March 14, 2024 • 26 mins
In our forthcoming podcast episode, we're joined by the distinguished James McVinnie to delve into the fascinating world of organ music, marking the 70th anniversary of the Royal Festival Hall organ. McVinnie will discuss the instrument's significant historical impact and its role in the evolution of organ music in London and further afield. We'll explore how the organ, conceived in the post-war era, reflects the cultural shifts of its time through the vision of Ralph Downes.
Our guest is James McVinnie, known for his broad repertoire that ranges from early organ music to contemporary compositions by Nico Muhly and Tristan Perich, will share how he navigates the vast musical landscapes of different eras in his performances. The discussion will also touch on "Infinity Gradient" by Perich, an innovative piece that reimagines the organ's potential in synthesis and music, potentially setting the direction for the instrument's future.
As McVinnie travels performing across the globe, he plays an increasingly important role in redefining the organ as an instrument of both historical depth and modern relevance. Looking ahead, he'll share his vision for the organ's future and how he aims to contribute to its ongoing evolution. Finally, McVinnie will offer invaluable advice for young musicians interested in exploring the organ and its possibilities in contemporary music. Join us for an engaging journey into the heart of organ music with one of its most forward-thinking performers.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:01):
Welcome, dear listeners, to another fascinating episode of
the London History Podcast, where we dive into the vibrant
and diverse past of this great city.
I am your host Hazel Baker, a qualified London tour guide and
founder of London guidedwalks.co.uk, whether
you're a born and bred Londoner.Or a curious.
(00:22):
Listener Join us on a journey through time as we explore the
city together. Each episode is supported by
show notes, transcripts, photos,and further reading, all to be
found on our website. If you enjoy what we do, then
you'll love our guided walks andprivate tours that we offer
throughout the year. All bookable.
(00:43):
Online@londonguidedwalks.co.uk Subscribe now to never miss an
episode and if you enjoy the show, please leave us a review
and rating to help spread the word to other history lovers.
Today's episode is about celebrating the 70th anniversary
(01:04):
of the Royal Festival Halls pipeorgan.
Joining me today is James Mcvinnie, who begins his South
Bank Centre residency with not one but two concerts and one
includes music by JS Bach. He will shed light on the
instrument's profound historicalsignificance and it's pivotal
(01:24):
role in shaping the organ music scene in London and beyond.
As we explore the organs originsin the post Second World War era
will uncover how its design and Ralph Downes vision mirrored the
cultural and musical transformations of the time.
James, very warm welcome to you.Hi, thank you very much.
(01:48):
Now you're starting a residency at the South Bank Centre
celebrating the 70th anniversaryof the Royal Festival Hall
organ. So could you possibly share with
us the historical significance of this organ and also how it's
maybe influenced the landscape of organ music in London and
beyond? Yeah, this is a great question
(02:10):
and a complicated one to answer really, but I got two concerts
coming up in March. When I was putting together the
programmes for both of them, I was kind of just trying to think
back to what the designer of this instrument would have been
trying to do in 1951, which is when the hall opened.
And in fact the organ was built in the intervening years and and
(02:31):
finally came into being in 1954.The organ was built by and
designed by a man called Rafe Downs, who was kind of a bit of
an outsider to the musical establishment.
He was an organist himself, but wasn't from the cathedral
tradition. He was the organist of Brompton
Oratory, which is a Catholic Church and had spent some time
in America, so was very much interested in the music from the
(02:55):
golden era of composition for the organ.
So that's the 17th and 18th centuries in Central Europe,
really the organ tradition that kind of culminated in the music
of Johann Sebastian Bach. So.
And the organ at this point in the 20th century, in the 50s,
you know, post war was a completely different kind of
(03:16):
beast. So the organ in the Albert Hall,
kind of very good example of howorgan building was at that time.
And they had been developed in this country in the 19th century
to be kind of vehicles for the Industrial Revolution.
In a way they were technologically more advanced
(03:37):
than the instruments that Bach would have known and certainly
quite a lot louder and were designed really to explore the
kind of orchestrally conceived music that was being written in
the 19th and 20th centuries. So they wanted to build an organ
in the New South Bank Centre that would be forward-looking to
(03:58):
the future. However, Raif down his approach
was to actually Raif Downs's vision for this organ was that
it should look back in fact 200 years and be a kind of snapshot
of organs that would have been known to Bach and his
contemporaries. The kind of the implication was
(04:21):
that organ building had taken a bit of a wrong turn in the 19th
and 20th centuries. And indeed, I mean, if you try
to play Bach's music on a big, romantic 19th century organ,
it's it's a wonderful experiencein some respects, but it's not
the ideal kind of treatment thatthat that brings the music
alive. So this organ really kind of was
(04:44):
a very unusual addition to the musical landscape of London.
And yeah, I mean it's it's a wonderful instrument as well and
it's a great instrument for contemporary music as well.
So the first concert I'm playingin in March is a concert of the
kind of Bach and N German contemporaries and the kind of
period that leads up to Bach. And then the second concert I'm
(05:05):
playing is kind of looking aheadto the future.
And this piece by Tristan Perich, we which we'll come on
to I'm sure in a in a in a minute.
So you mentioned about, well, really the aftermath of the
Second World War and the organ being designed then.
Now how did that design and alsothe vision of Ralph Downs, how
(05:25):
did that reflect the immediate culture and also their music
shifts at that time? The organ music at that point
was slightly set apart from the early music revival that had
been happening in America and inEurope.
So right from the 1920s in Germany and France to a certain
extent and also in America, people were beginning to be
(05:48):
aware of a kind of historically informed way of going about
performing this music. So, and this of course happened
a little bit later in England, but you know, by the 60s and the
70s we were performing Bach on period instruments.
So that hadn't really happened by 1950.
I mean you just have to rememberthat, you know, London would
have been completely destroyed by the Blitz and the memories of
(06:11):
the Blitz would have been reallystill very prescient.
Rationing was still very much a thing.
Maybe not by 1954, but there wasa great sort of political
statement made by the governmentat the time, which was saying
that there should be a new concert hall for 3000 people.
That would have been a kind of way of uplifting people and to
(06:32):
replace the Queen's Hall that had been destroyed in 1941.
The musical establishment, I think probably wanted an organ
that would do what it had done in the first part of the 20th
century. That's to say support masked
singing of Handel's Messiah, like the town hall tradition and
an organ on which you could perform orchestral music.
(06:52):
And indeed, it's interesting to think back to the 19th century,
where certainly the town hall tradition with organists playing
music by Wagner, etcetera, etcetera, those great big
Germanic romantic orchestral pieces, they would have come to
an English pair of ears through organ transcriptions.
So Rafe Downs was trying to do something completely different.
(07:14):
He had a kind of foresight that said that the organs, the organs
that he wanted to design and build would go back to this
golden era of organ composition and and that's sort of making a
kind of philosophical statement about what the organs should be
and the kind of idealised music.And I mean I'm I'm of the
opinion that it doesn't really get very much better than music
(07:36):
by Bach in general, but certainly for the organ.
So it's wonderful to have an instrument in London still today
in 2024 where you can perform this music and contrapuntal
music to kind of idealise standard.
I think it's also worth considering really the space in
which it's in as well. So space at the Royal Albert
(07:56):
Hall, for example. I mean, I.
Mean. That's vast, isn't it?
Absolutely. Huge, so it's going to have a
different sound. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, the
Albert Hall. And of course organs generally
tend to be heard in big cathedral spaces.
And you know, Saint Paul's Cathedral is a kind of ultimate
example of that where, you know,you lift your hands off the keys
(08:17):
and the chord carries on for another 10 seconds.
So the festival all organ, I mean the acoustic in that hall
is famously dry and the hall wasrefurbished in the early 2000s
and in fact is is much more generous certainly to the the
tenor and the bass registers of the of of music making.
But there's a real kind of clinical detail that you can get
(08:39):
from listening to music. That's one of the things I I
love about the organ in there. I mean it it it it makes up for
the lack of kind of thrilling acoustic with this idea of
detail and the detail that you can get both in terms of the
pictures of the notes you're playing but also the rhythms.
So if you're playing Messian's music for instance on the
Festival Hall organ you you heardetail that you really don't
(09:02):
hear in the in the in the great big acoustic spaces of a great
cathedral, of course there it's,it's give and take.
I mean you you, you lose a certain amount of ambience when
you're in that very clinical environment, but it's certainly
nice to have that as an option. Yeah.
And and something else that you said as well was about about
wanting to be uplifted in a way when an organ's played in such a
(09:25):
a a clinical setting, it really fills all of that space.
It doesn't expand beyond the walls.
It's you're. You're living in it.
Your whole body is filled with the vibrations and and that's in
itself uplifting. Absolutely, yeah.
And of course at the Festival Hall, you're right next to the
organ, you're you're, you know, you could almost reach out and
(09:47):
touch the the pedal pipes, high pitched pedal pipes that are
right above your head. So you get an incredibly
thrilling ride. But that place in the hall, and
I always wish that this would bepossible to have the audience
right up there hearing the concert from the organ bench.
It's a really thrilling, thrilling experience.
(10:08):
Yeah, a lot more intimate experience now looking, looking
at your repertoire, by golly, I mean, it's diverse, isn't it?
I mean, you're not. I mean, you mentioned your bark,
but you're all over the place inin the best way possible, so
you're stretching bark. Golden age.
You're looking at contemporary works as well.
(10:28):
I mean, how do you approach thatchallenge of bridging very
different times in space and also very different musical
epochs in your performances? How do you, how do you go about
that? Yeah, I mean, that's a hard
question to answer. I mean, I I don't ever think of
myself as a specialist, but I should also say that there are
(10:51):
certain parts of the repertoire that I feel less conversant
with. I mean, I, I don't tend to play
early French music from the 17thand 18th centuries, which is a
very sort of specialised organ, organ, part of the repertoire.
But yeah, I mean, I the new music I performed sort of most
often now over the last kind of decade, really.
(11:13):
I mean that that's, that's been a result of a real sense of
exploration. And the great thing about
commissioning music and having composers write for you is that,
you know, you have the authority, you're given the
authority to bring music into the world.
And of course there will be subsequent interpretations of
that. But to be able to kind of draw a
(11:34):
line in the sand and and sort ofsay this is how I think this
should go is an incredible privilege as well.
Especially if you're if I'm performing with another ensemble
or a group of instruments like abig Concerto performance.
Yeah. My approach is always to try to
get to the heart of the music asas closely as possible, just in
exactly the same way that you would do with Bach or Svenlink
(11:57):
or early music like I'm playing in in March in the 2:00 PM
concert to try to get to that level of knowledge and sort of
conversancy with the repertoire that's new and that doesn't have
any recordings to to to reference or or kind of any
tradition. So yeah, it's it's challenging
and and to feel like I'd I'd never quite have enough time to
(12:19):
get to the bottom of a piece or rather you know it's always nice
to come back to performances andhowever far you get for the
premiere there's always so much,much further to go.
So yeah, it's it's it's challenging, but it's great fun
as well. I think that's part of that
living experience. You know you're always going to
be continually learning and developing as an individual
(12:42):
performer anyway. It's worthwhile really busting
the myth on organ music, not just being for the past.
That's a comment which is often made about organ music.
And my sort of sense is that knowing all of the early music
in the way that I do, I always have the sense that the organ
(13:05):
somehow has been a tremendous inspiration as an instrument for
whoever's writing it. So such a strange instrument as
well. And it's really, despite the
technological sort of advances that I was talking about in the
19th century before, really, theorgan has kind of remained
(13:26):
unchanged as an instrument sincethe 15th and 16th centuries.
The way that we control them is sort of advanced.
And you know the Festival Hall organ for instance has electric
action. But if you, if you have a
mechanical action instrument, you know that really hasn't, the
organs haven't really changed that much in the, in the, in the
(13:47):
in a way that the piano has changed.
You know that the keyboard family has advanced and the
violin family has has changed. So I think that music has always
seemed new. But I mean, just to go back to
your specific points, I've always loved working with
composers, and composers have always been incredibly taken by
(14:07):
the organ and the possibilities that it presents, and they've
always been completely sort of bowled over by what it can do.
So working with living and breathing human beings to bring
new art into the world has, I guess, has really influenced my
appreciation of music from different times and different
(14:29):
centuries. So there's a kind of freshness
that you get to an approach to playing Bach, for instance.
So I always try to try to make my Bach playing sound like the
music was just just written yesterday.
It's hard, hard to do that with his most famous works.
But yeah, it's working in contemporary music, has has, has
helped my repertoire playing beyond all measure, really, I
(14:52):
think. I think working with composers
is so important, especially whenwriting for a particular
instrument. Being also a trombone player,
sometimes I really want to get the throat of some composer and
going what were you doing? You know, catching.
Know whether this was even possible or.
(15:12):
Yeah, I mean, occasionally I if I come across new music that I
haven't had a hand in, in the compositional process.
So I look at the score and I'll think, OK, I I know what the
composer's after here, but the the way that they've gone about
notating or actually choosing the notes is just not ideal.
(15:36):
And I think there's, you know, there's lots that composers can
learn from performers and and vice versa of course.
But yes, I agree. So if we're continuing our
conversation about the future. With organ music and.
I think maybe Tristan Parrish's Infinity gradient that is
(15:56):
described as an exploration of the pipe organs relationship to
synthesis in music. However, it's an initiative
approach. How do you see this influencing,
oh sorry, the future of organ music, wherever that's going to
go? But also, how does that fit in
(16:16):
with the broader music landscapeand how diverse that is now?
I'm never was aware of the kind of long term effects of these
new pieces as perhaps other people looking at them from the
outside are. I mean I I don't I mean a lot of
(16:40):
a lot of what's been said about the work that I do has been to
kind of diversify and to bring the bring the organ to a wider
audience. I mean, that's obviously a
great, a great thing. And I'm, I'm not saying that I'm
not doing that. But I've really always been
interested in the work and sort of creating a repertoire that
kind of is conversant with my own musical tastes.
(17:03):
And that comes from a kind of sense of, I'm not
dissatisfaction with the organ repertoire.
I've always enjoyed working withcomposers, as we were just
talking about. But I think that in terms of the
future of organ music, I mean the legacy of great pieces of
music speaks for itself. And if this body of work helps
(17:24):
to shift the trajectory of the composition for the instrument,
then that's great. I think that I mean just going
back to what I was saying about composers always being really
interested in the organ, I tend to work with composers from
American backgrounds or I mean American composers or or
composers that write in a kind of American Music style.
(17:46):
I've always been very taken withmusic by Philip Glass and Steve
Reich, and I've been working with sort of Generation Below,
you know, my generation composers.
There are two things to say really.
I mean, firstly, there's the, there's the organ music being
influenced by their kind of musical ecosystem and their
ecosystem being influenced by the organ itself.
(18:08):
And I like to think that there's, you know, there's
something there for both sides and a lot of new music and
synthesized music, you know, electronic music is written for
instruments that have their models in pipe organ systems.
So the synthesizer, the originalkind of synthesizer takes its
(18:30):
kind of, you know, its genesis comes from, from a kind of pipe,
pipe organ model. So that's been really
fascinating and and Tristan Peretz, who has written this
piece Infinity Gradient, is verymuch from an electronic music
background, but he himself is anorganist and knows the pipe
organ instinctively well as well.
So there's a nice dialogue therewith that project.
(18:52):
If we're thinking about the wider world, because you've
clocked up your air miles, you've gone across the UK,
Europe and of course America, and you're expanding this, this,
this ever expanding breadth of organ repertoire, it's growing
now. How do you see your role in
evolving the public perception of the organ?
(19:15):
Because it's a little bit different, whereas you can't
take the organ around with you. That's what makes the organ so
special. I mean you're going into a space
and you know having said what wesaid about the, you know, the
rather clinical acoustic of the Festival Hall, but you know
there even there you know you'rethe sense is that the whole hall
(19:36):
is part of the instrument. I mean Gillian Weir talked about
this wonderful organist. I remember her talking about
this on the South Bank show withMelvin Bragg early in the early
2000s And and I I heard her say this when I was sort of 17 or 18
it it really kind of made huge impression on me where she said
that, you know the instrument isthe room or the room is the
(19:56):
instrument. So.
And she was at Sansu police playing some Messian in a great
big huge church in Paris. And she let her hands, you know,
released from the keys and you know, the sound goes on for
seven or eight seconds and it there is that sense of.
Bringing an audience into a veryspecific space.
And the instrument is custom made for that space as well,
which is unlike any other instrument in the kind of
(20:18):
classical music field Concert halls tend to be.
You place an orchestra in that hall and of course concert halls
often have their own acoustic, you know, sensitive identity.
I mean, the concert cabal in Amsterdam, you know, is thought
of as being one of the very greatest and has an identity of
itself. But yeah, I mean it's I've been
very lucky in that I've been able to perform a lot of this
(20:41):
music to great crowds and audiences who are inquisitive
and interested and open to thesethese new works.
I guess it becomes a responsibility for the legacy of
the instrument that I feel quitestrongly.
And at the end of the day, the only thing that you can do is
play music that merits being listened to.
(21:05):
There's a lot of music which is worth listening to.
So yes, absolutely. Now I've got a question for, I
suppose, the youngsters. So what advice would you give to
young musicians? As you and I have both been
looking to explore the organ andalso its potential in
(21:26):
contemporary music, What advice would you give them?
I think it's so important to tryto find your own musical
community and you know the worldis you know social media has
changed the world out of all existence and the world now is
(21:47):
smaller than it ever was. I mean people are connected in
in ways in which they just neverwere certainly weren't when I
was a teenager. I just encourage everyone to
harness that and to use that to to to their advantage and find
try to find musical kindred spirits.
And I mean this is a hugely complex thing to talk about
(22:08):
especially in our own political climate here where we're under
such incredibly depressing set of artistic constraints and with
funding and you know it's really, really difficult and you
know the provision of music in schools is is really shockingly
low. So it is a really tough it's a
(22:29):
it's a tough thing to try to find your own community when you
don't have there's not even provision in schools.
But if you are someone that is interested in contemporary music
and and interested in in carvingout a career for yourself in in
music, I would try to find composers when composers always
(22:50):
need performers to play their music.
I mean, I, Nico Mulli speaks very eloquently about this.
You know, find your own musical community and write for your
friends. You know, write music and put
put on your own concerts and, you know, create opportunities
for the work as much as possible.
I know that's a tough thing to do because everything costs
(23:11):
money, but it's remarkable what a kind of sense of shared
ownership of music can give you and a kind of sense of identity
in the world. And it is possible to create
some really beautiful things andalso the way that streaming
works now. I mean, you can put out into the
world anything that you want musically.
(23:32):
I guess what I'm trying to say is try to make your own party
and and and live in your own musical ecosystem as much as
possible. Wise words.
Now I've got a question for you.Have you played Henry at London
Bridge station? I I actually haven't.
(23:52):
So I was going to go. I was going to try and go with
my very wonderful friend Claire Singer, who is organist and
music director at the Union Chapel, who's been there to the
London Bridge organ, but I haven't yet.
It was behind. We tried to go but it was behind
closed doors and they were the barriers were up so we couldn't
get to it, which was sad. But yes, I would love to at one
(24:15):
point. Excellent.
It's always nice hearing a little bit of pipe organ as I'm
walking through London. Bridge.
Yeah, exactly. It's so weird, isn't it?
Yeah. And tell us a little bit about
your upcoming performance. I've got two concerts at the
Festival Hall on the same day, which is a slightly mad thing to
do, but I I always like a challenge, so I'm playing at
(24:35):
2:00 PM on the 23rd of March. This is a weekend of
celebrations around the Royal Festival Hall organ, 70th
birthday, and there are family orientated events in the foyer
and some demonstrations of organs, etcetera, etcetera.
And then I'm playing at 2:00. I'm playing a wonderful
selection of early music. I mean, it looks quite esoteric
on paper, but I can assure everyone this is going to be a
(24:56):
great, very kind of easy listening experience with some
wonderful, very approachable music.
Even though the list of composers might seem a little
bit daunting, again, I'm kind ofdoing a bit of a deep dive into
repertoire that would have been absolutely kind of current in
the 17th and 18th centuries. And then culminating in some
music by Bach at the end of the concert.
(25:18):
And then at 8:00 I've got the UKpremiere of Tristan Perich's
Infinity Gradient, which is a wonderful hour long Tour de
force by Tristan for organ and 100 speakers.
And yeah, it's it's a wonderful experience to to to listen to
that music in the in the seats of the Festival Hall.
It's going to be amazing. For those musically minded
(25:41):
amongst you, you might enjoy some other episodes that we
have, including episode 89 aboutThomas ARN in Covent Garden,
episode 57 about the Gerald KochHandel collection, and episode
29. About Fitzrovia Harp Makers.
And if you want to know a littlebit more about the South Bank
(26:01):
Centre and the Festival of Britain, then listen to episode
54. Thank you very much.
James Lovely. Thank you very much indeed.
Thanks for joining me. Until next time.
Welcome, dear listeners, to another fascinating episode of
the London History Podcast, where we dive into the vibrant
and diverse past of this great city.
I am your host Hazel Baker, a qualified London tour guide and
founder of London guidedwalks.co.uk, whether
you're a born and bred Londoner.Or a curious.
(00:22):
Listener Join us on a journey through time as we explore the
city together. Each episode is supported by
show notes, transcripts, photos,and further reading, all to be
found on our website. If you enjoy what we do, then
you'll love our guided walks andprivate tours that we offer
throughout the year. All bookable.
(00:43):
Online@londonguidedwalks.co.uk Subscribe now to never miss an
episode and if you enjoy the show, please leave us a review
and rating to help spread the word to other history lovers.
Today's episode is about celebrating the 70th anniversary
(01:04):
of the Royal Festival Halls pipeorgan.
Joining me today is James Mcvinnie, who begins his South
Bank Centre residency with not one but two concerts and one
includes music by JS Bach. He will shed light on the
instrument's profound historicalsignificance and it's pivotal
(01:24):
role in shaping the organ music scene in London and beyond.
As we explore the organs originsin the post Second World War era
will uncover how its design and Ralph Downes vision mirrored the
cultural and musical transformations of the time.
James, very warm welcome to you.Hi, thank you very much.
(01:48):
Now you're starting a residency at the South Bank Centre
celebrating the 70th anniversaryof the Royal Festival Hall
organ. So could you possibly share with
us the historical significance of this organ and also how it's
maybe influenced the landscape of organ music in London and
beyond? Yeah, this is a great question
(02:10):
and a complicated one to answer really, but I got two concerts
coming up in March. When I was putting together the
programmes for both of them, I was kind of just trying to think
back to what the designer of this instrument would have been
trying to do in 1951, which is when the hall opened.
And in fact the organ was built in the intervening years and and
(02:31):
finally came into being in 1954.The organ was built by and
designed by a man called Rafe Downs, who was kind of a bit of
an outsider to the musical establishment.
He was an organist himself, but wasn't from the cathedral
tradition. He was the organist of Brompton
Oratory, which is a Catholic Church and had spent some time
in America, so was very much interested in the music from the
(02:55):
golden era of composition for the organ.
So that's the 17th and 18th centuries in Central Europe,
really the organ tradition that kind of culminated in the music
of Johann Sebastian Bach. So.
And the organ at this point in the 20th century, in the 50s,
you know, post war was a completely different kind of
(03:16):
beast. So the organ in the Albert Hall,
kind of very good example of howorgan building was at that time.
And they had been developed in this country in the 19th century
to be kind of vehicles for the Industrial Revolution.
In a way they were technologically more advanced
(03:37):
than the instruments that Bach would have known and certainly
quite a lot louder and were designed really to explore the
kind of orchestrally conceived music that was being written in
the 19th and 20th centuries. So they wanted to build an organ
in the New South Bank Centre that would be forward-looking to
(03:58):
the future. However, Raif down his approach
was to actually Raif Downs's vision for this organ was that
it should look back in fact 200 years and be a kind of snapshot
of organs that would have been known to Bach and his
contemporaries. The kind of the implication was
(04:21):
that organ building had taken a bit of a wrong turn in the 19th
and 20th centuries. And indeed, I mean, if you try
to play Bach's music on a big, romantic 19th century organ,
it's it's a wonderful experiencein some respects, but it's not
the ideal kind of treatment thatthat that brings the music
alive. So this organ really kind of was
(04:44):
a very unusual addition to the musical landscape of London.
And yeah, I mean it's it's a wonderful instrument as well and
it's a great instrument for contemporary music as well.
So the first concert I'm playingin in March is a concert of the
kind of Bach and N German contemporaries and the kind of
period that leads up to Bach. And then the second concert I'm
(05:05):
playing is kind of looking aheadto the future.
And this piece by Tristan Perich, we which we'll come on
to I'm sure in a in a in a minute.
So you mentioned about, well, really the aftermath of the
Second World War and the organ being designed then.
Now how did that design and alsothe vision of Ralph Downs, how
(05:25):
did that reflect the immediate culture and also their music
shifts at that time? The organ music at that point
was slightly set apart from the early music revival that had
been happening in America and inEurope.
So right from the 1920s in Germany and France to a certain
extent and also in America, people were beginning to be
(05:48):
aware of a kind of historically informed way of going about
performing this music. So, and this of course happened
a little bit later in England, but you know, by the 60s and the
70s we were performing Bach on period instruments.
So that hadn't really happened by 1950.
I mean you just have to rememberthat, you know, London would
have been completely destroyed by the Blitz and the memories of
(06:11):
the Blitz would have been reallystill very prescient.
Rationing was still very much a thing.
Maybe not by 1954, but there wasa great sort of political
statement made by the governmentat the time, which was saying
that there should be a new concert hall for 3000 people.
That would have been a kind of way of uplifting people and to
(06:32):
replace the Queen's Hall that had been destroyed in 1941.
The musical establishment, I think probably wanted an organ
that would do what it had done in the first part of the 20th
century. That's to say support masked
singing of Handel's Messiah, like the town hall tradition and
an organ on which you could perform orchestral music.
(06:52):
And indeed, it's interesting to think back to the 19th century,
where certainly the town hall tradition with organists playing
music by Wagner, etcetera, etcetera, those great big
Germanic romantic orchestral pieces, they would have come to
an English pair of ears through organ transcriptions.
So Rafe Downs was trying to do something completely different.
(07:14):
He had a kind of foresight that said that the organs, the organs
that he wanted to design and build would go back to this
golden era of organ composition and and that's sort of making a
kind of philosophical statement about what the organs should be
and the kind of idealised music.And I mean I'm I'm of the
opinion that it doesn't really get very much better than music
(07:36):
by Bach in general, but certainly for the organ.
So it's wonderful to have an instrument in London still today
in 2024 where you can perform this music and contrapuntal
music to kind of idealise standard.
I think it's also worth considering really the space in
which it's in as well. So space at the Royal Albert
(07:56):
Hall, for example. I mean, I.
Mean. That's vast, isn't it?
Absolutely. Huge, so it's going to have a
different sound. Yeah, it's, it's, yeah, the
Albert Hall. And of course organs generally
tend to be heard in big cathedral spaces.
And you know, Saint Paul's Cathedral is a kind of ultimate
example of that where, you know,you lift your hands off the keys
(08:17):
and the chord carries on for another 10 seconds.
So the festival all organ, I mean the acoustic in that hall
is famously dry and the hall wasrefurbished in the early 2000s
and in fact is is much more generous certainly to the the
tenor and the bass registers of the of of music making.
But there's a real kind of clinical detail that you can get
(08:39):
from listening to music. That's one of the things I I
love about the organ in there. I mean it it it it makes up for
the lack of kind of thrilling acoustic with this idea of
detail and the detail that you can get both in terms of the
pictures of the notes you're playing but also the rhythms.
So if you're playing Messian's music for instance on the
Festival Hall organ you you heardetail that you really don't
(09:02):
hear in the in the in the great big acoustic spaces of a great
cathedral, of course there it's,it's give and take.
I mean you you, you lose a certain amount of ambience when
you're in that very clinical environment, but it's certainly
nice to have that as an option. Yeah.
And and something else that you said as well was about about
wanting to be uplifted in a way when an organ's played in such a
(09:25):
a a clinical setting, it really fills all of that space.
It doesn't expand beyond the walls.
It's you're. You're living in it.
Your whole body is filled with the vibrations and and that's in
itself uplifting. Absolutely, yeah.
And of course at the Festival Hall, you're right next to the
organ, you're you're, you know, you could almost reach out and
(09:47):
touch the the pedal pipes, high pitched pedal pipes that are
right above your head. So you get an incredibly
thrilling ride. But that place in the hall, and
I always wish that this would bepossible to have the audience
right up there hearing the concert from the organ bench.
It's a really thrilling, thrilling experience.
(10:08):
Yeah, a lot more intimate experience now looking, looking
at your repertoire, by golly, I mean, it's diverse, isn't it?
I mean, you're not. I mean, you mentioned your bark,
but you're all over the place inin the best way possible, so
you're stretching bark. Golden age.
You're looking at contemporary works as well.
(10:28):
I mean, how do you approach thatchallenge of bridging very
different times in space and also very different musical
epochs in your performances? How do you, how do you go about
that? Yeah, I mean, that's a hard
question to answer. I mean, I I don't ever think of
myself as a specialist, but I should also say that there are
(10:51):
certain parts of the repertoire that I feel less conversant
with. I mean, I, I don't tend to play
early French music from the 17thand 18th centuries, which is a
very sort of specialised organ, organ, part of the repertoire.
But yeah, I mean, I the new music I performed sort of most
often now over the last kind of decade, really.
(11:13):
I mean that that's, that's been a result of a real sense of
exploration. And the great thing about
commissioning music and having composers write for you is that,
you know, you have the authority, you're given the
authority to bring music into the world.
And of course there will be subsequent interpretations of
that. But to be able to kind of draw a
(11:34):
line in the sand and and sort ofsay this is how I think this
should go is an incredible privilege as well.
Especially if you're if I'm performing with another ensemble
or a group of instruments like abig Concerto performance.
Yeah. My approach is always to try to
get to the heart of the music asas closely as possible, just in
exactly the same way that you would do with Bach or Svenlink
(11:57):
or early music like I'm playing in in March in the 2:00 PM
concert to try to get to that level of knowledge and sort of
conversancy with the repertoire that's new and that doesn't have
any recordings to to to reference or or kind of any
tradition. So yeah, it's it's challenging
and and to feel like I'd I'd never quite have enough time to
(12:19):
get to the bottom of a piece or rather you know it's always nice
to come back to performances andhowever far you get for the
premiere there's always so much,much further to go.
So yeah, it's it's it's challenging, but it's great fun
as well. I think that's part of that
living experience. You know you're always going to
be continually learning and developing as an individual
(12:42):
performer anyway. It's worthwhile really busting
the myth on organ music, not just being for the past.
That's a comment which is often made about organ music.
And my sort of sense is that knowing all of the early music
in the way that I do, I always have the sense that the organ
(13:05):
somehow has been a tremendous inspiration as an instrument for
whoever's writing it. So such a strange instrument as
well. And it's really, despite the
technological sort of advances that I was talking about in the
19th century before, really, theorgan has kind of remained
(13:26):
unchanged as an instrument sincethe 15th and 16th centuries.
The way that we control them is sort of advanced.
And you know the Festival Hall organ for instance has electric
action. But if you, if you have a
mechanical action instrument, you know that really hasn't, the
organs haven't really changed that much in the, in the, in the
(13:47):
in a way that the piano has changed.
You know that the keyboard family has advanced and the
violin family has has changed. So I think that music has always
seemed new. But I mean, just to go back to
your specific points, I've always loved working with
composers, and composers have always been incredibly taken by
(14:07):
the organ and the possibilities that it presents, and they've
always been completely sort of bowled over by what it can do.
So working with living and breathing human beings to bring
new art into the world has, I guess, has really influenced my
appreciation of music from different times and different
(14:29):
centuries. So there's a kind of freshness
that you get to an approach to playing Bach, for instance.
So I always try to try to make my Bach playing sound like the
music was just just written yesterday.
It's hard, hard to do that with his most famous works.
But yeah, it's working in contemporary music, has has, has
helped my repertoire playing beyond all measure, really, I
(14:52):
think. I think working with composers
is so important, especially whenwriting for a particular
instrument. Being also a trombone player,
sometimes I really want to get the throat of some composer and
going what were you doing? You know, catching.
Know whether this was even possible or.
(15:12):
Yeah, I mean, occasionally I if I come across new music that I
haven't had a hand in, in the compositional process.
So I look at the score and I'll think, OK, I I know what the
composer's after here, but the the way that they've gone about
notating or actually choosing the notes is just not ideal.
(15:36):
And I think there's, you know, there's lots that composers can
learn from performers and and vice versa of course.
But yes, I agree. So if we're continuing our
conversation about the future. With organ music and.
I think maybe Tristan Parrish's Infinity gradient that is
(15:56):
described as an exploration of the pipe organs relationship to
synthesis in music. However, it's an initiative
approach. How do you see this influencing,
oh sorry, the future of organ music, wherever that's going to
go? But also, how does that fit in
(16:16):
with the broader music landscapeand how diverse that is now?
I'm never was aware of the kind of long term effects of these
new pieces as perhaps other people looking at them from the
outside are. I mean I I don't I mean a lot of
(16:40):
a lot of what's been said about the work that I do has been to
kind of diversify and to bring the bring the organ to a wider
audience. I mean, that's obviously a
great, a great thing. And I'm, I'm not saying that I'm
not doing that. But I've really always been
interested in the work and sort of creating a repertoire that
kind of is conversant with my own musical tastes.
(17:03):
And that comes from a kind of sense of, I'm not
dissatisfaction with the organ repertoire.
I've always enjoyed working withcomposers, as we were just
talking about. But I think that in terms of the
future of organ music, I mean the legacy of great pieces of
music speaks for itself. And if this body of work helps
(17:24):
to shift the trajectory of the composition for the instrument,
then that's great. I think that I mean just going
back to what I was saying about composers always being really
interested in the organ, I tend to work with composers from
American backgrounds or I mean American composers or or
composers that write in a kind of American Music style.
(17:46):
I've always been very taken withmusic by Philip Glass and Steve
Reich, and I've been working with sort of Generation Below,
you know, my generation composers.
There are two things to say really.
I mean, firstly, there's the, there's the organ music being
influenced by their kind of musical ecosystem and their
ecosystem being influenced by the organ itself.
(18:08):
And I like to think that there's, you know, there's
something there for both sides and a lot of new music and
synthesized music, you know, electronic music is written for
instruments that have their models in pipe organ systems.
So the synthesizer, the originalkind of synthesizer takes its
(18:30):
kind of, you know, its genesis comes from, from a kind of pipe,
pipe organ model. So that's been really
fascinating and and Tristan Peretz, who has written this
piece Infinity Gradient, is verymuch from an electronic music
background, but he himself is anorganist and knows the pipe
organ instinctively well as well.
So there's a nice dialogue therewith that project.
(18:52):
If we're thinking about the wider world, because you've
clocked up your air miles, you've gone across the UK,
Europe and of course America, and you're expanding this, this,
this ever expanding breadth of organ repertoire, it's growing
now. How do you see your role in
evolving the public perception of the organ?
(19:15):
Because it's a little bit different, whereas you can't
take the organ around with you. That's what makes the organ so
special. I mean you're going into a space
and you know having said what wesaid about the, you know, the
rather clinical acoustic of the Festival Hall, but you know
there even there you know you'rethe sense is that the whole hall
(19:36):
is part of the instrument. I mean Gillian Weir talked about
this wonderful organist. I remember her talking about
this on the South Bank show withMelvin Bragg early in the early
2000s And and I I heard her say this when I was sort of 17 or 18
it it really kind of made huge impression on me where she said
that, you know the instrument isthe room or the room is the
(19:56):
instrument. So.
And she was at Sansu police playing some Messian in a great
big huge church in Paris. And she let her hands, you know,
released from the keys and you know, the sound goes on for
seven or eight seconds and it there is that sense of.
Bringing an audience into a veryspecific space.
And the instrument is custom made for that space as well,
which is unlike any other instrument in the kind of
(20:18):
classical music field Concert halls tend to be.
You place an orchestra in that hall and of course concert halls
often have their own acoustic, you know, sensitive identity.
I mean, the concert cabal in Amsterdam, you know, is thought
of as being one of the very greatest and has an identity of
itself. But yeah, I mean it's I've been
very lucky in that I've been able to perform a lot of this
(20:41):
music to great crowds and audiences who are inquisitive
and interested and open to thesethese new works.
I guess it becomes a responsibility for the legacy of
the instrument that I feel quitestrongly.
And at the end of the day, the only thing that you can do is
play music that merits being listened to.
(21:05):
There's a lot of music which is worth listening to.
So yes, absolutely. Now I've got a question for, I
suppose, the youngsters. So what advice would you give to
young musicians? As you and I have both been
looking to explore the organ andalso its potential in
(21:26):
contemporary music, What advice would you give them?
I think it's so important to tryto find your own musical
community and you know the worldis you know social media has
changed the world out of all existence and the world now is
(21:47):
smaller than it ever was. I mean people are connected in
in ways in which they just neverwere certainly weren't when I
was a teenager. I just encourage everyone to
harness that and to use that to to to their advantage and find
try to find musical kindred spirits.
And I mean this is a hugely complex thing to talk about
(22:08):
especially in our own political climate here where we're under
such incredibly depressing set of artistic constraints and with
funding and you know it's really, really difficult and you
know the provision of music in schools is is really shockingly
low. So it is a really tough it's a
(22:29):
it's a tough thing to try to find your own community when you
don't have there's not even provision in schools.
But if you are someone that is interested in contemporary music
and and interested in in carvingout a career for yourself in in
music, I would try to find composers when composers always
(22:50):
need performers to play their music.
I mean, I, Nico Mulli speaks very eloquently about this.
You know, find your own musical community and write for your
friends. You know, write music and put
put on your own concerts and, you know, create opportunities
for the work as much as possible.
I know that's a tough thing to do because everything costs
(23:11):
money, but it's remarkable what a kind of sense of shared
ownership of music can give you and a kind of sense of identity
in the world. And it is possible to create
some really beautiful things andalso the way that streaming
works now. I mean, you can put out into the
world anything that you want musically.
(23:32):
I guess what I'm trying to say is try to make your own party
and and and live in your own musical ecosystem as much as
possible. Wise words.
Now I've got a question for you.Have you played Henry at London
Bridge station? I I actually haven't.
(23:52):
So I was going to go. I was going to try and go with
my very wonderful friend Claire Singer, who is organist and
music director at the Union Chapel, who's been there to the
London Bridge organ, but I haven't yet.
It was behind. We tried to go but it was behind
closed doors and they were the barriers were up so we couldn't
get to it, which was sad. But yes, I would love to at one
(24:15):
point. Excellent.
It's always nice hearing a little bit of pipe organ as I'm
walking through London. Bridge.
Yeah, exactly. It's so weird, isn't it?
Yeah. And tell us a little bit about
your upcoming performance. I've got two concerts at the
Festival Hall on the same day, which is a slightly mad thing to
do, but I I always like a challenge, so I'm playing at
(24:35):
2:00 PM on the 23rd of March. This is a weekend of
celebrations around the Royal Festival Hall organ, 70th
birthday, and there are family orientated events in the foyer
and some demonstrations of organs, etcetera, etcetera.
And then I'm playing at 2:00. I'm playing a wonderful
selection of early music. I mean, it looks quite esoteric
on paper, but I can assure everyone this is going to be a
(24:56):
great, very kind of easy listening experience with some
wonderful, very approachable music.
Even though the list of composers might seem a little
bit daunting, again, I'm kind ofdoing a bit of a deep dive into
repertoire that would have been absolutely kind of current in
the 17th and 18th centuries. And then culminating in some
music by Bach at the end of the concert.
(25:18):
And then at 8:00 I've got the UKpremiere of Tristan Perich's
Infinity Gradient, which is a wonderful hour long Tour de
force by Tristan for organ and 100 speakers.
And yeah, it's it's a wonderful experience to to to listen to
that music in the in the seats of the Festival Hall.
It's going to be amazing. For those musically minded
(25:41):
amongst you, you might enjoy some other episodes that we
have, including episode 89 aboutThomas ARN in Covent Garden,
episode 57 about the Gerald KochHandel collection, and episode
29. About Fitzrovia Harp Makers.
And if you want to know a littlebit more about the South Bank
(26:01):
Centre and the Festival of Britain, then listen to episode
54. Thank you very much.
James Lovely. Thank you very much indeed.
Thanks for joining me. Until next time.
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