Evidence against organ being an upcoming performance at St George’s, Hanover Square, in modern dress German with an orchestra. And while the version offered by King's College Chapel says nothing about modern dress German, it says nothing about organ either. Evidence for, the Wikipedia entry for the Passion does talk of organ.
Back to the Festival Hall where there was a fullish house, including quite a lot of organ buffs and quite a lot of talk near us of the RCO. Organ looking very impressive, lit up in a dull, soft blue, and occupying most of the business-end wall of the hall. Seats towards the back of the front stalls, spot on, and there was no need of that irritating screen which they had at St John's to make up for facing the wrong way (see 25th January).
Lights down for Latry who has a pleasing stage presence, but to find that the two large illuminations on either side of the stage were to be left on, their position and vulgarity detracting in some large part from the fine fifties design of the hall at large. Furthermore, looking ahead, there were some distracting light effects during the performance, highlighting the deployment of this or that bank of tubes. We would have been much better off without either, despite the fairground associations of organs. A rather different sort of distraction was provided in the first half by a young lady page turner, dressed to kill and who had to lean very awkwardly over the organist's bench to do her business. It must have been very tiring, but she clearly thought it was worth it.
Florentz and Messiaen impressed in a quiet way, exhibiting the fine tone of this organ. Also reminding one of the odd nature of the organ, with the organist being able to produce sustained notes at a volume and for a duration of his choosing from lots of pipes at the same time. Quite unlike any other orchestral instrument and definitely, for me anyway, looking ahead to our days of synthesizers, keyboards and unpleasant levels of noise. We also learn that both large organs and modern organ music are rather French things.
We had the Widor, having bought tickets to hear the 'Rite of Spring' because, as Latry explained in not terribly intelligible English, there was some IPR or copyright problem with his doing the transcription for organ: one got the impression that he was rather cross about it. Perhaps it was one of his party pieces as the Professor tells me that 'titular Organist of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris, Olivier Latry is one of the true pedagogues of our era. He will utilize all the colors in the powerful Walt Disney Concert Hall organ for his transcription of Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring for two organists', back in 2012 and apparently spurning the transcription by Stokowski.
The up side was that we had an exhibition piece for organ from Widor, which included what I now know to be the famous Toccata which BH had thought to have had at our wedding, to be put off by the church organist (St. Martin's at Exminster), who explained that his organ had a few stops missing and was not really up to it. However, the Widor was very good. Very good in its way that is, not really the same as the chamber music of which we hear a lot more at all. I wondered how much this was to do with having just one player: how ever many bells and whistles you gave him you were hearing the product of just two people, the composer and the interpreter, rather than, say, five. Maybe I would be more impressed by Bach - and certainly the 'Art of Fugue' on a small portable organ set up in the adjacent Elizabeth Hall had impressed a few years previously (see March 15th 2009 in the other place).
The encore took the form of a very flashy improvisiation on a very simple tune. Not clear at all how much notice or practice Latry had, but we were all very taken with it. Very enthusiastic applause. I associate to the banjos in 'Deliverance', as good on YouTube as I remembered.
Off to the Library to reserve what looks like the standard book for beginners on the building of organs, by one P. Williams.
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