A "D Minor" Monograph - E. Power Biggs

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COLUMBIA MASTERWORKS

IN SWEDEN: STOCKHOLM

IN GERMANY: WEINGARTEN LUBECK LUNEBURG HAMBURG STEINKIRCHEN NEUENFELDE HEIDELBERG

IN DENMARK: SORO

IN HOLLAND: GOUDA AMSTERDAM AMSTELVEEN

IN ENGLAND: LONDON WESTMINSTER ABBEY ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL (TOCCATA AND FUGUE IN D MINOR)

Bach’s Toccatta in D Minor recorded in matchless High Fidelity on 14 of Europe’s finest organs.

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JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH TOCCATA (AND FUGUE) IN D MINOR

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played by E. Power Biggs on 14 notable European Organs of the past five centuries

Exclusive trade mark of Columbia Records

... a High Fidelity survey of historic instruments and a Study in Organ Tone and Construction

Exclusive trade mark of Columbia Records

THE PLACES: (Side 1) SWEDEN Stockholm GERMANY Weingarten Lübeck Lüneberg Hamburg Steinkirchen Neüenfelde Heidelberg (Side 2) DENMARK Soro HOLLAND Gouda Amsterdam Amstelveen ENGLAND London London

THE INSTRUMENTS:

Oscarskyrkan

1953, Marcussen

Benediktinerabtei St. Jacobi Kirche St. Johannis Kirche St. Jacobi Kirche Steinkirche Nüenfelde Kirche Heiliggeistkirche

1737, Gabler 15th century, unknown; 1950, Kemper 1552, unknown; 1954, von Beckerath 1516, Stuven, Iversand; 1693, Arp Schnitger 1540, Hoyer; 1685, Arp Schnitger 1682, Arp Schnitger 1948, Steinmeyer

The Monastery Church

1846, Gregerson; 1942, Marcussen

St. Jans Kerk Oude Kerk Kruis Kerk

1736, Moreau 1725, Christian Vatter and J. Muller 1951, Flentrop

Westminster Abbey Royal Festival Hall (Toccata and Fugue)

1935, Harrison and Harrison 1954, Harrison and Harrison

■ A “D Minor” Monograph “And by the way,” remarked David Oppenheim, Masterworks Director of Columbia Records, whose suggestions prompted our high-fidelity adventure through the organ lofts of Europe, “be sure to record one piece everywhere. This will make an immediate comparison of all the different instruments you’re to play.”

So—here’s the “D Minor,” clothed in the sonorities of some five centuries of organ building. And for a musical common de­ nominator, what could be more appropriate than this most famous piece of the organ repertoire? Not only did Bach have this work up his own sleeve when he went a-touring, but he undoubtedly played it on two of the instruments here recorded—the organs in Hamburg and Lubeck, and pos­ sibly upon the third instrument with which he was familiar, the organ in Johannis Kirche in Lüneberg. The Steinkirche and Nüenfelde instruments, too, may well have been played by Bach.

Maximum effect and musical economy were never more wonderfully combined than in this famous Bach piece. With wonderful effect the D Minor stirs up the latent echoes of the splendidly reverberant European Cathedrals and Churches, with a thrilling assortment of thundering bass notes, of dis­

cord resolving to concord, and of fascinating and lingering die-aways!

Of all Toccatas written, never was one more pungent, nor yet more simple! For in these compact thirty bars Bach explores almost every splendid effect of which the organ is capable. Contrasts of forte and piano, chord and arpeggio, high pitch and low, sonorous discord turning to the sun­ shine of Major—all are here.

Consider Bach’s shrewd use of musical means. The opening note gains accent by a simple ornament.

The downward flourish to the tonic estab­ lishes key, and foreshadows the subject of the fugue.

Twice is the opening Toccata phrase re­ peated, each time an octave lower, landing on low pedal D. At once the sharp dissonance of C-sharp introduces the massive spread of

a discordant Minor ninth, resolving—agree­ ably—to the tonic Major.

Returning to the Minor, with the same chord of the ninth in figuration, the music takes an upward direction, but after two phrases in echo, tumbles again, in a chain of suspensions, to the pedal note (over which the player will have had his foot carefully poised!) as the foundation of another extended discord.

No Major resolution this time, but Minor, continuing with close reiteration on two manuals of passage work around an insistent dominant,

followed by an engaging contrast of ar­ peggio with chord (echo in reverse!).

The pattern then varies in pitch, culmi­ nating after a rhapsodic flourish on a high B-flat, in an inversion of the now familiar chord of the ninth . ..

...extended by virtuoso flourish, and finally curving up, as a flying buttress, to punctuate the final pedal solo leading to the cadence.

A handful of simple chords and a few na­ tural contrasts—such is the stuff of Bach’s

musical miracle, wrought out of practically nothing.

■ The Fugue is more formal, but after some bows to convention—and it could hardly be a fugue if the wonderfully flowing subject didn’t observe some fugal rules—Bach, in the episodic passages, again explores con­ trast of rushing scales and arpeggios. And, nearing the end, the composer abandons for­ mality, and in place of a stretto rounds out the work by re-introducing the free rhap­ sodic splendor of the Toccata.

■ The wonderfully articulate organs on which the music is heard may very well speak for themselves. Some principles of pipe speech, perfected hundreds of years ago by early builders and used today in the best of modern instruments are discussed in the notes accompanying Columbia’s “Lp” rec­ ord Set SL-219—“The Art of the Organ,” but it is perhaps worth touching once again on some of these basic musical elements, which often make representative European instruments something of a revelation.

There is, in these organs, a wonderful sense of presence to the tone, and a vital sense of accent. By certain techniques of voicing, this subtle accent in the speech of organ pipes, parallel to that of woodwinds, was once obtained as a matter of course. The early builders brought to perfection a skill in cutting and voicing pipes, usually without nicking the mouths and thereby retaining a transitory “chiff” at the beginning of each tone, affording musical delineation to a musical phrase. The “vowel” of sound is launched with a “consonant” of articulation.

Here, surely, is the essence of the socalled “classic” organ and the secret of its clear musical speech and charm. This sort of voicing requires considerable skill, a mu­ sical ear, patience, and a great deal of time, but all these the early artist-builders had in abundance. Moreover, this usually rather soft voicing also provides blending qualities between the stops and affords, in addition to the welcome virtue of accent, the color richness of these older instruments.

Thus, possibly in surprise, one makes the discovery that the classic organ was, and is, a very nearly perfect musical entity, and as a musical instrument is in principle as upto-date for us today as in Bach’s time. In any music—old or new—its sounds are in­ teresting and challenge the ear.

These conclusions are of course nothing new to leading musicians and organ builders of Europe, where classic principles are being worked out anew by many artist-builders.

Also, to our good fortune, they are becoming firmly established in this country through the work of such modern masters of the art of classic voicing as Schlicker of Buffalo and Holtkamp of Cleveland.

E. Power Biggs.