The Organ, Master of them all - general organ thread

[Mandryka]

Many intriguing suggestions here to investigate--thanks gentlemen! (any ladies here? ). I am still currently enjoying the Daniele Boccaccio Sweelinck set and Organic Creatures by Catalina Vicens.

I would like recommendations for Frescobaldi organ music. I bought the complete set on Tactus years ago, and I found it incredibly boring (I listened to every single disc). Given that he was such an important composer for the instrument and that others have also complained about that set, I am still curious to investigate the music--on historical instruments!

Thanks.

I would try this if I were you

[prémont]

I would try this if I were you

Only 32 minutes of music!

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8013573--kimberly-marshall-plays-frescobaldi

[Mandryka]

Only 32 minutes of music!

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/8013573--kimberly-marshall-plays-frescobaldi

Perfect!

[Mandryka]

This is played by a very good musician I think, Enzo Corti, unfortunately he uses a c19 organ though.

Other names to think about with organ only recordings - Ton Koopman, Rinaldo Alessandrini, Andrea Marcon, Deszo Karasszon, Roland Gôtz, Rene Saorgin. My own favourite by far is Sergio Vartolo. All should be easily sampleable via streaming platforms.

[prémont]

Perfect!

No, robbery 

[bioluminescentsquid]

I recently enjoyed this:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kxQYfbNJPUC4055Gxq5U_wFw7fwdALxyY

[bioluminescentsquid]

I think this one is a good, relatively unintimidating introduction to Frescobaldi. Includes stuff from both his famous Fiori Musicali, and "Fioretti" - cute little canzoni that although are not among Frescobaldi's best works are still nice to listen to.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kgRq2U277p2v1oinl0a9W36LWr3ALNahY

For the complete Fiori Musicali, I liked Maurizio Croci - played on a modern organ, although one built in old style and by the leading restorer of old organs in Italy (Marco Fratti).

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_mI4JKr4cxmDOQkFf2X_bmf_4dbKoYI9iQ

Extremely hard to find and with less-than-optimal audio quality but some of the most charming Frescobaldi I've ever heard is played by François Moreau on an early 19th century French organ.

Otherwise I haven't heard as much Frescobaldi as I should, there are also a lot of things that I am trying very hard to love (e.g. Foccroulle's Frescobaldi, or all the ones by Tamminga, possibly Cera's set but I haven't heard enough).

[Mandryka]

Extremely hard to find and with less-than-optimal audio quality but some of the most charming Frescobaldi I've ever heard is played by François Moreau on an early 19th century French organ.

Was this a whole mass, with all the singing?  Just speaking for myself, I've enjoyed Italian organ masses most when they're presented as masses in toto -- Lorenzo  Ghielmi did it with Frescobaldi's Messa della Domenica, and Cera did it with an Andrea Gabrieli mass -- one of my favourite recordings. I appreciate I must be completely weird for liking this sort of presentation, being an atheist too! 

By the way, Jean Marc Aymes did something strange with Fiori Musicali -- he added some harp music!  Very nice harp music!

[bioluminescentsquid]

Was this a whole mass, with all the singing?  Just speaking for myself, I've enjoyed Italian organ masses most when they're presented as masses in toto -- Lorenzo  Ghielmi did it with Frescobaldi's Messa della Domenica, and Cera did it with an Andrea Gabrieli mass -- one of my favourite recordings. I appreciate I must be completely weird for liking this sort of presentation, being an atheist too! 

I'm an atheist part-time organist, so could be worse!

Probably only mass-like in the sense that they added back the alternatim plainchant verses - from what I know, Fiori Musicali was really a collection of Frescobaldi's best works in the loose guise of masses, sort of like Bach's b minor mass. At least they didn't include the sermon and readings, unlike McCreesh's Bach Epiphany Mass! (One recent release that I otherwise like, Byrd Great mass by Odyssean ensemble, has the music interspersed with lessons and prayers - I used the skip button a lot)

With plainchant, I think it's hit or miss. I like it here, but it can get annoying like in Davidsson's Weckmann/Buxtehude or Berben's Praetorius.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

A fine book.

[vers la flamme]

Seems there's a lot of focus around early Baroque organ music in this thread. Any love for any 19th-20th century stuff, anyone?

I have been listening to a lot of Max Reger's organ music lately, the Naxos discs; I just got vols. 1-3 and 14 for a total of $8 Do I need this much? No, probably not, but it was such a steal I had to go for it. I'm getting a lot of enjoyment out of this stuff lately. Some of it is really heavy and borderline psychedelic, some of it is quite tranquil. Reger had a unique voice on this instrument.

Also been dabbling in César Franck's organ music. I got the first volume w/ Eric Lebrun on Naxos, sounds great to me. I don't know much about the French school but I am curious to get more into Franck and things like Vierne and Widor. Of course from a later era there is Messiaen, a phenomenal organ composer. I still have yet to pull the trigger on a box of his complete organ works.

Still also enjoying the Julia Brown Scheidemann greatly. I need to return to the record store and get the other Scheidemann Naxos discs they have.

[bioluminescentsquid]

I've played a bit of Reger and Mendelssohn, also made to play French Romantics as a student but frankly (Franckly?) a lot of the French Symphonic stuff that people really like just feels like complete gibberish to me - but completely my fault. (Sometimes I think the only French organ composer I like is Jehan Titelouze!)
Meanwhile German Romanticism is good for me, although in very small doses.

Have you heard Mendelssohn? Of course, his organ sonatas are well-loved. I particularly liked this one.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kku7zBeklRpn1JM4WXPbVXoNyBHYwdfwo
God bless Mr. Davidsson!

If you like Mendelssohn, quite a few German romantic composers were influenced by him - like Gustav Merkel, Josef Rheinberger, Niels Wilhelm Gade etc.
A particularly dramatic movement from Merkel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSon_GUWdU&list=OLAK5uy_lVtto_LoVZEMSwrqftgevvnWgYPD9xkXM&index=24

There's also Liszt, Reubke etc., if you like Reger.

[bioluminescentsquid]

A fine book.

Buddhism (which I grew up with) is much more compatible with atheism than uh, High Church Anglicanism 

[Mandryka]

Buddhism (which I grew up with) is much more compatible with atheism than uh, High Church Anglicanism 

I used to think that, but I don't any more, when you scratch the surface of Buddhism you find it's full of "gods" - immortal beings with super powers - called Bodhisattvas.

[bioluminescentsquid]

I used to think that, but I don't any more, when you scratch the surface of Buddhism you find it's full of "gods" - immortal beings with super powers - called Bodhisattvas.

Gruesomely off topic, but it's part of the joys of an online forum - talking about Buddhism in a thread about organ music.

Depends on what type of Buddhism - yes, in Mahayana (Practiced in east Asia) there are bodhisattvas to be worshipped, also miscellaneous deities in Vajrayana (Tantric) but I was thinking Theravada Buddhism, probably closest to the historical Buddha's philosophy, which is more or less nontheistic. Of course there are still supernatural things like reincarnation and different realms of rebirth, but a lot of it can be explained away as metaphor. Thus "atheistic Buddhism"

Now, here's something that's relevant to both organ music and Buddhism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d0D-1zk_3A

[vers la flamme]

I've played a bit of Reger and Mendelssohn, also made to play French Romantics as a student but frankly (Franckly?) a lot of the French Symphonic stuff that people really like just feels like complete gibberish to me - but completely my fault. (Sometimes I think the only French organ composer I like is Jehan Titelouze!)
Meanwhile German Romanticism is good for me, although in very small doses.

Have you heard Mendelssohn? Of course, his organ sonatas are well-loved. I particularly liked this one.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_kku7zBeklRpn1JM4WXPbVXoNyBHYwdfwo
God bless Mr. Davidsson!

If you like Mendelssohn, quite a few German romantic composers were influenced by him - like Gustav Merkel, Josef Rheinberger, Niels Wilhelm Gade etc.
A particularly dramatic movement from Merkel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZSon_GUWdU&list=OLAK5uy_lVtto_LoVZEMSwrqftgevvnWgYPD9xkXM&index=24

There's also Liszt, Reubke etc., if you like Reger.

I haven't heard any of the Mendelssohn organ stuff, nor Liszt, nor anyone else you've mentioned. But now I have something new to look into! Thanks!

[Mandryka]

There is a  "great" organ recording with the Mendelssohn op 65 sonatas, it is magnificent. But it may not be possible to buy it any more. it is by Gerd Zacher and it includes the Brahms op 122 preludes, equally wonderful, bold and imaginative. The organ, by Karl Schuke in Essen, is magic, and the sound take puts you very convincingly in the body of the church, as it were. If you want I will let you have the files.

Gerd Zacher is a magnificent and creative organist, here, in Bach and in Schoenberg, Kagel and Ligeti.

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Gruesomely off topic, but it's part of the joys of an online forum - talking about Buddhism in a thread about organ music.

Depends on what type of Buddhism - yes, in Mahayana (Practiced in east Asia) there are bodhisattvas to be worshipped, also miscellaneous deities in Vajrayana (Tantric) but I was thinking Theravada Buddhism, probably closest to the historical Buddha's philosophy, which is more or less nontheistic. Of course there are still supernatural things like reincarnation and different realms of rebirth, but a lot of it can be explained away as metaphor. Thus "atheistic Buddhism"

Now, here's something that's relevant to both organ music and Buddhism: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d0D-1zk_3A

Fundamentally, Buddhism is a-theistic and philosophical, specifically skepticism and pessimism.

[bioluminescentsquid]

I just happened on this while looking around for some good Mendelssohn.


https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=OLAK5uy_lR_ty91_s_Xx8GzCCDzNEF5VkL9vj7M2o

The fun thing about Mendelssohn is that it works well on a lot of different organ types - despite living in the 19th century and undoubtedly familiar with the organbuilding developments of the time, Mendelssohn regularly played on early 18th-century Silbermann organs and his music works well on Baroque organs. Davidsson would be an example of a very "baroque" and rather more intimate conception of Mendelssohn, which I admit I'm biased towards.

But here's Mendelssohn from the "other side," an organ that was state-of-the-art in 1851. Despite this, you can still hear a lot of Silbermann in it! Also included are some Bach works and transcriptions, fittingly played in a mid-romantic manner including a "bolero approach" Passacaglia and Fugue. (That is, starting quietly and building up into a loud climax, rather than full organ all the way, like how Baroque and classical organists would have played it)

I think the Querstand label is really worth exploring for all sorts of German organ music.

[bioluminescentsquid]

There is a  "great" organ recording with the Mendelssohn op 65 sonatas, it is magnificent. But it may not be possible to buy it any more. it is by Gerd Zacher and it includes the Brahms op 122 preludes, equally wonderful, bold and imaginative. The organ, by Karl Schuke in Essen, is magic, and the sound take puts you very convincingly in the body of the church, as it were. If you want I will let you have the files.

Gerd Zacher is a magnificent and creative organist, here, in Bach and in Schoenberg, Kagel and Ligeti.

I just heard the 1st and 3rd sonatas of this (thanks to Mandryka). First thing, the organ indeed is very nice - it is built in 1900 by EF Walcker (Schuke is the restorer), and is really late romantic, thick and truly symphonic, although maybe better for Reger than Mendelssohn. Zacher uses it well, he lets us hear some interesting sounds that it can make. The playing can be a little inconsistent - there are places that are wonderfully poetic (much of the 1st movement of sonata 1), but other places that are watery or even a little out of control (4th movement of sonata 1).