Thread 10820 has a few organists listed.

On the other hand, they come cheap and are very easy to get along with.

Bach was the best at composing, now he is decomposing.

Walcha

The greatest organist ever was Johann Sebastian Bach.

Even within epochal specialty, the magisterial interpretations of, say, the fifties, will seem pitifully dated and not up to current scholarship's snuff.

So, basically, what we think today about how things should be played is superior to what they thought about how it should be played, even though they were generations closer to the people that composed the music and generations closer to the teachers over the years that carried that information forward.

Makes perfect sense to me and this means we should all stop listening to current performers since, years in the future, it will be proved that they also failed to come closer to how the music really should be played, based upon the stellar efforts of Buck Rogers, who will be reincarnated and then, recognizing the pressing need above all other things, enters his time machine and flies back in time to find out who is right...

It's way too easy to talk crap about people in the past without understanding what and why they did it. If it were not for those organists of the mid-1900's many of us would never had heard of Bach or had any interest in playing his music. But many did, even though the buildings and organs were not conducive - but their love of the music moved them to play it anyhow.
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Except that merely living contemporaneously to a great musical figure, say, Franck, does not necessarily translate into authoritative interpretations of such a figure. Humble little me can trace my tutorial lineage back to said Franck, as can, probably, quite a few of my colleagues on this forum, which makes any of us a greater interpreter of his music than a player who just happened to live at a time nearer his own. There is some of that peculiarly American disrespect (if not outright scorn) for scholarship in evidence here, the which would not be shared by more enlightened societies and folk.

There is scholarship, then there is scholarship. Of course, who wouldn't have wanted to actually hear Franck or any other composer play? His contemporaries indicated that he never played anything the same way twice - a composer privilege that is hard to argue with. Someone who studied with him knew how he played his works. Most teachers convey what they have learned to their students who then pass that knowledge along through succeeding generations of students.

Back to scholarship. There are scholars who agitate on minor points, propose performance practices that are in left field, and publish papers to draw attention to themselves. The "buzz" they create allows them to climb from teaching positions at West Mediocre College to positions in major schools. I don't have a lot of respect for this kind of "scholar." What they produce is often little more than their own preferences in interpretation not supported by composer contemporaries. I trust contemporary accounts more than some tin-eared wannabe 100 years after the fact, who is doing little more than promoting his own likes and dislikes. Not all scholarship is scholarly.

Then there are scholars like Beverly Jerold, a significant scholar who actually knows that of which she speaks and writes. She also calls down some of the supposed scholars who go off on speculative flights of fancy. I saw one letter from her in TAO responding to one of those flights of fancy where she indicated that her research did not support what that writer had proposed as authentic. She is the kind of scholar that keeps the organ profession honest. I respect her.

This is very difficult: even within, say, period performance circles, there are many differing theories, and hence, styles: Some people love Richter's Bach, others, Koopman, and blood is shed (look at YouTube comments) with people debated who is the 'Greatest' interpreter of Bach. (Oddly, I never see anyone say that Bach was the greatest interpreter of Bach.)

Whose Beethoven is better? Klemperer, Eliot Gardiner, Marriner, van Karajan, Ozawa? Much of this is subjective based on one's taste. I love period instruments - especially woodwinds (to me, there is nothing more beautiful than an 18th cent. Clarinet in A); other can't stand them.

Except that merely living contemporaneously to a great musical figure, say, Franck, does not necessarily translate into authoritative interpretations of such a figure. Humble little me can trace my tutorial lineage back to said Franck, [...] which makes any of us a greater interpreter of his music.

Although I agree with the thrust of MJO's point, this portion of it is easily demonstrated as patently ridiculous. Just consider our tutelage back to Bach. Widor and Lemmens, probably closer to Bach than any of us are to Franck, said that the Bach technique was absolute legato - a truly laughable assertion! On the other hand, those contemporaneous with Franck, likely in the same schools, with the same teachers, and with audiences having in mind a particular style, would likely have approximated his technique.

Tutelage means nothing without scholarship, as I'm sure Jackson will agree. Look at all the sources available, and interpret them intelligently. And eschew the intellectual sloppiness of those who think playing in the 50's was good enough.

It's interesting that no specific people are nominated in all of these comments. Were one to ask about violinists, you'd get a good list; about flutists, likewise; about oboe players, yes; about 'cellists, yes; about pianists, yes. None of the above composers, unless you go to Paganini, maybe.

mrcopper:

I nominated one organist. Actually Leonhardt is another.

To reply to the original poster, a few ideas:

Olivier Latry and Marie Claire-Alain are hard to beat as all-around interpreters of many genres. If I had to pick all-around performers it would be those two. I've heard both in concert on several occasions, and many recordings. I have never gone wrong with their recordings. That said, both are most truly experts and masters of the French symphonic and 20th century repertoire. Particularly Jehan Alain (of course) for Marie Claire, and particularly Messiaen for Latry.

For more of a pointed Bach and/or pre-Bach focus, I recommend Wolfgang Zerer and Harald Vogel and, closer to home, Craig Cramer (prof at Notre Dame). I love the way people like Latry play Bach as well, but just be aware of national differences. The Germans tend to play Bach very straightforward, with emphasis on clarity of execution of just what's on the page. The French tend to think about more nuanced phrasing and interpretation - easing in and out of phrases, etc. At times the German approach can seem cold, and at times the French approach can seem overwrought or overthought. But I think the very best players from both sides combine sensitive musicality with clarity for the "best" Bach playing.

This is just like Major League Baseball's decision decades ago to let the fans vote the starters for each division for the All-Star game. (And then once each division team had its nine starters, the opposing managers choose the rest of the team insuring "quality control."
And then one might ask, how important in the scheme of things is the selection of the nine starters for posterity's sake?

http://www.ScottBrothersDuo.com

https://www.youtube.com/user/scottbrothersduo

Jon Scott, organ
Tom Scott, piano video animation

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/whats-on/scott-brothers-duo-failsworth-taking-8579254

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuDHTfNYXpE
Read the SHOW MORE

Only in music could someone....

Does this possess even a shred of veracity?
It's just a wild-eyed boast.
What, pray, is being referenced?

(It seems to me that it happens all the time in 'science', and.....)

Who are the Best Organists, Dead or Alive?

Dead.

Dead.

A charming notion, Adam.

True, there never was, nor never will be the likes of what Bach is said to have been.

Perhaps ditto the average talented organist of the renaissance and baroque who could sit down and improvise toccatas, fugues, chorale fantasies, ricercars, passacaglias, and more, that would take many of us months to learn. Such was the musical culture of those eras.

Having said that, it is, I think, a certainty that the technique and virtuosity, not to mention the historic scholarship and pure musicianship of the great modern organists far surpasses that of any past age. And, it only promises to get better. A student at Rice's Shepherd School of Music, for instance, is expected to memorise something like an impressive Bach piece or some such every week and perform it flawlessly! Not too many generations ago a PhD in a major church or institution (if, indeed, he even had the PhD which is now de rigeur) couldn't begin to do that, let alone play with the scholarship evidenced by modern students and professors.

On the other hand, there are times when I'm listening even to the likes of Olivier Latry (and others!) improvise it seems like just so much blather, little real mastery of contrapuntal technique is evident, not so much formal interest, not so much real music. The great works of Bach and Buxtehude (not to mention Frescobaldi or Couperin, et al.), on the other hand, were lessons in what and how to improvise - and their students could do it.

best is relative and fleeting. better is the one that moves a soul toward eternal life by providing authentic worship through music whether it be chant, polyphony or an organ piece that moves deeply.

Charles

We should all play OUR best, not aspire to be THE best. Vanity.

We should all play OUR best, not aspire to be THE best. Vanity.

Vanity? You say that like it's a bad thing. ;-) Why not have both?

Too bad Florence Foster Jenkins didn't play the organ.

I think she does! I am sure I heard her or her close relative at a Baptist church.

Mr Cordova makes what would seem to be an unassailable observation!
What say you, Adam?


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The curious thing about the organ world, particularly with regard to the sorts of serious musicians and entertainers who inhabit it, is that it is an amalgam such as which I don't think exists in any other serious musical sphere. One finds in the gamut such impeccable scholars and artists as Hans Davidsson who make genuine contributions to our music and culture, to such gaudy entertainers as Cameron Carpenter; it treasures its Cliquots and Silbermanns, but doesn't even so much as squirm at the presence of theatre organs and their enthusiasts in its midst; the AGO and the entire organ community seem at home with both. This is existential oxymoronicity. I think nothing like this is to be found in any other serious music community, whether it be artists of the piano, violin, oboe, symphony orchestra, or so forth. Not only does the organ world save seats for its entertainers, it even teaches entertainment music in many of its hallowed universities. One of the university professors (who is one of our nations premier organists) here in Houston recently played a rededication recital (on an historic Holtkamp that reuter had tonally destroyed) which consisted mostly (about 7 out of 9 selections) of things like the Ride of the Valkyries. Such junk is actually being taught at his studio. Their recital programs are littered with it. This doesn't happen in the serious piano world, or any other world of serious music. Nor would the likes of the horrid scholarship of someone like Virgil Fox receive more than a raised eyebrow in any musical world other than that of the organ. Equally astonishing is the organ world's embrace of instrumental simulacra, whose apologists include otherwise highly qualified organists. These fakes, sophisticated and expensive synthesisers that they are, are often convincing to those who don't hear very well (or just aren't listening closely to what they're hearing), may be found, not just as practice instruments at home, but in important churches. In the piano world or any other serious musical world this would be unthinkable. There is something seriously amiss in the organ world. It defies understanding.

(There are, of course, pianists who are entertainers, but one won't find them being entertained by serious musicians, real pianists. These are two separate worlds.)

(And, of course, we and the world do need entertainers. But we shouldn't mistake them for, or equate them with, artists and scholars.)

In some ways, Fox was the renegade that could not resist the temptation to cross the line to entertain. Was it ego? Desire for fame and fortune or a desire to expose the world to the great eds of Bach?

Then again, Bach himself, was nurtured in a "religious music performance" environment. This is why the Catholic Church struggles with the clarity needed to discern between worship and performance, sacred and secular, authentic and fabrication.

The blur creates all kinds of confusion on philosophical, theological and artistic levels that is truly and ultimately rooted in the sin of division. Bach was probably the greatest musical genius of all time. His unfortunate spiritual situation gave rise to the odd blend of sacred and secular, the Cantata and Oratorio, which puts one foot in performance and another in meditation, not even pure worship. He always believed his music glorified God as he often wrote that familiar inscription on his works, but if we lived in a perfect world, Bach WOULD have been a Catholic, and we probably would have had many Masses and liturgical works from his quill. We don't, however, and our world (I included) revere our next to best Bach.

The wild and wooly world of organ performance truly does border on idolatry. OK... now I hear you all screaming "Puritan." But, consider what MJO is saying. This phenomenon exists in no other art - the phenomenon of confusion, the schizophrenic mentality that dominates the thinking of our own colleagues is both maddening and at the same time perplexing... and yet we carry on, bringing the likes of Wagner and Mozart into our sanctuaries, not quite convinced ourselves whether it is good or bad, right or wrong, or we just plain chalk it up to the excuse that this is an imperfect world, and then we carry that ultimatum right into Gods perfect Church, where it does not belong.

And then, the Hiroshima of Christendom occurs in VII, and all hell breaks loose (literally), and no holds are barred, nothing is forboden, and Konfuzion is made King. Aspiring artists (organists, performers and composers) wander into the sanctuary only to realize 'anything goes', and it is THERE that all of our anything goes.

MJO says let us not confuse entertainers with artists or scholars. I do not agree. We are All entertainers of God's pleasure, whether we are employed in the concert hall or the sanctuary... the crux of the matter is that we do not discriminate about WHAT belongs (artistically, theologically, philosophically) in one or the other. We have lost the sense of what is sacred (holy) to that which is not. We do not know how to burn the fire that creates smoke pleasing to God. We think the blaze of Cain is just as 'Abel'.

Frankly, much of it is no longer applicable to current rites, while some of it never fit within the mass, to begin with.

zackly!