Tag: organ

CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Organ

Anna Lapwood – Luna (CD Review)

 

Luna

Anna Lapwood

Chapel Choir of Pembroke College, Cambridge

Sony Classical

 

At 27, organist Anna Lapwood is a rising star, performing at the BBC Proms and recently being given the RPS Gamechanger Award at The Royal Philharmonic Society Awards. For her latest Sony recording, Luna, Lapwood focuses on transcriptions, a venerable tradition in organ music. Most of the transcriptions are Lapwood’s, and they prove that she knows the possibilities of pipe organs inside and out. Alongside staples of the classical repertoire, the organist plays a number of pieces from popular and film music. The blend of old and new transcriptions, as well as original organ works, creates a varied and attractive program. It celebrates the night sky, in a many-hued rendering.

 

Max Richter is an electronic musician whose work focuses on post-minimal ostinatos. The transcription of his On the Nature of Daylight layers wordless chorus – the Chapel Choir of Pembroke College, Cambridge –  on top of a chaconne in the organ in a sumptuous translation. Minimalism in general sounds great on pipe organ, and transcriptions of Philip Glass’s Mad Rush and Ludovico Einaudi’s Experience sound great here.

 

Film music also makes an impression. “Flying,” from James Newton Howard’s score for Peter Pan, is treated with contrasting stops and buoyant passagework combined with vigorous pedal motives. Dario Marinelli’s “Dawn,” from the score for Pride and Prejudice, employs the decorative chromaticism of the nineteenth century, making it an excellent choice to transcribe in the style of the French organ school.

 

In recent years, there has been a renaissance of the African-American Florence Price’s music. Her “Elf on a Moonbeam,” taken from the composer’s Short Organ Works, begins with incantatory arpeggios, gradually introducing an ascending melody accompanied by gospel-inflected chords. The central section contains puckish staccato harmonies, followed by a whole-tone transition that leads back to the gospel passage to conclude. Perhaps at some point Lapwood will record Price’s whole collection; Elf on a Moonbeam makes it seem promising.

 

“Grain Moon” by Olivia Belli is a mysterious, modally-inflected piece for which Lapwood employs the great variety of flute stops at her disposal. “Dreamland,” by Kristina Arakelyan, is filled with diaphanous textures and flowing arpeggios. Ghislaine Reece-Trapp’s “In Paradisum” contains several attractive melodies, and Lapwood distinguishes each with a different registration, providing a listening tour of the chapel organ at the Royal Hospital School, built in 1993 by Hill, Norman, and Beard.

 

My favorite piece on the recording is Ēriks Ešenvalds’s “Stars,” on which Lapwood again directs the Chapel Choir of Pembroke College, Cambridge. A work in the polychordal style, it contains stacked ascending entries and wide dynamic swells. The accompaniment is subtle, but includes a single-note refrain that distinguishes it from a merely supportive role. Ešenvalds is one of the most talented composers working today, and the choir does sterling work with the piece.

 

Popular classics, the Bach/Gounod Ave Maria, Chopin’s Nocturne No. 2 in E-flat Major, and, to close the album, a version of Debussy’s Clair de Lune, are all given sensitive performances. Lapwood is a gifted organist, and Arc also shares with us her talents as transcriber and choral conductor. It is one of my favorite recordings of 2023.

 

-Christian Carey



by Christian Carey
CD Review, Contemporary Classical, File Under?, Improv, jazz, Organ

Kip Downes: Obsidian on ECM (Review)

Kit Downes - Obsidian

Obsidian
Kit Downes, organ and composer; Tom Challenger, tenor saxophone
ECM Records

Prior to this recording, Kit Downes was primarily known as a pianist in jazz settings, notably leading his own trio and quintet. Obsidian is his debut CD as a leader for ECM Records; he previously appeared on the label as part of the Time is a Blind Guide release in 2015. However, Downes has a substantial background as an organist as well. The program on this recording consists primarily of his own works for organ, but there is also a noteworthy folk arrangement and engaging duet with tenor saxophonist Tom Challenger.

The organs employed on Obsidian are all in England, two in Suffolk at the Snape Church of John the Baptist and Bromeswell St Edmund Church, and Union Chapel Church in Islington, London. Instruments from different eras and in very different spaces, they inspire Downes to explore a host of imaginative timbres and approaches. Over an undulating ostinato, skittering solo passages impart a buoyant character to the album opener “Kings.” An evocative arrangement of the folk song “Black is the Colour” pits piccolo piping against ancient sounding harmonies in the flutes and bagpipe-flavored mixtures. “Rings of Saturn” is perhaps the most unorthodox of Downes’s pieces, filled with altissimo sustained notes and rife with airblown glissandos, an effect that is not found in conventional organ repertoire. The piece is well-titled, as it has an otherworldly ambience. Pitch bends populate “The Bone Gambler” as well, while vibrato and frolicsome filigrees animate “Flying Foxes.” “Seeing Things” is a joyous effusion of burbling arpeggios and the more usual fingered glissandos, demonstrating an almost bebop sensibility. Suitably titled, on “The Last Leviathan” Downes brings to bear considerable sonic power – with hints of whale song in some of the textures – and fluent musical grandeur.

Although some of the release seems inimitable, closely linked to Downes’s improvisatory and textural explorations, other pieces cry out for transcription; one could see other organists giving them a wider currency. “Modern Gods” is an exercise in modally tinged dissonant counterpoint, while “Ruth’s Song for the Sea” and the folk-inflected “The Gift” possess the stately quality of preludes.

The duet with Challenger is a tour de force, in which each adroitly anticipates and responds to the other’s gestures and even notes, as the fantastic simultaneities that occur at structural points in the piece attest. Once again, there is a supple jazz influence at work. While Downes provides room for Challenger’s solos, he also challenges him with formidable passages of his own. Obsidian contains much textural subtlety and fleet-footed music, but it is also gratifying to hear Downes and Challenger celebrating the power of their respective instruments. Heartily recommended.

by Christian Carey
Concerts, Contemporary Classical, Interviews, New York

New Music for the King of Instruments

Paul Jacobs
Paul Jacobs performs at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City this Wednesday, November 16 at 7:30 PM. Famed as an “evangelist for the organ”, Jacobs will play a 20th/21st century program that highlights not only the instrument’s traditional grandeur and sublimity, but also its range of emotion and insight.
John Clare spoke to Paul about the program, teaching organists new music plus composers about the organ, and some new works by Mason Bates and Michael Daugherty: mp3 file
An extraordinarily expressive performer and an intensely intelligent musician, Grammy Award-winning organist Paul Jacobs is helping the King of Instruments retake its rightful place in classical music. He is known for his marathon performances, which sometimes last up to 18 hours, of the complete works of J.S. Bach, Messiaen, and other composers, as well as his presentations of new works and core repertoire. Jacobs was invited to join the faculty of the Juilliard School in 2003, and was named chairman of the organ department in 2004, one of the youngest faculty appointees in the school’s history. He received Juilliard’s prestigious William Schuman Scholar’s Chair in 2007. Jacobs has played with numerous orchestras around the country, including the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Jacobs’ most recent album is a recording of Copland’s Organ Symphony with the San Francisco Symphony under the baton of Michael Tilson Thomas.
“Sacred Music in a Sacred Space” at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola in New York City is committed to presenting the finest sacred choral and organ repertoire spanning over 1,000 years of music history. Known for their artistic excellence, the renowned Choir and Orchestra of St. Ignatius Loyola present exhilarating performances of large-scale choral masterpieces as well as more intimate and reflective settings by lesser-known composers. Internationally-acclaimed organists may also frequently be heard on the Church’s magnificent N.P. Mander Pipe Organ, the largest tracker organ in New York City. General admission is $20, with tickets for students and seniors at $15.

by John Clare