Ours is a pilgrim’s progress of sorts, traversing a year in retrospect and looking into the future. Join us as we take measure of the year 2003 and celebrate the art of the organ and its practitioners the builders, players and composers whose lives contribute so much to our experiences each week. We’ll play some recent compact discs, share shapshots of a trip to Italy, honor the memories of those who have passed to their rewards, and prognosticate a bit about what might come along in 2004.
The Christmas image of a newborn babe brought into a cold world conjures sentiments of joy and astonishment. So it’s not entirely surprising that the music on this week’s program does the same. We celebrate the season with trumpets and choirs, as well as organs both in solo and duet performances. Join in and sing along with familiar old tunes and embrace some new music, too, heralding the good news of the Nativity. For Unto Us: a holiday for heart and ears.
Some pieces were intended for intimate living-room spaces, while others have enthralled crowds in great cathedrals. This week, we travel the world in search of seasonal treats. Christmas is coming, and we will dance and sing while listening to the Memphis Chamber Choir and a host of organ soloists from Germany, France, the Netherlands, and the United States, as each contribute sonic surprises of many sorts. Come along as we celebrate a Holiday International.
Whether it’s a wakening call, a Brazilian sleighride or a gentle lullaby, this week we’ll serenade the spirit of the holiday season with a fanciful collection of familiar carols. From the pen of Leroy Anderson or Julien Zbinden, both choirs and instruments are combined into one harmonious message which speaks of peace on earth.
Our seasonal offering sounds the wake-up call and makes plans to be home for the holidays, as we listen to musicians raise their voices in praise at Christmas time. Join with them as they Sing, Beloved.
Rather than fugues and canzonas, try a Pastorale Dance or a March with trumpet. On this week’s show, we temper European tradition with the iconoclastic visions of some composers here at in the U.S. Lukas Foss writes a celebratory choral work for a new church, Lee Hoiby sketches impressions of his California homeland, and Daniel Gawthrop has us kicking up our heals in rhythmic response. Beyond toccatas and tientos, we bring our focus closer to home and celebrate The American Muse.
The pipe organ’s participation in religious worship has been an important facet of its tradition. This week, we’ll explore one of those traditions, the organ’s role in the sacred liturgy of the French Mass. From the colorful registrations used by Nicolas DeGrigny in his 17th century versets to the provocative images of Olivier Messiaen, the voice of the pipe organ adds immeasurably to the enhancement and the elevation of spiritual consciousness.
With more than $50,000 in prize-money, the Dallas International Organ Competition attracts top-grade talent. This week, we’ll listen to three superb finalists, each with musicianship worthy of international exposure. Jeremy Bruns hails from Muleshoe, Texas, but now directs the music program at All Saints Church-Ashmont near Boston. Sarah Baldock, from England, is the assistant at Winchester Cathedral and is also on the Calgary Academy Faculty in Canada. Bradley Hunter Welch is the organist at Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas.
On the Fisk organs at Southern Methodist Unversity and the Meyerson Symphony Center they perform pieces from the French repertoire, plus works by Reger, Bolcom and Bach. Enjoy young artists in award-winning performances From the Dallas Competition.
What do a city auditorium in New Zealand, an historic church of in Manila, a Scandinavian university science project and the Tennessee Valley Arts Commission have in common? Each celebrates the art of the organ. This week we’ll savor performances from Christchurch Town Hall, the parish of Las Pinas in the Philippines, the Hamburg Baroque Organ Project of Gothenburg, Sweden and the Unitarian Church in Knoxville where pipe organs, old and new, excite the imagination with ear-intriguing sounds.
The proof is in the playing. Enjoy some sonically beguiling CD releases while we’re Going On Record with organ music in review.
Some folks think of the pipe organ as a musty antique that is old fashioned and out of the mainstream. I don’t agree, but just to confuse the issue, we’ll listen to four instruments that live in museums, at the Frick Collection and the Metropolitan Museum in New York City, the Nethercutt Collection, San Sylmar in Los Angeles, and the Museum Center at Union Terminal in Cincinnati.
Don’t be misled. These pipe organs provide provocative harmonies in picturesque settings. Creating their own attractive, interactive displays these are true Museum Pieces.
With six keyboards, four hundred stops, and more than 28,000 pipes, this organ offers a universe of opportunity. This week, we visit with the man who takes advantage of that opportunity virtually business day. You can hear it whenever the building’s open, but rather than buy a ticket to Philadelphia, why not join us for music of every sort, from Mussorgsky’s portrait of a Night on Bald Mountain to excerpts from a Wagner operas. Who needs singers, when the world’s largest musical instrument is under your control?
From Leonard Bernstein to sonic blockbusters, we’re stopping at the Lord & Taylor department store in Philadelphia. You’ve never heard anything like Peter Richard Conte and the Wanamaker Grand Court Organ.
…we celebrate composer Ned Rorem with performances of his music in anticipation of his 85th birthday. On this week’s show, we visit with Pulitzer Prize-winning composer Ned Rorem and celebrate the remarkable and envigorating repertoire that he has composed for organists and choirs. Is it strange that an agnostic son of Quaker parents should write so compellingly for the church or is everything under the sun just a concert celebrating creativity? Insights from the artist with his art, it’s Rorem on Rorem.
One of London’s historic landmarks, Saint Paul’s Cathedral is the masterpiece of architect Christopher Wren. It’s also the musical home of John Scott, who began his work there nearly a quarter century ago just out of university. Starting out at Saint Paul’s as Associate Organist, he was appointed Organist and Director of Music in 1990. John talks about his experiences, leads the choir, plays the cathedral’s mighty instrument, and discusses his adventures as a touring recitalist.
Come along as we visit Saint Peter Mancroft in Norwich and the Church of Saint Ignatius Loyola in New York City. Experience an amiable and able artist, John Scott Scott Free.
…Usually three ‘p’s mean pianissimo, but this program resounds with an exultant trio of exciting modern works for organ and instruments, one of them a premiere. This week’s broadcast features new music for organ and instruments. Starting with Richard Proulx’s Concerto for Organ and Strings, we’ll hear its premiere played by Jonathan Biggers, in concert at Saint Olaf Roman Catholic Church in Minneapolis. A multi-functional Suite for Organ, Brass and Percussion by California composer Craig Phillips and the increasingly popular Concerto Number 1 by Stephen Paulus have added to the compelling concert repertoire for the King of Instruments. Three ‘p’s usually mean pianissimo, but now they stand for a pair of fine concertos with orchestra and a marvelous suite with brass and percussion. They are colorful contemporary works for organ plus by Paulus, Philips and Proulx.
For hundreds of years, the pipe organ was played by mechanical action, with a direct and tangible link called a tracker between keyboard and wind chest. Late in the 19th century, electricity entered the scene and took over the roost for the better part of half a century. Electrity still is with us and has its place, but on this week’s show we return to tradition and review some recent instruments from across the country. Each organ was built with that tried and true mechanical linkage that works well in antique repertoire, of course, but also in romantic and contemporary works, too.
Whether in a 19th century Bolero, a 20th century partita, or an 18th century concerto, modern mechanical action pipe organs maintain a time-honored tradition. With instruments in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Shoreview, Minnesota and Tacoma, Washington, we salute history and celebrate tomorrow in the company of our friends, the Tracker Backers.
One problem a few lucky organists don’t have to deal with is knowing where they’re going to practice. This week, we go to the homes of several fortunate organists and organ lovers to experience the instruments that they have had installed. While some are modest and have only a few stops, others are as big as a house and even play themselves. Each providing incredible enjoyment to all who listen.
Whether in an English manor room, a musician’s private studio, or the parlor of a successful American businesman, our music comes from neither church nor concert hall. These are pipe dreams come true. Has the King of Instruments been domesticated? Find out, as we visit The Organ at Home.
After sixty years as a church musician, Frederick Swann is hanging up his organ shoes. We celebrate his art as he reminisces about his life experiences.
He came to prominence first as organist at the Riverside Church in New York City. This week, we’ll review the remarkable career of Frederick Swann, one of the most highly regarded American organists, as he reflects on his sixty-year career in the spotlight. In music by Franck and Farnam, Clarence Dickinson and some of his own compositions, we’ll hear Fred at Riverside, the Crystal Cathedral and First Congregational Church, Los Angeles, all churches with pipe organs of more than 200 stops each.
Even as a kid he knew what he wanted to do, and has done it masterfully a life fully lived Frederick Swann. Tune in for his Swann Song, with every verse an adventure.
The organist of Notre Dame Cathedral played its inaugural recital back in 1927 but that wasn’t enough to guarantee this instrument a long and happy life. At least not in its original location. Forlorn and nearly forgotten in storage for 16 years, this vintage Casavant organ with 7000 pipes has been reborn as the musical centerpiece of a new church sanctuary in Mahtomedi, Minnesota.
Bill Chouinard, the prime mover behind its renewal at Saint Andrew’s Lutheran, tells the story and demonstrates the instrument’s remarkable range of color and dynamics in selections from Bach to Broadway. Once a mute memory, these grand sounds were Saved By Grace.
We’re traveling south this week to churches and chapels in Virginia, Florida and South Carolina to sample some recently installed instruments. We’ll visit Rollins College in Winter Park, where Randall Dyer and Associates have worked their magic on the 1936 Aeolian-Skinner. At Saint James Episcopal, Richmond, National Cathedral organist Eric Suter demonstrates Opus 112 from the Massachusetts shop of C.B. Fisk, a recent addition to an impressive list of contemporary tracker-action organs in town. And at First Presbyterian in Greenwood, Robert Glick shows off the new Goulding and Wood organ, both as soloist and composer.
The music tells the story, and the venues guarantee the pleasure of Southern Comfort.
His name is nearly ubiquitous because of a strangely beguiling piece of chamber music. This week, we’ll leave that piece alone and explore more of the music by the late 17th century master Johann Pachelbel. First in Eisenach, then in Erfurt, Pachelbel maintained friendly ties to the Bach family, and was the principal teacher of Johann Christoph Bach, who in turn used Pachelbel’s music as ideal example when teaching his orphaned younger brother, Johann Sebastian.
Barbara Harbach, Antoine Bouchard, Joseph Payne, Wolfgang Rübsam, Marilyn Mason and Olivier Vernet explore the many nuances inherent in these variations sets, fugues, toccatas and fantasias, and reinvigorate these pages from centuries ago. Tune in for the Pachelbel Players.
Whenever the sound of organ music is not quite enough, the King of Instruments always has plenty of friends to augment the harmony. This week’s program celebrates exactly that situation with a collection of familiar and unusual works scored for the pipe organ with other instrumental resources.
Organ with trumpet, organ with string trio or chamber orchestra, organ with choir and synthesizer and even electronic tape. Michael Murray, Leonard Raver, Peter Hurford and others call on their colleagues to play works by Marcel Dupré, Thomas Augustin Arne, Monte Mason and J.S. Bach. It’s a scene with unlimited horizons; music for Organ Plus.
No questions are asked when the name of Bach comes up. He is the undisputed master of organ music by worldwide acclaim, and this week, we offer a multi-national celebration of Bachian art, works of amazing grace and glorious intensity. From across Europe and the United States come a host of players, from Albert Schweitzer to David Schrader, Aram Basmadjian to Pierre Bardon.
From England, Denmark, Austria, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, The Netherlands, France and America, our retrospective celebrates universal appeal and border-crossing cooperation. It’s Bach International.
Join us this week in a celebration of the memorable creations of Englishman Herbert Howells, whose splendid works for organs and choirs delight our souls and senses alike.
Gear up for a super-sonic adventure, as Stephen Adams of the American Theatre Organ Society joins me for a selective survey of organ music in popular mode. We’ll listen to top American talent Lyn Larsen on Wurlitzers in public arenas and private music rooms. Legendary British greats Reginald Foort, Quentin Maclean and Sidney Torch recall the styles of yesteryear, while the inimitable George Wright presents his indellible art at the San Francisco Fox and in three different metamorphoses of instruments custom designed to match his magic touch.
Hasten to recall that before it’s involvement with the church, the pipe organ was an instrument of the people, as we listen to The Art of the Theatre Organ.
From the subtle magic of a single flute stop to the glorious roar of an entire instrument in song, this week’s program explores just a few of the auditory adventures available to organists. Baroque chorale variations and Psalm fantasies, trumpet tunes, symphonic poems, a virtuoso etude for pedals alone, and a racy romp for two performers at one console are just a few of the possibilities exhibited by our talented friends.
Gustav Leonhardt, Virgil Fox and several others each provide unique responses to musical challenges as we continue our never ending search for Sonic Solutions.
The pipe organ of 19th century France offered players a virtual symphonic soundscape, and this week we’ll listen to a pair of works that exploit those resources to the full. Charles-Marie Widor at the Church of Saint Sulpice, was the first to thoroughly articulate a symphonic organ style, creating scores rich in color and virtuosity. Widor’s pupil and colleague, Louis Vierne at Notre Dame Cathedral, increased the emotional intensity of the genre to embrace passion, heartbreak and rage.
Nine soloists on as many instruments play the Fourth Symphonies by this pair of famous composers, creating the grandest sort of sonic experience. We’re not kidding when we say it’s as simple as Four by Four.
Belgian master, Flor Peeters, had a remarkable career. He promoted neither a slavish adherence to tradition, nor provoked any revolution, but during his more than six decades as a cathedral organist, teacher and composer, he blended the influences of Germany and France with a typically Flemish love for color and form.
We salute his talents while celebrating his centenary with performances of solos, songs, and even a symphonic concerto. Tune in and enjoy the works of Flor Peeters, and some extra delightfully revealing Flor Samples.
This week we’ll examine the styles of a teacher and his student. Horatio Parker was traditionally schooled in 19th century Germany. A true Romantic. His devilishly talented upstart student Charles Ives, on the other hand, thought nothing of having a choir sing a hymn in one key while he accompanied in another. Despite their differences, American music would not be what it is today without both of them. Parker created lovely works of fine craftmanship while Ives chartered new territory.
Tradition becomes transition at the turn of the 19th century. Hear the contrasts between the old guard and one very enterprising student who brought a uniquely individual voice to 20th century American music. This week, it’s Parker and Ives.
It is as simple as Bach’s instructions, “Push the right key and the right time and the organ plays itself.” With that in mind, we’ll discover just how much diversity there is behind that seemingly obvious instruction. Listen to six American soloists on as many American instruments will treat us to Preludes and Fantasies, melodious chorale-settings and vibrant fugues.
In a cross-country survey, from churches in South Dakota, Georgia, Michigan and Utah and university halls in Arizona and Texas, we celebrate Baroque organ music at its best and show Johann Sebastian the American way. It’s the United States of Bach.
If this music makes you think of weddings and beautiful brides, you’re right on target. This broadcast is a collection of preludes, processionals and other pages in praise of matrimony and the emotions and circumstances which lead us to the altar. Whether it be Handel’s Hornpipe or Mendelssohn’s familiar Wedding March, a Salute to Love by Elgar, or Duke Ellington’s In a sentimental mood, you’ll be amazed by the various ways composers have dealt with love and its ramifications.
Trumpet tunes and blessings, salutes to love and lullabies, it’s all part of the package when two people tie the knot at a June wedding, and we provide the music appropriate to a chapel or cathedral creating Matrimonial Magic.
It’s time to take the organ out of its religious context, and enjoy it out of doors at Balboa Park in San Diego. We’ll also visit other venues where summer concerts win new friends for the King of Instruments. From the Methuen Music Hall in Massachusetts to the Mormon Tabernacle, from Balboa Park in San Diego to the Berks County Museum in Pennsylvania, we celebrate a season of adventure and discovery, a sampler of seasonal recital venues coast to coast. It’s all about having some Summer Fun.
From an historic monastery in Austria to Princeton University chapel, this week’s show features the work of three composers who happen to be born under the sign of The Twins [as in astrology, not baseball].
We’ll hear a Sonata for Organ and Strings by Daniel Pinkham, Gospel Preludes and a Princeton premiere by William Bolcom, and tantalizing toccatas from the 17th century by Georg Muffat. Join in as we celebrate their 80th, 65th and 250th late spring birthdays with a chest full of Gemini Jewels.
One thing he never lacked was grace and charm. This week, we explore the work of a prodigiously talented yet short-lived minor English master. Whether writing for cathedral or parish use, or for his later involvement as a municipal organist, Percy Whitlock’s gentle and engaging personality made many friends for him. His compositions were conservative for his time but each possess a rich emotion and sly wit. After one hundred years, we remember him still, with A Percy Whitlock Centenary Tribute.
This week we celebrate the inauguration of a new instrument, the Davis Concert Organ at the Winspear Centre in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. To date, it is the largest production from the shop of the Letourneau Organ Company of Saint-Hyacinthe, Québec. With 96 stops and more than 6500 pipes, it lays claim to being the biggest mechanical-action instrument to be installed in a concert hall in modern times.
Christopher Herrick shows it off in a colorful collection of solo works, and Rachel Laurin teams up with Marion Bernardi and the Edmunton Symphony for the world premiere of grand new concerto by Jacques Hetu. In cooperation with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, we are pleased to present Ferrand Letourneau’s Winspear Wonder.
From sprightly Renaissance dances to grandious concertos, this week’s show celebrates the many diverse elements that make organ music so remarkable. The fact that this instrument dates from the 16th century adds a sense of history. Beyond that, however, style, emotion, and compositional and mechanical ingenuity all play a part in creating an art filled that creates a multi-faceted experience ranging from restraint to rejoicing.
Whether in a charming transcription, an anthem accompaniment, or a zesty concert finale, the king of instruments does it all. Discover it yourself as we listening to recently released compact discs from around the world. We’re Going On Record.
You know how it is, one thing leads to another. This week’s program is no exception and put itself together quite magically to celebrate the Centenary of English composer Lennox Berkeley. There are works by Berkeley, of course, but also a prelude by Dr. John Bull, a Voluntary or Fugue by Boyce or Burney, a sonata by Bairstow and a heroic march by Brewer. In the end, it’s four centuries of keyboard composers creating a melodious miscellany.
Hope you enjoy the works of Six ‘B’s from Britain.
It’s almost like a peal of bells, and why not, since this week’s program is all about praise. The phrase We praise you, oh God. We acknowledge you to be the Lord… has inspired composers through the centuries. Dupré, Attaignant, Buxtehude, and Demessieux, have each created monuments on this text and we’ll also listen to a very snappy setting from the French Baroque by Charpentier, as well as chorale versions by Britten and Berlioz.
The celebrations continue through time and traditions, as we shout our praise: Te Deum!
Travel with us to the City of Brotherly Love. We’ll listen to a diverse group of instruments of various tone and texture, from a little Dieffenbach chamber organ that’s more than 200 years old to the lavish 1931 Skinner organ at Girard College. Our music also covers the gamut, from a Colonial voluntary to a Mexican toccata.
Celebrate two centuries of the art of organbuilding in America, with a sampler of resilient, vintage instruments recorded in and around Philly. My friends in the Organ Historical Society and I invite you to join us for a celebration of The Pipes of Philadelphia.
The times, they are a-changing, and these days of evolving springtime bring equal measure of mystery and marvel. This week, we muse on this transformation of life with music for the spring festival of rebirth. French, German and American composers reflect on the Easter message. Marcel Dupré ponders the unknowable, Pierre Cochereau celebrates with dances and jubilation, while Richard Webster trumpets a Paschal Fanfare for the Risen Christ.
Celebrate the coming of spring with music inspired by the Easter Festival. In parish chapels and historic cathedrals, we rejoice in Resurrection Revelations.
If you naturally think of the pipe organ as a church instrument, think again. This week, we celebrate three organ installations from concert Halls in China, Australia and England. Carol Williams shows off the Connecticut-built Austin organ in the Forbidden City Concert Hall in Beijing, Thomas Heywood gives us the before-and-after treatment at Melbourne Town Hall, where the 1929 Hill organ was expanded and modernized by the Schantz Company of Ohio, and at the new concert hall in Birhmigham, England, Thomas Trotter pulls out all the stops.
Click and listen to concert music for concert instruments. This week, we’re not in a church but Out in the Hall.
The King of Instruments enjoys a long and proud tradition. This week we’ll celebrate this heritage with instruments in all of the major European countries where the art of the organ was born and fostered. The peripatetic Charles Burney, who wrote much about organs and organists encountered during his famous travels, contributes a tune to our medley as do Domenico Scarlatti, Vicente Hervas, Michel Corrette, and Georg Böhm.
Everything old IS new again as we listen to historic instruments playing German, French, English, Italian, and Spanish music, all with perfect accent, the way it was meant to be. We honor tradition as the voices from these old pipes reveal the Wisdom of the Ages.
This week’s program redirects Richard Wagner’s focus to an instrument which sounds as lofty as any of as his own artistic ideas. Unlike Bach, Wagner never composed for solo organ but LIKE Bach his music adapts well to transcription. Listen to and enjoy your favorite overtures, choruses, arias and scenes convincingly transformed by such keyboard greats as Thomas Murray, Simon Preston, Carlo Curley and Anthony Newman.
Hold onto your horses. It’s opera without singers, pipes without preludes and fugues, and an atypical anomally as some of the grandest 19th century music is magically transformed in a manner possible only in the realm of the King of Instruments. This week we discover a surprise in every measure when we find Wagner at the Console.
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.