Favourite "organ moments" in orchestral music

[pjme]

You won't be surprised that I have a different opinion. 

I do love the combination organ & orchestra - be it Händel, Bach , Saint Saêns or Martinu...!I recently re-discovered Wallingford Rieger's Fantasy and Fugue for organ and orchestra. In spite of the old recording it still works its aural, atonal magic to me ( it is on YT).

Vitezlav Novak is another (late-Romantic) composer who used the (late 19th century) organ to great effect in several scores.

Beethoven's music - in any form or guise - is for other moments.
P.

[TheGSMoeller]

Strauss Alpine Symphony.

[Jo498]

I like Handel's organ concerti and also Bach's solo and the few cantata movements with prominent organ (like in BWV 146 what was to become the d minor keyboard concerto). But those "overwhelming" or "mystical" effects in late romantic organ+orchestra are not my cup of tea.

[amw]

I like Handel's organ concerti and also Bach's solo and the few cantata movements with prominent organ (like in BWV 146 what was to become the d minor keyboard concerto).

I've actually heard a really great arrangement of the Bach keyboard concerto BWV 1052 for organ and orchestra.

Not so fond of organ+orchestra in romantic and post-romantic music—either the organ completely blends in with the texture and is inaudible, or it's just ostentatious and I picture Count von Count cackling wildly at the keyboard. I do recall the organ as being both aesthetically justified and fairly tasteful throughout Mahler 8, though.

[Jo498]

I have an organ concerto version/reconstruction of BWV 1052 with Schornsheim and the Leipzig Bach Collegium (early/mid 1980s recording).
I'd have to re-listen to Mahler 8 but otherwise I often tend to agree with the Count von Count/Nosferatu/1920-30s horror movie association. Interestingly, I have similar associations with some of the orchestral arrangements of Bach organ pieces by Stokowski and others.

[vandermolen]

Interesting thread.

I certainly agree about Bax's 'Christmas Eve' a wonderful and little- known score which is deeply moving.

Vaughan Williams: Sinfonia Antartica - although in the recently issued Rozhdestvensky cycle on Melodiya the organ goes a bit 'Dr Phibes' at one point - still, it is a fine performance.

I agree about the Janacek GM too.

VW Job - yes, that is a fine moment.

Vitezslav Novak 'De Profundis' - a very moving work written during the Nazi occupation of Czechoslovakia:

Here is a link:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xGsuZ2T0Xfw

[jochanaan]

Really, I though the organ was more or less ad lib. (doubling the bass line) in Beethoven's Missa and is often left out altogether?

An organ part is present in the score, but at various times B writes "senza organo" and the bass line is doubled (possibly as a kind of continuo). However, at no point does the organ play anything independent, and it's possible that he included the instrument only for liturgical use (as if this work was ever used in an actual service). But I've never heard the organ in any performance I've encountered, live or recorded.

I remember the organ from my recording by Karl Bohm and the Vienna Philharmonic, made in the 1970s.  So, most likely, this is a feature peculiar to this recording but not alien to historical performance practice.

[Earth and Air and Rain]

Respighi : Vetrate di chiesa:
https://youtu.be/pidXzX0wZf0

The Respighi absolutely gets my vote -- Church Windows (Vetrate di chiesa) is a wonderful suite, and that sudden pipe organ solo is an awesome moment.  Particularly to a live concert audience unfamiliar with it, I expect -- but it's so seldom performed by major orchestras, that one would rarely have a chance to find out.  That Cincinnati recording on Telarc is glorious, even more so than Simon's on Chandos.

Despite the tacked-on program which was absent from the lovely piano suite it's based on, I think Vetrate is overall more attractive than Pines of Rome, far more worthy of a spot in the repertoire than Festivals, and nearly as deserving as Fountains.  Gotta have a real organ for the proper effect, though, which limits the venues.

[vandermolen]

The Respighi absolutely gets my vote -- Church Windows (Vetrate di chiesa) is a wonderful suite, and that sudden pipe organ solo is an awesome moment.  Particularly to a live concert audience unfamiliar with it, I expect -- but it's so seldom performed by major orchestras, that one would rarely have a chance to find out.  That Cincinnati recording on Telarc is glorious, even more so than Simon's on Chandos.

Despite the tacked-on program which was absent from the lovely piano suite it's based on, I think Vetrate is overall more attractive than Pines of Rome, far more worthy of a spot in the repertoire than Festivals, and nearly as deserving as Fountains.  Gotta have a real organ for the proper effect, though, which limits the venues.

+1

[Cato]

The Respighi absolutely gets my vote -- Church Windows (Vetrate di chiesa) is a wonderful suite, and that sudden pipe organ solo is an awesome moment.  Particularly to a live concert audience unfamiliar with it, I expect -- but it's so seldom performed by major orchestras, that one would rarely have a chance to find out.  That Cincinnati recording on Telarc is glorious, even more so than Simon's on Chandos.

I have that CD as well, and it is an excellent performance!

[TheGSMoeller]

Strauss Alpine Symphony.

+1

[PerfectWagnerite]

No doubt it is also very impressive in the final moments of the Mahler Resurrection, if you can hear it through all the other din. (I am fairly sure the two or three live performances I have heard, excerpt for Gilbert Kaplan in 1997 at the Royal Albert in London, didn't use an organ at all.) But it is also impressive, and audible, at the start of the Mahler 8th, I being one of the people who like the opening movement of that work far more than the other.

That organ entry is rather pronounced, in any decent recording you should hear it well. When it enters the orchestra isn't really that loud, but gets more busy a bit later.

[SymphonicAddict]

The Respighi absolutely gets my vote -- Church Windows (Vetrate di chiesa) is a wonderful suite, and that sudden pipe organ solo is an awesome moment.  Particularly to a live concert audience unfamiliar with it, I expect -- but it's so seldom performed by major orchestras, that one would rarely have a chance to find out.  That Cincinnati recording on Telarc is glorious, even more so than Simon's on Chandos.

Despite the tacked-on program which was absent from the lovely piano suite it's based on, I think Vetrate is overall more attractive than Pines of Rome, far more worthy of a spot in the repertoire than Festivals, and nearly as deserving as Fountains.  Gotta have a real organ for the proper effect, though, which limits the venues.

Absolutely!! I agree