This week, we’ll reflect upon events form the past year and take a look at some projections for the future.
Taken from many nations, the music on this week’s program adds a distinctive flavor to our Christmas celebration.
Join us for a merry mingling of composer and performers, celebrating the holiday season.
Preluding the Christmas festival, we play the ‘waiting game’ with a collection of music for the Advent season.
…whether in Renaissance style or rhumba, when the pipe organ’s in the mood there’s no better partner. This week’s program is a display of the kinetic energy that surrounds the King of Instruments.
At Ann Arbor’s 75-year-old Michigan Theatre, an aging pipe organ served as keystone to the downtown’s heritage preservation.
…In tribute to the patron saint of music, concert performances on the recently installed, multi-faceted pipe organ at the Cathedral of Saint Cecilia in Omaha, Nebraska.
This week we celebrate the 125th anniversary of Canada’s most prominent organ maker: Casavant Frères.
This week we visit three recent and noteworthy pipe organ installations in American concert halls.
This week we’re taking a walk on the darker side with some spooky and surprising evocations of things that go ‘bump in the night’, music for Hallowe’en.
Michael Barone took Pipedreams Live! to Grand Rapids, Michigan, and introduced these performances by area organists at Central Reformed Church.
Join us as we listen to live concert performances that remind us of the challenges performers face and the delights we listeners enjoy.
Listen to a sampling of three recent installations of American-built instruments in Switzerland, California and Nebraska.
An additional recital program from Omaha’s Saint Cecilia Cathedral will be aired in November to celebrate of the Feast of Saint Cecilia, patron of musicians. And did you know that the case for the Lausanne Fisk was devised by Giorgetto Giugiaro, designer of the Maserati Bora and Volkswagen Golf and hundreds of other automobiles?
Craig R. Whitney visits us to talk about the traditions and power of the pipe organ in the United States.
Come with us as we visit the 200 year old organ built by David Tannenberg. Originally constructed for the Home Moravian Church, it now can be heard in it’s own room at the Old Salem Visitor Center.
Music of the reluctant French virtuoso and pioneering genius, Charles-Valentin Alkan [1813-1888], composed originally for pedal piano, plays brilliantly on the pipe organ.
Considered by many to be the virtuosic equal of Franz Liszt, and also both friend and neighbor to Frederic Chopin, Alkan was a curious, reclusive figure on the mid-century Parisian scene. His numerous works, virtually all for piano, abound with digital challenges and provocative creative twists.
Alkan wrote both a four-movement symphony and a massive three-movement concerto, both for solo piano without orchestra. Later, another friend, Cesar Franck, dedicated his own pioneering solo organ symphony…the Grande Piece Symphonique…to Alkan. Franck also published organ editions of the pieces to be heard in the course of this program, which Alkan created for that ‘dead-end’ Romantic-era instrument, the pedal piano, a standard piano with an additional organ-like clavier for the feet. Alkan was particularly fascinated by this device, and even left money in his will to fund a pedal piano course at the Paris Conservatory.
Our broadcast includes a complete performance of Alkan’s Thirteen Prayers, Opus 64, and selections from Eleven Grande Preludes, Opus 66 and the Little Preludes in the Eight Plainchant Modes [1859].
Whether they trained abroad, trained at home, or relocated to or from Europe, the composers of these diverse works ultimately share an American passport.
Come along to Royal Albert Hall in London where we’ll hear the newly-restored Willis-Harrison organ, the largest organ in the UK, in concert performances taken from the 2004 BBC Proms season.
Due to contract limitations, this program is not available in our online audio archive.
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.
This week we listen to recordings from generations before ours by performers who knew a thing or two about making Olde Sebastian’s scores come alive.
LOUIS VIERNE: Allegro maestoso, from Symphony Number 3, Opus 28 –Timothy Olsen (2000 Reuter/First Presbyterian, Philadelphia, PA) Pipedreams Archive recorded July 4, 2002
Considering that Mozart wrote virtually nothing for the organ, we certainly had fun finding things of his to play!
Although not as popular among organists as the familiar Sonatas of Opus 65 and the Preludes & Fugues of Opus 37, this week’s broadcast is a collection of repertoire from off the beaten path.
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.
Tune in and celebrate contributions made to the art of the organ by African-American composers and performers.
Come along for an aural sampler of the mostly historic instruments from Buffalo, NY.
Through folk tunes and patriotic airs, the pipe organ celebrates our national spirit with it’s own kind of fireworks.
A treat for the whole family, this week’s broadcast features organ arrangements of famous classical works and original compositions used in Fantasia and other Walt Disney films.
Behold! We bring you both powerful and poetic musings from one of the greatest organists of the 20th century, Marcel Dupré.
Walking down the aisle to Here Comes the Bride is not as standard as you may think. Thankfully, whether the occasion be a posh ceremony or a simple rustic celebration, the ever versatile pipe organ can provide music for every sort of wedding.
On this week’s show, we’re visited by the prize-winning British organist, David Goode. This talented performer has toured the world and now lives in Los Angeles where he’s organist at First Congregational Church.
…whether in simple variations on a sacred hymn tune or complex counterpoint around a new-made melody, composers always respond to the lyric muse. This week we’ll listen to musical creations based on both familiar and newly formed tunes. One of the most common forms of composition for the King of Instruments, composers have frequently demonstrated their craftsmanship with these lyric morsels.
This week we take a listen to new recordings that represent an exceptional survey of four centuries of music.
Come along with us, no passport necessary, as we take a whirlwind tour of a few remarkable destinations in France.
This week we pay tribute to Gerre and Judith Hancock, the talented husband and wife who have made marvelous music at Saint Thomas Church in New York City for more than 30 years.
A source of inspiration since the time of their origin, the Bible’s songs continue to stimulate the imaginations of both composers and performers, alike.
We return with recordings of live events from around the nation where the performers radiate that special energy which guarantees exciting listening.
Tune in as we take our recording equipment around the region, capturing the excitement of LIVE performances. The first of two parts, we find artists meeting the challenge of the concert experience with incomparable panache.
Music that celebrates spring’s rebirth and also the Christian Festival of the Resurrection.
Music that stirs the soul and produces provocative evocations of scenes from Holy Week.
No, Gabriel hasn’t arrived yet. However, you’d think he had when you hear these marvelously brassy and engaging pieces for trumpet and organ.
This week we’ve raided the Pipedreams archive and have come up with a few surprises in celebration of history’s foremost pipe organ master.
Put some spring in your step with this week’s show, and perhaps even respond to the urge to get on your feet and troop around with these parade pieces and processionals for diverse occasions. Whether it be a pompous processional from Paris, or a splashy sound-off by Sousa, our program guarantees to make you move up out of your chair, fall in and straighten that rank and, in response to irrepressible rhythms and March Again.
This week’s broadcast features memoriable contributions to the repertoire, both old and new, for organ and orchestra from France.
It bides its time mostly on the sidelines, yet the humble harmonium has a story of its own. Before compact digital keyboards and synthesizers, the reed organ provided efficient accompaniment for worship and a colorful resource for entertainment in the home. It even had some moments of glory on the concert stage. This is not your grandmothers Estey but an unsung marvel with magic to share. Reed My Lips…music for the harmonium.
This week, we ride into a fascinating world where aesthetics, politics and life experiences merge in the output of talented artists which will raise your spirit. Marvin Mills talks about his background and explores both the polyphony and the philosophy behind our multi-hued repertoire, as we experience Music of Color
Enjoy the fantastic sounds of organs in Denmark on this week’s show. We’ll start at Roskilde Cathedral where some parts date back to the 16th century and at the Holmens Church in Copenhagen. Dieterich Buxtehude got his start in Elsinore, founding a Baroque tradition further built upon in the 19th century by Gottfred Matthison-Hansen and in the 20th century by some authentic Danish moderns. Join us as we explore the music of the Great Danes.
We’re back in the saddle again, or if you prefer, on the bench and offering more unique performances recorded live. A continuation of the concert performances from last week, we are returning to the scene, IN CONCERT, Part 2.
If the number of recitals played each year is any indication, the art of the pipe organ in these United States is doing spectacularly well. This week, we lift samples from four different concert programs. Nothing replaces the excitement of being there for a live performance, even the best stereo in the world can’t compare, but you’ll get the idea as we draw from the energy our featured performers put forth as we find them In Concert.
Ten players tackle first symphonies by two famous blind Frenchmen, Louis Vierne [1870-1937] and Jean Langlais [1907-1991]. Featured Organs
…a tribute to one of America’s foremost recitalists and teachers, January 18, 1914 — September 19, 2003. Poise and brilliant playing were her hallmarks. They were evident at her national debut in 1942 and also in every recital presented during the next five decades. This week, we honor Catharine Crozier. She was an esteemed faculty member of the Eastman School, an internationally touring soloist, and an icon of integrity in her art. We'll hear Dr. Crozier in CD recordings and also in a remarkable recital performance from the Christian Science Mother Church in Boston, proving that she was still at the top of her form at age 76. We honor the life and memory of a revered teacher and organist of the top echelon.
We rejoice in new sounds for the new year by sampling recent installations in live concert recordings. Joyce Jones plays the four-manual Letourneau organ at Saint Andrew United Methodist Church in Plano, Texas; David Schrader exploits the twenty-three voices in the Jaeckel organ at Saint Mary’s Episcopal in Park Ridge, Illinois; and Marcus Saint Julian sets the wild echoes flying with the 35-stop Dobson organ at Saint Joseph Abbey in Saint Benedict, Louisiana. They only happen once, so click and listen to these Inaugural Pleasures.
