and hardly bat an eye. From the delicate tracery of a Bach Trio to the plangent passion of a contemporary toccata, young musicians go for the gold at the world’s most beneficent battle for organists. From the Caruth Auditorium and the Meyerson Symphony Center, it’s the Dallas International Organ Competition 2000, Part One, this week on Pipedreams.

If the organ is the king of instruments, then our next Pipedreams program is a showplace for the kings of kings. This week we will compare seven of the world’s largest pipe organs in all of their Olympian splendor. We’ll listen to Peter Baicchi as he plays at the Crystal Cathedral and Fred Swann as he shows off the latest additions to First Congregational Church, Los Angeles. We’ll also visit the Cadet Chapel at West Point, the Mother Church of Christian Science in Boston, and Passau Cathedral, the largest church organ in Europe. And we’ll hear the mightiest of all, the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ in Philadelphia, and Senator Emerson Richards’ still-unrealized dream at Atlantic City’s Boarwalk Hall. It’s Big, Bigger, Biggest, the giants in their homes, this week on Pipedreams.

A celebration and remembrance of that most charismatic and controversial of 20th century American virtuosos, Virgil Fox [1912-1980] with comments from Fox and long-time friends and associates Ted Alan Worth and Lawrence Schreiber, plus recordings made by Fox at the Riverside Church, the Filmore East Auditorium in New York City, Philharmonic Hall at Lincoln Center, and the Garden Grove Church in California. This program was produced in cooperation with Dan Cronenwett, Stephen Carlson, and public radio station KBYU-FM, Provo, Utah.

It’s about the adventure of discovery, the excitement of surprise. On the next Pipedreams program we explore recent works by mostly American composers, including a Concerto for Organ Solo, and a lyric Cantilena that sounds like a cool, slow jazz solo brought to church. For the kids, a funny, quasi-rap piece about Rex, the King of Instruments. Some people will do anything to get your attention, and our highlight is a stunning item for organ, strings and percussion which will knock your socks off. Don’t miss the great sounds, American Premieres, this week on Pipedreams. To learn more about Stephen Paulus and Norman Mackenzie, read Family Secret by Michael Barone.

Ingenuity, subtlety, virtuosity, even heroism are traits necessary in becoming a world-class musician. Hear them applied by Heather Hinton, Peter Krasinski, John Schwandt, Justin Bischof, and Ann Elise Smoot, all winners of American Guild of Organists national competitions. I captured them ‘on the spot’ in Denver, showing us the way through music of many moods: fast and sinister, prayerful, and heroic. It’s amazing what the youngsters are up to these days and there’s no stopping them. Tune in and hear them Playing for the Prize, this week on Pipedreams.

A return to Georgia on this week’s Pipedreams program recorded during an American Guild of Organists convention in Atlanta. We’ll visit the Cathedral of Saint Philip to sample this moody meditation by Walter Hilse, hear a sacred song-setting by Rachel Laurin of Montréal, journey to Peachtree Road United Methodist Church for Karel Paukert’s scintillating representation of Czech and American works, and to Trinity Presbyterian Church where Todd Wilson, George Hanson and Atlanta Symphony members explore music for organ and strings. History revisited.

To know this instrument is to celebrate the totality of its wide-ranging repertoire, and one of today’s most broad-minded organists is Professor Craig Cramer from Notre Dame University in Indiana. He takes equal pleasure in contemporary compositions and historic music played on period instruments. We’ll hear him perform Bach in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, and Steinfeld, Germany. We also hear him in recital on the 19th-century Johnson organ at a convent in Mankato, Minnesota and on the new installation at Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma. Craig shares his insights and experiences gained during his international recital tours.

This week’s Pipedreams program takes on the challenge of evoking vivid visual images - and with our ears we’ll view a procession in an ancient cathedral, a thunderstorm in the countryside, colorful landscapes in southern France, and an art show at a gallery. Along with works by Mulet, Ermand Bonnal, Eugene Reuchsel, and Lefebure-Wely, we’ll enjoy a complete performance of Mussorgsky’s famous keyboard impressions of paintings by his friend Victor Hartmann - visions of children playing near the Tuileries, the Market at Limoges, the Catacombs, the Ballet of the chicks in their shells and the Great Gate of Kiev. Nine soloists paint the town with organic colors. For more on Pictures at an Exhibition, read Paintings in Sound, by Michael Barone.

There’s no doubt that he’s fleet of foot and finger, but on this week’s Pipedreams broadcast Anthony Newman shows that his imagination is every bit as quick. We’ll hear him in works by Bach recorded in New York and Poland; in two concertos by Handel played with extravagant embellishments in concert with the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra; in some French miniatures presented at the Performing Arts Center in Naples, Florida; and in several of his own compositions and in duet performances with his wife Mary Jane. Don’t miss these imaginative insights and intrepid interpretations from one of America’s foremost virtuoso talents and thinkers.

This week’s Pipedreams broadcast takes you to the Bay Cities in California for a program of organ music on the lighter side. At the Oakland Paramount, Lew Williams and Jim Riggs pour on the charm, Kevin King tightens the ranks at the Berkeley Community Theatre, while across the water Simon Gledhill and Clark Wilson open doors at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco, still one of the country’s best settings for Wurlitzer wonders. With a Mississippi Suite, a Stephen Foster Fantasy, a musical String of Pearls, plus some odes to the delights of local life, it’s a package frothy and delightful.

Listen, my children, and you shall hear On this week’s Pipedreams program, soloists Leo Abbott, Tom Murray, Fred MacArthur, Catharine Crozier, and Brian Jones will take you on a tour of historic instruments in Beantown - from the immense Aeolian-Skinner organ at the Christian Science Mother Church, the E.M. Skinner instrument at Old South Church moved from Saint Paul, MN, and the historic Hooks in Jamaica Plain and the Immaculate Conception Church.

Beyond the familiar Trumpet Tune, this week’s broadcast features many pieces by one of England’s foremost masters, one of his contemporaries and some later imitators. He’s justly celebrated, but sometimes for not quite the right reasons. Henry Purcell, the foremost English composer of the late seventeenth century, is our particular fascination on the next Pipedreams broadcast, when we’ll listen to everything he wrote for organ, plus some pieces that he DIDN’T, but to which his name is traditionally and tenaciously attached nonetheless. With period instruments and grand cathedral organs played by Robert Woolley, John Butt, John Scott, Davitt Moroney, and even Virgil Fox, we go on beyond the familiar Trumpet Tunes to hear Voluntaries and Marches, Anthems, Songs, and Dances, looking back through 3 centuries in tribute to the memory of one of Britain’s famous past masters.

We pick up the contrapuntal thread from last week and continue with some additional adventures. Bach left Die Kunst der Fuge incomplete, perhaps by design, perhaps by oversight, perhaps due to ill health. Should one resist the temptation to imagine a conclusion? We don’t.

Bach may have considered this piece a theoretical study and not have intended The Art of Fugue to be performed at all, since he prepared it in open score and left the climax incomplete. On our next Pipedreams program, we give life to theory, as an international array of soloists leads us through Bach’s contrapuntal maze, this music which astounds the mind and delights the ear simultaneously. A fugue too many? Not to worry, we’ll provide a map to help you listen, and hand you all the keys necessary to open the doors of mystery. How does it end?

Everything has to start somewhere, and on this week’s Pipedreams broadcast it begins with some alpha wavesmusic in the key of A, beginning a scalar ascent through some of Johann Sebastian Bach’s best and best-loved works. Wolfgang Rübsam performs at the Martini Church in Groningen, the Netherlands; Kevin Bowyer solos in Odense, Denmark; and Daniel Chorzempa, David Roght, Hans Fagius, Noel Rawsthorne, Jean-Patrice Brosse, Thierry Mechler and E. Power Biggs all reveal the genius of Bach in preludes and fugues, fantasies and chorale settings.

Michael Barone reviews a summer selection of recent recordings of music by and related to Johann Sebastian Bach.

It’s an exciting discovery. On beyond the rock-bound coast, the lobsters and L.L. Bean, the state of Maine is a state of musicorgan music, specifically, as we reveal during a Down East tour with the Organ Historical Society of intriguing instruments from Saco to Stockton Springs. Thomas Murray plays the famous Kotzschmar organ at Portland’s City Hall, Marvin Mills explores a century-old Jardine organ in Yarmouth, Brian Jones plays a march in Turner Village, and Dana Robinson and Paul Tegels go the four-hand route on the 140-year-old Hook instrument at Saint John’s Church in Bangor. Join host Michael Barone for this idyllic trip through the highways and byways of Maine.

Even if we think we can take care of everything ourselves, all of us need a few friends, and this week’s Pipedreams program brings together the king of instruments and a variety of friendly collaborators. Of course, organs have plenty of their own flutes, but one more, blown by lungs rather than bellows, can add so much. We’ll hear also pieces for organ with piano, organ with chamber orchestra, organ and harp - now THAT’s a fine combination - and the great energy-maker organ and brass. Joan DeVee Dixon, Steven Egler, Frances Shelly, Marie-Bernadette Dufourcet, Jon Gillock and others show what a harmonious relationship is all about.

The old tunes have their charm, and the old instruments, too, as we revisit the beginnings of organ music; play on pipes that have been singing persuasively for four, five, and six hundred years; and remember that the matter of age directly relates to attitude. This week on Pipedreams you’ll hear instruments dating from the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries - instruments from Italy, Austria, France, Germany, Spain, and the Netherlands - including the oldest in the world, still going strong.

It’s all so familiar but also the beginning of an uncharted adventure. This week’s Pipedreams program explores wedding music in its broader implications. We’ll have traditional processionals, historic works in celebration of a joy-filled day, exotic pieces from Finland and the Czech Republic songs and ballads about true, perfect and wondrous love, an anthem about an amiable dwelling place, and even a warning lest fools rush in. For June brides or newlyweds at any time of the year, it’s music which proclaims This is the Day.

They all have two things in common. One is their youth, in their teens and early twenties. The other is enthusiasm. Hear a pair of organ scholars from Oxford, Paul Weber and other students from Lawrence University in Wisconsin, AGO O’Neal, and the acclaimed 14-year-old German phenom Felix Hell. They play up a storm and make it plain to hear that they are “not just kidding around.”

Contrary to the notion that the organ is old-fashioned, this week’s Pipedreams broadcast takes a look at organ repertoire today, with a sampler of some engaging and accessible modern compositions from the upper Midwest. Leonard Danek plays his little bouquet, Flowers, David Cherwin shows us some of his hymn-preludes, John Eggert discovers an amazingly diverse collection of styles right in his own backyard, and Diane Meredith Belcher premiere’s Libby Larsen’s Aspects of Glory at an Organists Guild Convention.

This week on Pipedreams host Michael Barone gathers some friends together at House of Hope Presbyterian Church in Saint Paul for a concert in celebration of Pipedreams’ first compact disc release. It’s sort of a show-and-tell affair, with performances by Leonard Danek, Edward Berryman and Michael Ferguson in of some of their own works, one of which takes a Bachian-challenge to its triumphal conclusion. Monte Mason leads his splendid choirs, and Melanie Ninnemann teams up with Michael Barone for a sonorous organ duet. And Michael will even play a solo or two.

Sometimes faith is all that’s left. And all that’s needed when disaster strikes. All is not lost, and on the next Pipedreams broadcast, our music represents the rekindled spirits which responded to the horrific bombing in Oklahoma City, the devastating tremors of a Los Angeles earthquake, a hurricane in Charleston, South Carolina, and a chapel fire in Kent, England. Out of the rubble and despair rises harmony and new enthusiasm. Scott Raab, Wayne Foster, Kevin Bowyer, and Thomas Harmon show us the way with music of hope rekindled.

It’s all about friends having fun. On this week’s Pipedreams program, Sarah Hawbecker plays the urban and urbane music of Leo Sowerby, Timothy Albrecht and John Cook. Alan Morrison explores works by Atlanta-based composer William Krape. Norman Mackenzie performs a virtuoso sonata written for him when he was just a younger guy, and Elizabeth and Raymond Chenault prove that a harmonious home life also leads to lively harmonies at the organ console, when American Public Media host Michael Barone visits with five of Georgia’s finest recitalists in a special program recorded in 1998 at Central Presbyterian Church.

On this week’s Pipedreams broadcast we feature a splendid instrument recently inaugurated in Tacoma, Washington. A musical college kid with high ideals, but more adept in a woodworking shop than the practice studio, Paul Fritts makes music by connecting one component to another. We’ll listen to the result - his magnum opus built at the new concert hall on the campus of his alma mater. Resident artist David Dahl and guest recitalist Craig Cramer play the old masters on the handiwork of a young one - a program of Bach and Schumann, Messiaen and Cindy McTee.

Trumpet fanfares and other bracing measures spice up this week’s broadcast as we celebrate spring with improvisations and anthems dedicated to the festival of rebirth. Marilyn Keiser plays a Festal Flourish, Kevin Bowyer borrows from Bach’s Little Organ Book, James Culp asks a pointed question, Craig Philips contributes a song for a special morning awakening, and everywhere sons and daughters sing. With instruments in Texas, Italy, and our nation’s capitol, and choirs from Beverly Hills and Britain, we offer Music for an Easter Uprising.

a profound reflection upon the saga of Christ’s crucifixion, a progression through fourteen poems by Paul Claudel with originally-improvised musical commentary by Marcel Dupré.

It’s kind of like a test drive. This week’s Pipedreams program is a review of a dozen recent compact discs, including one from an obscure - and ravishingly lovely - parish church in Waltershausen, Germany. We’ll visit Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle, the old Paramount Theatre in Brooklyn, a lavish museum near Los Angeles, and Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Texas. We’ll have music by Bach and his pupil Krebs, a French organ symphony rediscovered, and an introduction to the explosive improvisational talent of Wayne Marshall, who takes George Gershwin for a ride.

The optimistic and engaging music of American composer and performer Emma Lou Diemer, whose original works and hymn-tune arrangements never fail to uplift the spirit.

Awaken to the coming of spring and simultaneously celebrate a most important anniversary this week on Pipedreams. We honor Johann Sebastian Bach while enjoying his music - both youthful escapades and mature profundities - as played by Simon Preston, E. Power Biggs, Jonathan Dimmock and Kate von Tricht. Other composers offer unusual homage, too, and Håkan Hagegård, Rupert Gough, and Stewart Foster provide a few unexpected surprises. Dress casually, come with a friend, but bring no gifts; the best ones are already on the table.

We offer a gamut of the organ experience on this week’s Pipedreams program, from some of the simplest to the most challenging of music. Climb up the scale with the eight Little Preludes and Fugues by J.S. Bach - student music with a heart - as we pair those with contrasting works by the greatest German organ composer AFTER Bach, Max Reger. It’s a confluence of contrapuntal ingenuity, from serene to seismic, and performances on a pathbreaking organ at a splendid cathedral in Altoona, Pennsylvania.

This week on Pipedreams host Michael Barone visits with one of the world’s foremost recitalists, Gillian Weir. She talks about her fascination with the organ and the challenges and responsibilities of a global career, and plays from her repertoire - which covers pretty much anything from the late Renaissance to the modern-day. Hear instruments in Denmark, England, Wisconsin, the Netherlands, and Texas, and discover how artistry and charm go hand-in-hand. When the magnificent Dame Gillian plays, it’s proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that there is nothing like a Dame.

Some things ARE mysterious - yet we’ll clarify any confusion on this week’s Pipedreams program, as we explore five centuries of the little-known history of music by women composers for the pipe organ. Dr. Barbara Harbach is our tour guide, introducing us to works by historic figures such as Elizabeth Stirling, Amy Beach, and Jeanne Demessieux, and present-day folk like Mary Jeanne van Appledorn, Marga Richter, and Edith Borroff. From Preludes to Psalm Tunes, Solemn Dirges to Celebratory Alleluias, it’s a world of emotion and expression, recorded on location at All Saints Episcopal Church, Atlanta.

Like a new car in the driveway, the installation of a new pipe organ is always a time of pride and celebration, and this week Pipedreams visits three churches in host Michael Barone’s neck of the woods where the folks are very, very happy. Lynn Dobson’s instrument at Saint Paul’s Episcopal, Minneapolis, offers plenty of color and power in a deceptively modest package. The new Casavant at Saint Louis Roman Catholic Church in Saint Paul boasts a splendidly-carved and decorated case which matches its vibrant voice, and Charles Hendrickson’s design for Wayzata Community Church builds on the ideal of an American Classic. Christopher Herrick, Daniel Roth, and Diana Lee Lucker play inaugural concerts on these three fine instruments.

Their contributions may not yet be as familiar as those of composers of the German Baroque or French Romantic eras, but the recent works of African-American musicians impress at many levels. On our next Pipedreams program, you’ll be able to hear pieces by Mark Fax and Thomas Kerr, Nol DaCosta, Henry Sexton, and Charles Coleman, which take as themes simple, beautiful original melodies, gospel hymns, and our nation’s racial history. Herndon Spillman, Mickey Thomas Terry, Eugene Hancock and David Hurd spell it out in black and white, our African American organ tradition.

Some questions shouldn’t need asking twice, not after the encouragement we provide on this Pipedreams broadcast. It’s an aural array of amorous melodies designed to stir the heart and unlock the emotions. Our Valentine’s Day prelude features great tunes by Jerome Kern, Richard Rodgers, Cole Porter, and Franz Liszt, dealing with first loves, impossible loves, deep loves, and love’s dreams. Featured organists are Bary Baker, Lew Williams, Simon Gledhill, and Lyn Larson. Happy or sad, impossible or inevitable, at daybreak or twilight, you’ll enjoy our melodious bouquet of Love’s Old Sweet Songs.

A multitalented California musician brings the organ up to date on our next Pipedreams broadcast. John West is composer, arranger, singer, and recitalist, working in and comfortable with both classical and popular styles, in church or in the theater. He demonstrates instruments in Glendora, Northridge, and Los Angeles, talks about his hopes for the future, and excites us with some great music of the past and some of his own new adventures.

Some of you might know him as a one-piece composer, but Johann Pachelbel, the pride of Nuremberg, wrote many other works beyond the ubiquitous Canon in D. On our next Pipedreams program, we’ll explore that extensive other repertoire, which includes splendid variation chains from which the young Bach learned a thing or two, elaborate chorale-preludes, modest miniatures for the vespers Magnificat, and splendid virtuoso showpieces that show off the sounds of 10 different instruments. Joseph Payne, Marilyn Mason, and Antoine Bouchard share excerpts from their complete CD cycles, too.

We sound the trumpet this week on Pipedreams as we visit Claremont United Church of Christ in California to celebrate an extraordinary artistic partnership. American organbuilder Manuel Rosales created the tonal design and finishing for this new organ, which was built by Casper Glatter-Goetz of Germany. The results are remarkable, as you’ll hear in inaugural season recital performance by Cherry Rhodes and Ladd Thomas, resident musician Carey Coker-Robertson, and Parisian soloist Daniel Roth. Plus Diane Meredith Belcher shows off the incredible Claremont trumpets in a piece written specially for them.

The pipe organ is not one thing but, rather, many - and our next Pipedreams broadcast explores some of that diversity while listening to instruments by six different builders, each one with a very distinct personality. A pair of organs in Ontario, for instance, make up in elegance and charm what they may lack in sheer size. Another one, in San Francisco, recycles 90-year-old pipes in a new configuration which both embraces history and creates its own. Yet another organ, built in Czechoslovakia, serves a Lutheran parish in Illinois and, when asked, can play itself. From California to South Carolina, it’s a North American Organ Sampler.

The organ places a brave foot forward into the new millennium, in solos and in the company of brass ensembles and symphonic bands, with sonic spectaculars and sweet soft sounds, too. This week Pipedreams celebrates the many characters of the king of instruments with a sampler of new instruments, recent repertoire and young players. Enjoy the demure delights of the organ at Pembroke College, Cambridge and the expansive voice of one of America’s largest instruments at the West Point Cadet Chapel. David Fedor teams up with the Ridgewood Concert Band in New Jersey, Paul Halley improvises at Spivey Hall, and Allison Leudecke and the Millennia Consort usher in a new century.