This is the final installment in the flashy French Organ Toccata series. The rest of the posts are here: part 1 part 2 part 3 part 4 and part 5
Steve thought he'd have a little fun. I was conducting a small group of singers from The Chorale from a seated position on the living room floor (I told someone it felt like being a cross between a conductor and a Rabbi). The singers were seated on couches and chairs or standing behind them. When I cut everybody off at the end, Steve kept right on holding the note. I turned to him and said, "so you're the guy during the Hallelujah chorus...!"
That joke immediately registers with singers, who recognize the spot toward the end of the piece when, after eight repetitions of the word "hallelujah!"--suddenly, there is a pause. Dead silence. Unless, of course, someone hasn't been counting their hallelujahs and sings an impromptu solo. woops.
The silence, of course, is followed by the grand conclusion, loud, majestic, and very slow. As we wrap up our series on Flashy French Organ Toccatas this is the last feature I want to point out--what happens at the end. We've noted that all of these toccatas are very busy--that there is a constant stream of notes, that most of them are very loud, that some of them have contrasting melodic sections in the middle before returning to the atmosphere of the opening, that the overall plan of these pieces is actually very simple but the shower of notes makes them sound complicated, and that they usually get louder toward the end, crescendoing to a mighty climax.
But all good things must come to an end. And if the piece is chugging along at 80 musical miles an hour, how is it going to seem over when it's over? How can you just suddenly stop a piece that hasn't even come up for air in several minutes and not seem as if you'd suddenly slammed into a brick wall?
Handel found the answer. Silence. It is such an arresting feature, after the constant babel, that it alerts us that what follows will not be business as usual, but instead the grand finale. Apparently, some of our French Toccatanist liked that idea so much they used it in the their own creations, 150 years later.
I'm going to post all six of the pieces we've talked about here, a grand review of the mighty French organ toccata, consisting of the piece which, for one reason and another, I happened to have recordings of (in case you were wondering about the criteria). In light of our present analysis, note the ending of the famous Widor Toccata. The recording follows the first edition--Widor later changed it so the high F continues to sound through the pause so that there isn't absolute silence before the final chords. The Yon follows the pattern. The Gigout follows the pattern. The Guilmant does not. The Dubois does not. He finds a way to apply the brakes by bringing back a snatch of the melodic middle section, as does Guilmant more fully. Some people like to pump the brakes; others come to a stop more smoothly.
Enjoy!
Widor: Toccata
Yon: Toccatina for flute
Guilmant: Allegro Assai
Gigout: Toccata in b minor
Dubois: Toccata
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Showing posts with label French. Show all posts
Monday, February 22, 2016
Friday, May 10, 2013
[Sic]
Our community choir is performing their spring concert this weekend, which includes a performance of the Faure Requiem. To mark the occasion, I thought I would post the complete organ works of Gabriel Faure:
There, that ought to cover it.
Faure was a church organist most of his life. And, for some reason, is among the ranks of composers who have decided to completely ignore that instrument, at least in terms of solo literature. But he loved writing for the piano and wrote quite a bit of wonderful music for the instrument (on Monday I posted one of his piano works).
I don't know exactly what it was about the organ that made Mr. Faure feel so uninspired; perhaps the rigidity of the official views on liturgically appropriate music had something to do with it. A Wikipedia article suggests it had more to do with the instrument itself. In any case, Faure played the organ every Sunday for years. What he played is a good question. Did he simply improvise everything and not write anything down? Confine himself to the works of others? Apparently he felt that his church position was just a job, and he saved his creative energies for something else.
Anyhow, I'd still like to post something French and unusual, so I thought I'd pick on another composer of the period, Jules Massenet. Last year I discovered a short piece of his on the interwebs. I think this little Prelude in C might qualify as the complete works of Massenet. Aside from being alive at the same time the two men don't have much in common besides ignoring the organ as a solo instrument.
Here it is: Prelude in C by Jules Massenet
There are times that one author, quoting another, and finding an error or omission in the source material, makes his audience aware of this fact by use of the bracketed term [sic]; thus it was, as if to say "that's the way I found it, folks, don't blame me." One curious effect of the strange collision of tones in the fourth measure (11 seconds into the present recording) is that I want to bracket it and write [sic] above it, saying "Look, I know it sounds like a wrong note, but the composer wants it that way; it's not my fault." It's a curious dynamic, because many times a composer writes a dissonance that, even if it sounds a little odd going by, turns into something wonderful by the end. But this may well be an example of a dissonance that doesn't really work. And so I'm issuing this curious little piece by the typically operatic composer with a little distancing. I don't really like this chord. And I'm not so sure about the one near the end, either. (it's at 1:45, and I'll give it this: it is a very interesting chord)
On the other hand, maybe I am being picky. Many people who point out flaws in other persons' grammar are. And sometimes they are even wrong. One book I read recently pointed out a flaw that wasn't there by anointing it with [sic]. Said infraction was of the its/it's rule. If you don't know how that one works (neither does anyone else) it is the one instance in which you do not put an apostrophe before the 's' if it is a possessive. That's because you would also have to do it for a contraction, and the way to tell whether the word is a contraction of "it is" or whether it owns something is not to use the apostrophe for one of them. It is the single case of the apostrophe s rule not being applied, and it throws everybody, including the esteemed author of the book in question.
So if you take your dissonance without cream and sugar you might wonder why I'm making such a fuss; besides, it goes by so quickly. On the other hand, some of us have much more dainty ears than others. I once had a woman ask me why I played so many wrong notes (she wasn't being rude, but you had to be there) and I think failure to appreciate these moments of intentional musical spice was the culprit.
All the same, I like to explore new and interesting bits of our expanding musical universe. If you do as well, you might not mind the two minutes it takes to listen to this orphan prelude. Then you can stun your friends by mentioning that the composer of Thais and other operatic episodes once upon a time wrote a short piece for solo organ, and that it sounds somewhat operatic as well, and has all the flavor of an Romantic character piece, which is the kind of thing you don't hear every day on the organ anymore.
Just remember, I warned you about that chord.
There, that ought to cover it.
Faure was a church organist most of his life. And, for some reason, is among the ranks of composers who have decided to completely ignore that instrument, at least in terms of solo literature. But he loved writing for the piano and wrote quite a bit of wonderful music for the instrument (on Monday I posted one of his piano works).
I don't know exactly what it was about the organ that made Mr. Faure feel so uninspired; perhaps the rigidity of the official views on liturgically appropriate music had something to do with it. A Wikipedia article suggests it had more to do with the instrument itself. In any case, Faure played the organ every Sunday for years. What he played is a good question. Did he simply improvise everything and not write anything down? Confine himself to the works of others? Apparently he felt that his church position was just a job, and he saved his creative energies for something else.
Anyhow, I'd still like to post something French and unusual, so I thought I'd pick on another composer of the period, Jules Massenet. Last year I discovered a short piece of his on the interwebs. I think this little Prelude in C might qualify as the complete works of Massenet. Aside from being alive at the same time the two men don't have much in common besides ignoring the organ as a solo instrument.
Here it is: Prelude in C by Jules Massenet
There are times that one author, quoting another, and finding an error or omission in the source material, makes his audience aware of this fact by use of the bracketed term [sic]; thus it was, as if to say "that's the way I found it, folks, don't blame me." One curious effect of the strange collision of tones in the fourth measure (11 seconds into the present recording) is that I want to bracket it and write [sic] above it, saying "Look, I know it sounds like a wrong note, but the composer wants it that way; it's not my fault." It's a curious dynamic, because many times a composer writes a dissonance that, even if it sounds a little odd going by, turns into something wonderful by the end. But this may well be an example of a dissonance that doesn't really work. And so I'm issuing this curious little piece by the typically operatic composer with a little distancing. I don't really like this chord. And I'm not so sure about the one near the end, either. (it's at 1:45, and I'll give it this: it is a very interesting chord)
On the other hand, maybe I am being picky. Many people who point out flaws in other persons' grammar are. And sometimes they are even wrong. One book I read recently pointed out a flaw that wasn't there by anointing it with [sic]. Said infraction was of the its/it's rule. If you don't know how that one works (neither does anyone else) it is the one instance in which you do not put an apostrophe before the 's' if it is a possessive. That's because you would also have to do it for a contraction, and the way to tell whether the word is a contraction of "it is" or whether it owns something is not to use the apostrophe for one of them. It is the single case of the apostrophe s rule not being applied, and it throws everybody, including the esteemed author of the book in question.
So if you take your dissonance without cream and sugar you might wonder why I'm making such a fuss; besides, it goes by so quickly. On the other hand, some of us have much more dainty ears than others. I once had a woman ask me why I played so many wrong notes (she wasn't being rude, but you had to be there) and I think failure to appreciate these moments of intentional musical spice was the culprit.
All the same, I like to explore new and interesting bits of our expanding musical universe. If you do as well, you might not mind the two minutes it takes to listen to this orphan prelude. Then you can stun your friends by mentioning that the composer of Thais and other operatic episodes once upon a time wrote a short piece for solo organ, and that it sounds somewhat operatic as well, and has all the flavor of an Romantic character piece, which is the kind of thing you don't hear every day on the organ anymore.
Just remember, I warned you about that chord.
Wednesday, February 6, 2013
Everyone's a critic (hopefully)
On Friday I posted some new (to me) organ music on this blog. Now I've had five more days to think about it and I don't like the recording very much.
Guilmant: Offertoire sur "Fillii"
Life can move pretty fast. One of my major roles in life is as church organist, which means services every Sunday, which means a new prelude and offertory every seven days. As a student in music school, we prepared one recital a year (at least until graduate school) which meant we had nine months to work on one (hour long) program. Now I burn through that much music every six weeks or so. And that's only for church (and not even on my native instrument!). The upside to this I have have gotten pretty good at learning music quickly, and pretty well. This afternoon I was marveling at how it appears that the several selections I've programmed for Lent seem to be preparing themselves on time, including one that has yet to receive more than two days of practice but is almost ready to go. The downside is that the music is pretty raw by the time I make recordings, generally about a week before I play them live (it's pretty standard to have spent two or three days on them by recording time). Recording makes me nervous, and therefore is a particularly useful part of the learning process, I think. But it is also a bit of a high-wire act.
Why am I telling you all this? And on a Wednesday, no less (if you're wondering, on Mondays I share piano music and blog about the listening experience, on Wednesdays I blog about better music making as a pianist, accompanist, choir member, etc., and on Fridays I share and discuss church music and related issues). Because my point today has to do with what may be the most important (and difficult to achieve) practice related ingredient of all of them. It's the one without which either of the last two topics I've discussed in this space (scale playing and repetition) are pretty useless: self criticism.
Criticism is a hard thing to have as part of your daily repertoire for the simple reason that it makes us feel bad. And many of us spend large parts of our day feeling bad about ourselves to begin with, so why make it worse?
The difference here is pretty important. What most of us engage in when we let those negative voices tell us things that make us want to give up or be jealous of others is inarticulate criticism. It's the vague sense that we just aren't measuring up--but it's vague. It doesn't tell us what we could do to improve, or how, and it doesn't leave us with a sense that there is a purposeful path we can follow to get there. It isn't realistic about whether we've invested the time and energy to get the results we want. It doesn't have an exit strategy. It just wallows. It's also a pretty natural response.
Several years ago I was giving a piano lesson and after the boy played his piece for me, I named a few things that needed improvement. Then I asked him what I'd said. He said "you said it was bad."
Oh boy.
"No I didn't," I began. In fact, I assured him, some parts of it were pretty good. But there were things that needed to get better. For instance, the hesitation between two notes here, the lack of a staccato dot there. Play it again, I said, and focus on those things and the piece will be better.
In other words, we've all got to develop a keen sense of diagnosing problems and finding ways to solve them, particularly when we don't have a teacher standing there to fulfill that function.
So here's what I'm thinking about last Thursday's recording. It is generally too slow. The tempo is 66 to the dotted quarter, actually, and I didn't have a metronome so I guessed, and I was wrong. Also, I can tell you what I was thinking on Thursday. I was thinking, I don't want to be another American organist who plays everything too fast. 66 seems like a fairly moderate tempo, and even though my gut is saying I should go a little faster, I'm going to resist that. Besides the piece is new and I could use the time to get the notes right!
In fact, I did get the notes right. I remember thinking, right after I finished playing it, that I had felt inhibited and not free enough. That the interpretation was cramped. But that I hadn't missed any notes that I knew of--that I'd covered the piece on the first take. Not bad, considering I knew perfectly well I wasn't entirely ready to play the piece for the microphone. It was part of what was making me so nervous in the first place.
Something else? The playing isn't even in the beginning. I think the tempo has a lot to do with that.
I'm not sure why, but there is a break between two pedal notes around 4:20 that I don't like. I'm not sure why that is because I was going from my left to my right foot at the time which should have made it easy to connect them. Maybe I freelanced for some reason in the heat of the moment. You may think that's a small thing but it bugs me and I intend to fix it.
Tomorrow I'm going to try again. I gave the piece a rest for a few days while I prepared two other pieces, and gave it another go yesterday. Today it is up to speed and I think generally more fluid. I'll see what I think about it after I listen to the results. Generally I like to take the time to second guess myself before I post something (because I always do) but I wanted to talk about a slice of my life and the makeup of this fascinating piece I'd just discovered and decided to share it in real time.
I won't play it in church until this coming Sunday anyhow. Meantime, another round of self-criticism has lead to more work, more discomfort, but in the end, better results. I'll let you listen to the this one as well.
Guilmant: Offertoire sur "Fillii"
Life can move pretty fast. One of my major roles in life is as church organist, which means services every Sunday, which means a new prelude and offertory every seven days. As a student in music school, we prepared one recital a year (at least until graduate school) which meant we had nine months to work on one (hour long) program. Now I burn through that much music every six weeks or so. And that's only for church (and not even on my native instrument!). The upside to this I have have gotten pretty good at learning music quickly, and pretty well. This afternoon I was marveling at how it appears that the several selections I've programmed for Lent seem to be preparing themselves on time, including one that has yet to receive more than two days of practice but is almost ready to go. The downside is that the music is pretty raw by the time I make recordings, generally about a week before I play them live (it's pretty standard to have spent two or three days on them by recording time). Recording makes me nervous, and therefore is a particularly useful part of the learning process, I think. But it is also a bit of a high-wire act.
Why am I telling you all this? And on a Wednesday, no less (if you're wondering, on Mondays I share piano music and blog about the listening experience, on Wednesdays I blog about better music making as a pianist, accompanist, choir member, etc., and on Fridays I share and discuss church music and related issues). Because my point today has to do with what may be the most important (and difficult to achieve) practice related ingredient of all of them. It's the one without which either of the last two topics I've discussed in this space (scale playing and repetition) are pretty useless: self criticism.
Criticism is a hard thing to have as part of your daily repertoire for the simple reason that it makes us feel bad. And many of us spend large parts of our day feeling bad about ourselves to begin with, so why make it worse?
The difference here is pretty important. What most of us engage in when we let those negative voices tell us things that make us want to give up or be jealous of others is inarticulate criticism. It's the vague sense that we just aren't measuring up--but it's vague. It doesn't tell us what we could do to improve, or how, and it doesn't leave us with a sense that there is a purposeful path we can follow to get there. It isn't realistic about whether we've invested the time and energy to get the results we want. It doesn't have an exit strategy. It just wallows. It's also a pretty natural response.
Several years ago I was giving a piano lesson and after the boy played his piece for me, I named a few things that needed improvement. Then I asked him what I'd said. He said "you said it was bad."
Oh boy.
"No I didn't," I began. In fact, I assured him, some parts of it were pretty good. But there were things that needed to get better. For instance, the hesitation between two notes here, the lack of a staccato dot there. Play it again, I said, and focus on those things and the piece will be better.
In other words, we've all got to develop a keen sense of diagnosing problems and finding ways to solve them, particularly when we don't have a teacher standing there to fulfill that function.
So here's what I'm thinking about last Thursday's recording. It is generally too slow. The tempo is 66 to the dotted quarter, actually, and I didn't have a metronome so I guessed, and I was wrong. Also, I can tell you what I was thinking on Thursday. I was thinking, I don't want to be another American organist who plays everything too fast. 66 seems like a fairly moderate tempo, and even though my gut is saying I should go a little faster, I'm going to resist that. Besides the piece is new and I could use the time to get the notes right!
In fact, I did get the notes right. I remember thinking, right after I finished playing it, that I had felt inhibited and not free enough. That the interpretation was cramped. But that I hadn't missed any notes that I knew of--that I'd covered the piece on the first take. Not bad, considering I knew perfectly well I wasn't entirely ready to play the piece for the microphone. It was part of what was making me so nervous in the first place.
Something else? The playing isn't even in the beginning. I think the tempo has a lot to do with that.
I'm not sure why, but there is a break between two pedal notes around 4:20 that I don't like. I'm not sure why that is because I was going from my left to my right foot at the time which should have made it easy to connect them. Maybe I freelanced for some reason in the heat of the moment. You may think that's a small thing but it bugs me and I intend to fix it.
Tomorrow I'm going to try again. I gave the piece a rest for a few days while I prepared two other pieces, and gave it another go yesterday. Today it is up to speed and I think generally more fluid. I'll see what I think about it after I listen to the results. Generally I like to take the time to second guess myself before I post something (because I always do) but I wanted to talk about a slice of my life and the makeup of this fascinating piece I'd just discovered and decided to share it in real time.
I won't play it in church until this coming Sunday anyhow. Meantime, another round of self-criticism has lead to more work, more discomfort, but in the end, better results. I'll let you listen to the this one as well.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)