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Titulaire des grands orgues
Aug. 4th, 2019 02:06 pmI would have liked to go to Saturday night's Prom with Pekka Kuusisto, but decided it would be a struggle to combine it with the Sunday morning concert, so I listened at home instead. It certainly was an interesting concert, but sometimes you have to make choices.
The programme for the 2019 Proms season was announced a couple of days after the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris, so it was surely a coincidence that this year's organ prom was to be given by one of the chief organists there, Olivier Latry. Dealing with the vagaries of Sunday morning transport, I arrived as the queue was just entering the hall; as I've noted previously, it doesn't matter where you stand for these concerts, and indeed a few of the rail regulars were to be found recumbent in the centre of the arena. I took up a fairly central position in the spaced-out second row; I was pleased to see that, by the time the concert was due to start, the arena and seats had filled out respectably.
The programme comprised several transcriptions of popular classical music; beginning with Khachaturian's Sabre Dance transcribed by Kalevi Kiviniemi and de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance transcribed by Latry himself. Then on to an Adagio for Mechanical Clock by Beethoven; the programme notes explained the background of this curious device.
The first of two major works in the concert was, perhaps inevitably, Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV565. Or was it? Again, the programme notes proved useful. There is no autograph, and many scholars question whether it is originally an organ work, or whether it is by Bach at all, as it contains some distinct features that don't appear in other Bach works. But an interesting counter-argument is that the octave passages were Bach's way of dealing with an inadequate instrument in Arnstadt. Interviewed on Saturday evening's Proms Encore, Latry discussed the question of whether the Royal Albert Hall organ was an appropriate instrument for such a work (let us assume it is more adequate than the fateful Arnstadt one). Of course it isn't the sound Bach would have heard; but great composers have always been at the bleeding edge of music technology for their times - the development of the piano is clearly seen in the course of Beethoven's sonatas - and, in any case, you might argue that organs are all such unique instruments that every performance is a transcription of sorts. Latry did use some unusual stops, an example of a little originality being successful for performance of such a well-known work.
Next, paying homage to Bach in various ways, Eugène Gigout's Air célèbre de la Pentecôte and Widor's Bach Memento No 4: Marche du veilleur de nuit wrapped around the second major work, an arrangement by Jean Guillou of Liszt's Prelude and Fugue on the theme B-A-C-H. The final programmed work was Lemare's transcription of Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre, again successfully using some unusual stops.
Latry followed this with an improvisation combining themes from Weber's Invitation to the Dance and Berlioz's Hungarian March. I might have thought the concert was over, but there was a further encore. Oddly I had been wondering earlier in the concert whether Boëllmann's Suite Gothique had been performed at the Proms (a little research reveals it was performed in the Queen's Hall in 1897). Well, now at least the Toccata has been performed on the 9997 pipes of the Royal Albert Hall organ.
The programme for the 2019 Proms season was announced a couple of days after the fire at Notre-Dame de Paris, so it was surely a coincidence that this year's organ prom was to be given by one of the chief organists there, Olivier Latry. Dealing with the vagaries of Sunday morning transport, I arrived as the queue was just entering the hall; as I've noted previously, it doesn't matter where you stand for these concerts, and indeed a few of the rail regulars were to be found recumbent in the centre of the arena. I took up a fairly central position in the spaced-out second row; I was pleased to see that, by the time the concert was due to start, the arena and seats had filled out respectably.
The programme comprised several transcriptions of popular classical music; beginning with Khachaturian's Sabre Dance transcribed by Kalevi Kiviniemi and de Falla's Ritual Fire Dance transcribed by Latry himself. Then on to an Adagio for Mechanical Clock by Beethoven; the programme notes explained the background of this curious device.
The first of two major works in the concert was, perhaps inevitably, Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV565. Or was it? Again, the programme notes proved useful. There is no autograph, and many scholars question whether it is originally an organ work, or whether it is by Bach at all, as it contains some distinct features that don't appear in other Bach works. But an interesting counter-argument is that the octave passages were Bach's way of dealing with an inadequate instrument in Arnstadt. Interviewed on Saturday evening's Proms Encore, Latry discussed the question of whether the Royal Albert Hall organ was an appropriate instrument for such a work (let us assume it is more adequate than the fateful Arnstadt one). Of course it isn't the sound Bach would have heard; but great composers have always been at the bleeding edge of music technology for their times - the development of the piano is clearly seen in the course of Beethoven's sonatas - and, in any case, you might argue that organs are all such unique instruments that every performance is a transcription of sorts. Latry did use some unusual stops, an example of a little originality being successful for performance of such a well-known work.
Next, paying homage to Bach in various ways, Eugène Gigout's Air célèbre de la Pentecôte and Widor's Bach Memento No 4: Marche du veilleur de nuit wrapped around the second major work, an arrangement by Jean Guillou of Liszt's Prelude and Fugue on the theme B-A-C-H. The final programmed work was Lemare's transcription of Saint-Saëns' Danse macabre, again successfully using some unusual stops.
Latry followed this with an improvisation combining themes from Weber's Invitation to the Dance and Berlioz's Hungarian March. I might have thought the concert was over, but there was a further encore. Oddly I had been wondering earlier in the concert whether Boëllmann's Suite Gothique had been performed at the Proms (a little research reveals it was performed in the Queen's Hall in 1897). Well, now at least the Toccata has been performed on the 9997 pipes of the Royal Albert Hall organ.