RE: GG: Organ

["Chris Dawes" <orgalt@the-wire.com>]

K. Berry wrote:

> Is there anyone to fill in the analogy
> piano is to GG as organ is to ?? ... ?

Hello, f-miners.

I've been a lurker on this list for some months now, and have greatly
enjoyed it.

No instrument is more misunderstood by otherwise musically knowledgeable
people than the organ.  Its firm rooting in the ecclesiastical milieu, and
thoroughly on the fringes of musical life guarantees that, despite an
undeniable public fascination with it, for the most part it will stay this
way.

Allow me to make three points about the organ which illuminate this
question:

1) The organ is a very difficult instrument for people to understand.
Gouldian obsessions with the idiosyncrasies of different pianos aside, 'the
piano' is an instrument whose basic colour, character and capabilities are
somewhat consistent throughout the musical world.  'The organ' represents
more variety of sound, scope, national style and musical success/failure
than even most musical people can comprehend.  So talking about 'the organ'
as one musical instrument in the same sense as 'the piano' is a stretch.
Thus virtually every performance by an organist is a 'transcription' of
sorts.

2) Despite the inspiration and virtuosity available throughout the organ
world (believe me, it's there!), the latter evolved with a very specific
task to accomplish: accompanying church services and leading worship.  The
network of organ competitions, conservatories, recording contracts, recitals
and the other tools of a top professional's trade are much fewer than for
the piano; the competition purses much smaller, the recital audiences much
smaller, the record pressings much fewer.

We might just as well ask, "How can the pop music industry produce 'stars'
which are so much larger than those of classical music?", and have to
answer, because the pop music industry is designed to be large, and the
dollars and the infrastructure are there for it to support itself.  "Why
hasn't the organ industry produced and popularised a Glenn Gould?" --
because, unlike the piano industry, it's not designed to do that, nor
capable.

3) Classical music in the second half of the twentieth century, as Gould
rightly saw, is driven by recordings, and the experience of hearing the
organ usually suffers in the recorded medium.  When an instrument designed
to be so visually and acoustically at one with its surroundings has those
surroundings yanked away, the results have to become very different, and in
most cases, worse.  Even lovers of organ records will tell you "it's nothing
like being there."  Moreover, organ records are poorly marketed, poorly
distributed, and a hard sell because of the instrument's unfamiliarity, and
the negative connotations resulting from the number of poor performances
which happen in churches, funeral parlours -- even recital halls every day.

SO: there is no Gould for the organ not because there are no geniuses or
worthy performers -- they exist in plenty -- but because the organ industry
is not capable of financially patronising and successfully marketing one.
And if it could, the recording vehicle would be at best an unsatisfactory
means of spreading his or her fame.  The only widely-recorded organist who
even approached Gould's intellect, imagination and gifts is Peter Hurford,
but partly for the reasons mentioned above, and partly for other reasons, he
could never be a Gould.

Gould was never very interested in the organ, although he was born into a
colonial Toronto culture in which it had a unique place of prestige and
power.  I believe he never really worked at the instrument; never really
understood it, and was ultimately driven away by its many inherent
frustrations.

The only performers who surpass these barriers are those who devote a good
deal of their lives to the task.

And this tends to make them a bit weird.  ;-)

-Christopher Dawes
 St. James' Cathedral, Toronto

------------------------

Incidentally, I was organist at All Saints, Kingsway for one year before
accepting my current position at St. James' Cathedral.  The organ then, and
to this day, is a poorly-built and wholly unworthy descendent of the one
Gould used for the Art of the Fugue, and which was destroyed by fire.
Oddly enough, some of Hurford's most celebrated Bach recordings were done a
couple of blocks away from All Saints' at Our Lady of Sorrows, an organ I
knew well and love to this day.

I happen to like that recording, and feel that worrying too much about which
instrument it was written for is un-Bachian and even more un-Gouldian.