Here is some of the very best playing
you are likely to hear on one of the
most interesting instruments in the
United Kingdom by one of the world’s
hardiest and most formidable virtuosos.
This recording had me fizzle with envy,
frustrated that I had not the opportunity
of making the recording myself.
Programmatic Music
has long been used by composers from
Haydn to Tchaikovsky, Bach to Beethoven.
I am reminded of Bach’s wonderful description
of Naumburg’s (Hildenbrandt) 32-foot
organ reed: ‘Makes my music thunder
so!’
So, after reading Ian
Coleman’s myopic and dismissive review
of ‘The Storm’ in the October 2005‘Choir
and Organ’ magazine describing the works
as ‘cheap programmatic sound effects’,
I was determined to set the record straight.
Kevin Bowyer and Gary Cole at Regent
deserve better than that.
I rather like programmatic
music! In fact many years ago I recorded
‘In a Monastery Garden’ (with bells)
and works by Oliphant Chuckerbutty and
Hugh McAmis. It became an instant best-seller
and pleased many review.
Rather like the BBC’s ‘Songs of Praise’,
this is music that brings real enjoyment.
I have already played ‘The Storm’ with
great delight for two cathedral organists
and other musical friends and had them
hurriedly writing down catalogue numbers
to go out and purchase copies for their
Christmas gifts.
Long before the days
of cinema and the wireless one needed
to be entertained and entertain this
CD does with absolute panache and impish
glee. You will either smile or, like
the humourless Mr. Coleman, find it
all too much. Furthermore you are unlikely
to hear this played as a Postlude to
a church service although I can think
of some who would rather enjoy it.
Nicholas-Jacques Lemmens,
a grand Parisian figure, was in fact
born a Belgian and gave a series of
virtuoso concerts at Saint-Vincent de
Paul in 1852. This Grand Fantasia in
E minor has been played many times in
Great Britain. I recall Simon Preston
playing this stormy romp complete with
wind machine to a packed and highly
receptive Royal Albert Hall in 1968
at the RCO’s ‘Organ Insanity and Madness’.
Chevalier Sigismond
Ritter von Neukomm studied with Haydn,
taught Mozart and wrote an extraordinary
1,300 works for stage, sacred music
including nine full-scale Oratorios,
48 Masses 27 Offertories, 73 Motets,
five Stabat maters, symphonies and numerous
instrumental works including 124 pieces
for harmonium! His Fantasia, whilst
(like all these works) being entertainingly
pictorial, is finely crafted and Mozartean
in style until the massive storm descends
and playfully interrupts! He is a composer
to whose work I hope to return very
soon.
Louis-James Lefèbure
Wely, organist of the Madeleine and
Saint-Sulpice and writer of the ‘Scène
Pastorale’, was one of the creators
of this genre of organ music in concert.
His ‘Storm Fantasia’ is one of his much
loved pieces; sadly seldom played by
the organists of today.
Henry Hudson wrote
of his ‘Storm Fantasia’, The themes
for this piece were supplied by the
Rev. Canon Josef Nachen of St Bernard’s
Hospice in 1910. The first phrase is
that of the Psalm from the Mass for
the Dying, "Libera me". This
is followed by a Pastorale depicting
the quiet peaceful life at St. Bernard’s.
Then the brethren are heard singing
the whole Psalm. Distant thunder and
an increasing force of wind culminate
in a heavy storm, which dies away gradually,
the last phrases of the Psalm being
faintly heard. The Pastorale is again
played and then the Hymn "Dies
Irae" the whole concluding with
the faintest tone of the organ.
Henry Hudson was organist of Holy Trinity,
Southport.
Gatty Sellars wrote
‘An Ocean Tempest’ and was once extremely
popular when as organist of both the
Crystal Palace and the Kingsway Hall
(*one of our favourite recording venues
in the 1960s) he played it to the then
Prince of Wales and assembled guests.
Earlier, Sellars recorded a turn of
the century Sullivan’s ‘The Lost Chord’
and Handel’s ‘Largo’ on a large (unidentified)
Moller organ in the USA. In ‘The Tempest’
a graceful barcarolle precedes the ship’s
bell and siren warning of an impending
gale, which gradually heralds the singing
of the hymn ‘Nearer My God to Thee’..
When tranquillity returns and the storm
has ‘spent its force’ the now becalmed
ocean closes with a tongue-in-cheek
quotation from William Croft’s ‘O God
our help in ages past’.
Lionel Rogg and others
have attempted transcribing Liszt’s
‘St Francis of Paola walks upon the
waters’ for the organ but nobody has
managed to come close to the genius
of Max Reger, one of the greatest transcribers
as well as arguably the most important
20th century composer for
organ. The lesson will have been learned
by many from Gillian Weir’s unfortunate
recital at the Royal Albert Hall (26
October 2005) on the flagrantly out
of tune £1.9M Mander rebuild – a cipher
to deal with; the front pipes still
disgracefully displaying the dents and
accumulated dirt from decades previous.
In the present case Kevin Bowyer, with
characteristic élan, weaves his
way through Liszt’s delicate filigree
with awesome dexterity. As is the case
throughout this disc he richly colours
his musical palette with inspired and
discrete virtuosity.
David Clegg’s simply
dreadful ‘A Church Service interrupted
by a thunderstorm’ will have anyone
who has sung evensong from the BCP in
near hysterics. Borough Organist of
Salford and organist of the Winter Gardens,
Blackpool, this was especially written
for the recital series at the Crystal
and Alexandra Palaces at the end of
the 19th century. Well, Evensong
it is and following the peal of church
bells ringing the change, a choleric
cleric (the Vox Humana) quavers ‘O Lord
Open thou our lips’ to which the choir
respond with gusto ‘And our mouth shall
show forth Thy praise’ and so we continue.
The Angelus bell even makes an appearance
at 6 and the Mother of all storms arrives
(the choir gives up trying to sing the
hymn). As the storm eventually subsides
the hymn resumes – ‘O Saviour, Lord
to Thee we pray. Whose love has kept
us safe this day. Protect us through
the coming night, and ever save us by
thy might.’ The CD closes with the
voices of the nightingale and a distant
cuckoo singing their own little evensong
perhaps on a distant oak and we can
all safely disperse into the evening
air ...
Many years ago I was
recording a very large orchestra with
Tom Frost. I had prepared the usual
pile of Neumann microphones scattered
amongst the players when Tom looked
at me and gently recalled the old Mercury
Living Presence Recordings using
a single microphone. The principle is
simple. In an acoustically friendly
building you can produce not just remarkable
results, but that elusive third dimension
in a stereo recording. I tried from
that moment onwards recording with just
two or three omni-directional microphones
in spaced array. Thus I discovered the
joys of that extended soundstage and
have never looked back. Interestingly,
very many years ago (1966/67), to wide
acclaim, the ground-breaking David Woodford
at Cathedral Records in Eton High Street
used the same principle – 2 x AKG C12A
(omnis) and a ‘State of the Art’ High
Speed Revox running at 15 ips.
Forty-two years of
recording taught me that multiple ‘spot’
microphones inside the orchestra truncate
the sound-stage; worse, you have the
potential of sound waves colliding,
causing aural aberrations. You have
only to listen to the stereo broadcasts
from the Proms on TV to audition regular
examples. There are of course exceptions
to the rule – Everett Porter’s extraordinary
work at Polyhymnia released on Telarc
and Pentatone are classic examples and
there are buildings where the minimalist
approach is simply not possible. Blackburn
Cathedral, which is where this very
fine CD was recorded, is not one of
these.
I auditioned ‘The Storm’
with Kef 104s some 4 feet away, and
with myself forming the third part of
an uninterrupted triangle and this caused
both myself and another musician listening
with me some aural discomfort prompting
some questions. I then took the CD up
to my studio (PMC LB1 monitors) to check
phasing and found the phase meter deviating
to the left on numerous occasions. I
emailed Gary Cole at Regent Records
- whose work as producer I hasten to
add, I admire enormously - and the murky
culprit emerged. The recording was made
with 2 x B&K 4006s (the best) but
alas, and I quote, a ‘Soundfield SP422B
on cardioid pattern on (the) sanctuary
step’ ‘for focus’. And, there lies
the problem.
There is a very simple
lesson in recording. Use two or three
omni-directional microphones for a large
orchestra – two for an organ and if
you lack focus you are either in the
wrong building or you are too far away.
If the orchestra sounds unbalanced,
change your conductor – the conductor’s
balance has to be the best! The moment
you add additional microphones in a
reverberant (and reflective) building
you plead for difficulties. It is this
sad and wretched third microphone that
has reduced this recording from a 5
star to a 3 or 4 and it is a needless
tragedy.
This of course has
nothing to do with Kevin Bowyer who
has controlled sound and inspired musical
lines for as long as I can remember.
With Nicolas Kynaston, Colin Walsh and
the redoubtable Jane Parker-Smith, he
is probably Britain’s most formidable
organist and inspired technician.
Here is a CD that everyone
should buy who loves the organ: it has
some of the finest playing of some of
the most unusually tempestuous
works by some extraordinary composers
(read the booklet) you will ever hear
on record!
Please do not be deterred
by my reservations. They are small indeed
compared to this stunning instrument
and some of the most vital playing you
are likely to hear this year.
My recommendation?
Go out and buy it now and try and forget
my ill-tempered gripes because they
pale in comparison to the overall result
of one of the most important organ CDs
I have come across in many a year. Thank
heavens it is not an LP or worse a 78rpm
else I would have worn it to destruction
by now.
Jonathan Wearn
Kevin Bowyer (organ) 
for
details
