The organ is making a comeback. A cause for celebration, because with the enormous decline in church attendance and the increasingly infantilized enhancement of many church services, organs in many places had become almost redundant. Neglect of the instruments, fewer organists employed, no more audiences at concerts were the unfortunate consequences, but the tide is turning!
The younger generation of organ enthusiasts consisting of professional organists to the everyday person who enjoys hearing the organ whether or not in a church and/or during a service, have worked and continue to work to restore organ music to the place it deserves. The result is that concert cycles have emerged, organ walks, organ tours, more and more organ recordings, restorations have been carried out, are underway or are planned, new organs are being built and much more. The old audience, almost literally speaking, is being attracted back, but there is also a new audience discovering the organ independent of church services. More is also being composed for organ again, there are competitions for organists, composers and improvisation. Everyone can look forward to that. So the organ is not disappearing, quite the opposite. Here we discuss three organ CDs, with music that may or may not be religiously related. Let yourselves be swept along, dear readers.
Mixture, the night sessions
Organroxx released a CD with organ improvisations inspired by music from the Renaissance to today. This recording is perhaps the most striking of the revival of the organ that makes new initiatives possible. In addition to organ, Gregorian and Gregorian-based music is sung, with or without organ accompaniment. This in itself is not particularly new, but what is new is that a flugelhorn (bugle) is employed that improvises along with the organ and the singing. It doesn't stop at the meditative atmosphere of the Gregorian or the sometimes festive God-praising sounds of the organ. Jazzy and other contemporary elements cross through it all. Yet this CD does breathe a religious atmosphere and I would not want to hear a concert with these works in a concert hall, but only and exclusively in a Gothic or Baroque church. So the boundaries are not completely broken and they don't need to be nor is this required or questioned. Some (musically and artistically justified) respect for a church, even if it is no longer used for worship, is still appropriate.
Bart Wuilmus (organ), Jo Hermans (flugelhorn) and the Gregorian choir Cantabo recorded this CD in the dark hours of the day, the night that is, on the Pels organ and the Thomas organ of the Sint-Katarinakerk in Hoogstraten. Hence the title 'night sessions'. Mixture stands for the blending of the many elements one has at one's disposal from history to the present. The musicians have put together an intelligently composed CD with the heritage of Christian faith and its associated rituals as a common thread. The CD fits nicely into the revival of organ music with a broader approach. It is also nice that one doesn't just break with the solemn church services that for centuries determined, influenced and gave direction to life in our regions, also musically. Anyone looking for a somewhat different yet faithful recording with the organ as its core will make a good choice with the purchase of this recording.
- WHAT: Mixture The Night Session, organ, hornflugel, Gregorian
- WHO: Bart Wuilmus (organ), Jo Hermans (hornflugerl) Cantabo (Gregorian)
- RELEASE: Organroxx
Organ music in the cathedral of Sankt-Gallen
Switzerland is not only the land of pointed mountains, it is also a country that offers much culture, including through the organ. Think of our Flemish artist Els Biesemans who is one of the greatest names there. Here we listen to mainly 20th century organ music that is worldly with or without a religious slant. Willebald Guggenmos virtuously plays the organ of the cathedral of Sankt-Gallen, the fourth CD in an entire series 'Musik aus der Kathedrale Sankt-Gallen'. Well-known and lesser-known names are brought together with works that form a fine whole. Guggenmos provides a sample of organ music that can be freely played in a program that has a fine harmony and doesn't jump from pillar to post by presenting works from a wide range of style periods. An approach that has my sympathy.
Charles M. Widor, Jacques Vogt, Johann Gustav Eduard Stehle, William Faulkes, Frank Tirro, Tomás Garbizu, Lionel Rogg, Egil Hovland, Olivier Messiaen and Marcel Dupré all wrote major organ works, one majestic, the other subtle, but together on this recording they form a whole that is sure to captivate the enthusiast.
The large organ from 1968 of this cathedral also lends itself excellently to the late Romantic and more modern works from the last century. Good then that this CD saw the light of day.
- WHAT: Organ Musik St. Gallen Cathedral
- WHO: Willibald Guggenmos
- RELEASE: TYXart (© cover) TXA 18108, realization Chromart Classic
Bach is not missing and never will
Shelves full of CDs of Johann Sebastian Bach? It can be done without effort. Not that it has to be, it may be. If you want to start or supplement a collection, then Aliud has a double CD to offer you, recorded on the Christian Vater organ of the Sankt-Peterkirche in the German Melle (not the East Flemish Melle near Ghent). The organist on duty is the Dutchman Vincent van Laar who gives concerts just about everywhere.
Van Laar had the opportunity on this double-cd to record the chorales from the Leipzig manuscript completely, supplemented with the Schübler chorales. Bach, in my and many others' view, truly expressed himself most fully when composing for organ. He had at his disposal in Leipzig an instrument of the highest caliber, and he was not bound by the limitations of too small a choir and/or instrumental ensemble or musicians who did not fully meet his demands. Here he could do as he pleased, and it is stating the obvious to say that his most majestic and impressive music, but also his most fragile little works of art were written for organ. Do not interpret this to mean that Bach's other music does not meet these standards. His genius was so great that with minimal means he achieved the maximum. But anyway, the organ it is.
Vincent Van Laar plays sensibly, transparently and easy to follow. He gives the organ the chance to breathe so that too many sounds do not merge into each other as a hollow jumble, which sometimes happens. A light touch, clarity, musicality and Bach: a cocktail that leaves you wanting more. Baroque at its finest, no doubt about it.
- WHAT: Johann Sebastian Bach, The organ chorales of the Leipzig manuscript, Schübler chorales
- WHO: Vincent van Laar
- LABEL: Aliud, ACD BN 103-2
- Featured photo: © Pixabay.com - Free Photo