Carols and Midnight Mass at Notre Dame, New York
December 28, 2012
With minimal choir available for Christmas, this is what we did. It was glorious.
UPDATE: A number of people on the PIPORG-L have asked me if I could post, as one of them put it, “even a verisimilitude” of what the instrument sounds like in the room. So today between liturgies I quickly played through a little music to give some idea. It’s recorded simply via the internal microphone of a MacBook Pro and from the organ loft very near the console (as you can tell when I sneeze), so it doesn’t get the full effect of the space. But you get the idea, I believe, that it’s a pretty grand sound in there. These are off-the-cuff performances with flaws, but you’re interested in the sound, not in the artistry. Organists will hear an occasional pipe not speaking in time, and for the “Greensleeves,” I had to alter the registration on account of dead notes and even rearrange a few of the notes to accommodate the fact that the combination action is, well, out of action. But, again, I think you get an idea. It is very much to be hoped that this 89-year-old instrument, unaltered except by much wear and tear, will soon be brought back to its pristine state.
The samples are these. Click on each to hear:
Noël Suisse (Daquin)
Prelude on “Greensleeves” (Purvis)
And a couple of examples of hymn-accompanying plena
Merrily On High
December 20, 2012
If you’re one of the many millions who avidly follow the famous Lessons and Carols from King’s College, you may enjoy this chat with Stephen Cleobury, and this fine run-through of a carol, straight-forwardly sung.
Bach’s Signature
December 3, 2012
There was no end to the ingenuity of Johann Sebastian Bach. If you read this single note with all the clefs and key signatures that he provides, B A C and H all emerge from the puzzle.
(Tip of the hat to Mary Ann Hart)
A Poignant Premiere in Captivity
November 27, 2012
Original program for the premiere of Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time” in a prisoner of war camp, designed by one of the inmates
Photo courtesy of the Birmingham Contemporary Music Group
A Day at Montserrat
October 3, 2012
An unmethodical selection of photos from another great day at a unique place. Thanks to the hospitality of Dom Jordi Piqué, I also got to play the magnificent new organ.
Au revoir, Été!
September 21, 2012
A once hugely popular song sung in the old manner:
Dickens and Music
September 14, 2012
Did you know that the active music-lover Charles Dickens met composers like Chopin, Mendelssohn, Auber and Meyerbeer, as well as Jenny Lind,Paganini and Joachim? Now there’s a Dickens music festival in Kent, which you can read about here. (The link also brings a highly interesting chamber performance of a movement from Mahler’s Fourth Symphony.)
Travels Along the Costa Brava
September 10, 2012
A selection of photographs here of journey on August 24 with Catalan composer Albert Carbonell, to visit the country estate of Catalan composer Edouard Toldrà (the fiftieth anniversary of whose death is this year), to meet with the journalist and author Jaume Comellas, to visit seaside towns and hear a luminous performance by the Quartet Casals at the Vilabertran Festival, thanks to Antoni Colomel. I’m a lucky man.
RogerEvansOnline.com 