| About Pianonoise Radio: Technically, this is not a radio station: it's simply a playlist. My plans for an internet radio station changed when Yahoo released a Web Player in August of 2011. Since all you have to do is click on the play button of the first (or any other) selection below to hear the entire playlist without interruption, it seemed unnecessary to start an actual radio station. Basically this feature is an on-demand broadcast of some of the music and commentary available in the site's MP3 index; however, if you are not in the mood to listen to 44 Joplin Rags before moving on to something else--if, in other words, you want some variety rather than listening to the entire archive in alphabetical order, this is your item. |
Pianonoise Radio on demand
| Jan 10-Feb 9: The mighty and not-so-mighty pipe organ This month's program includes some organ music of the majestic, thrilling variety, as well as some things which are more modest in length and volume. I open with Gigout's Grand (and I do mean grand) Choeur Dialogue and close with the hair-raising Toccata and Fugue. In between, several pieces that reveal the organ's more intimate side, including the first part of a wonderful collection based on Gregorian chants by the same Eugene Gigout, a collection I just discovered this week (talk about fresh off the press!). I hope its charms are evident even if the flute stops are a little out of tune. And what program would be complete without engendering a little controversy, even if only of the organist-nerd variety (see below). app. 35 mins. |
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| Gigout: Grand Choeur Dialogue (from "Six pieces for organ") |
I may have regular access to a pipe organ
(and a Steinway piano) but I do not have regular access to a
cathedral, which is why the version of Gigout's Grand Choeur
Dialogue you are listening to has some extra reverb added! (an
alternate version to the one posted in the MP3 index). Still,
you get a pretty good idea what the organ at Faith UMC sounds
like at full blast, and might sound like without so
much of that bright orange Methodist carpet. Gigout's Album Gregorianne consists of four volumes and around 200 little pieces of music. The first eighth of that is given here; the last four pieces are only a line long, but the rest are delightful miniatures, long enough to make a pithy musical statement, even if the last four are only long enough to say a musical "Amen." Bach's "Little Organ Book" (for which, apparently, Gigout's collection was meant to prepare the student) contains this setting of "Lord Jesus, I Call to You"--subdued, penitent, maybe anguished, (registered here for soft flute stops alone) but Telemann gives us a taste of the gilded Baroque with two short settings of the hymns "Lord Jesus, Turn Toward Us" and "Now Thank We All Our God." Then it's time for a uniquely registered account of Bach's "Come, Creator God, Holy Spirit." This is usually heard with all the stops pulled out in the version Bach later revised for his residence in Leipzig. That score is marked "full organ" but this earlier version is not, prompting the question "Did Bach change his mind?" Or did he have a fuller sound in mind from the beginning and simply wish to make it clear in the later edition? We'll never know, though I'm waiting for mail from confused and/or irate organists about this renegade rendition. If you want to hear the blastissimo version, there are plenty of them on Youtube. Finally, the organ recovers its ability to shake the roof tiles (and just after we got them replaced, too!) with Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue in d minor, possibly the most famous piece of organ music Bach may never have written! |
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Gigout: Gregorian Album, vol. 1A,
part one I. II. III. IV. V. VI. VII. VIII. IX. - XII. |
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| Bach: Ich ruf' zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ | |
| Telemann: Herr Jesu Christ, duch zu uns wend | |
| Telemann: Nun danket alle Gott | |
| Bach: Komm, Gott, Schopfer Hieliger Geist | |
| Bach: Toccata and Fugue in d minor |
I know, this is pianonoise, and I keep playing the organ!
Actually, our Steinway B is getting a
damp chaser
installed this week (Jan 10) and should be back in tune by February.
Piano recordings will start rolling off the factory fingers in a few
weeks.
michael@pianonoise.com