The
first thing to say about this Arsis SACD release is how
well it is presented. If ever a record label wants a model
to set a standard for their booklet, they could do a lot
worse than look here. Excellent programme notes, lots of
good colour photography of the organ, (also inside!), the
church’s stained glass windows by Louis Comfort Tiffany
no less, the church’s exterior and so on. It also contains
interesting information about the organ, and full registration
details. Well done Arsis.
Secondly,
what a fascinating instrument. I have discussed here before
the unique contribution made to 20th century
organ building by John Brombaugh. Like Jurgen Ahrend in
Europe, Brombaugh was, even by the early 1970s,
at the forefront of the second stage of organ reform, building
organs drawing heavily on carefully studied historical models,
mostly in the Netherlands and Northern Germany.
The development of his own style has created a North American
school of historically inspired and informed organ building
hardly matched in Europe. Apart from Brombaugh its leading lights include Paul Fritts,
Taylor and Boody, and Richards and Fowkes. What is especially
fascinating about this school is that, to different extents,
it is now building organs which could be described as eclectic,
though very different from the rather standardised instruments
now being produced by Rieger, Klais etc. Perhaps the instrument
which has received most coverage is the Fritts organ at
Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington State, with its obviously Stellwagen-inspired
case, and Hanseatic North German tonal basis, but with a
Swell box and reeds copied after Cavaillé-Coll. However,
it’s probably true to say that the first figure to move
the ‘new’ American school into eclectic organ building,
was John Brombaugh. Already twenty years ago he built a
four manual, seventy stop instrument in the Southern Missionary
College in Collegedale, Tennessee, including a large ‘Recit
Expressive’ with an unda maris! It is interesting to speculate
how much the organ on the current discs represents a distillation
of the Collegedale concept, and how much it represents a
development of the style. The Springfield organ, completed in 2004 has 49 stops onthree3
manuals, and even features electric stop action and a combination
system! In trying to quantify the concept, the role of the
Swell here is, for me, harder to grasp than at Collegedale.
It features a celeste, but only a sharp mixture, as well
as a copy of the Haarlem Bovenwerk Vox Humana, but also
an extraordinary 16’ reed; a Dulcian until f’, thereafter
a copy of an 1870 Hook oboe! Also the case is interesting;
the Rűckpositive seems to point to around 1650ish,
while the main case seems to point more to the first 20
or 30 years of the 19th century.
Predictably
the organ sounds marvellous in Bach. The choruses are voiced
so well in the dryish acoustic, the reeds are very very
fine, including an uncanny copy of the Alkmaar Hobo, the
winding is musically flexible, the flutes are wonderfully
charming. Listen for the Schnitergerian Querflöte, curiously
reticent in the Swell box! This, although I don’t fully
understand it, is a masterpiece of 21st century
organ building.
It’s
a shame that the whole package is let down by the playing
of Robert Clark. Clark has contributed immensely to American organ education in the
last forty years. He commissioned an important Fritts organ
at the University of Arizona
and even edited a critically acclaimed edition of the Orgelbűchlein.
In short, this is an American organ organist who really
“gets it” and his intentions in terms of tempi, affekt,
articulation etc, are spot-on. Unfortunately his playing
has become laboured; co-ordination problems cause unsteadiness,
frequent note and rhythmic inaccuracies and often untidy
ornaments. I have the feeling that the whole recording is
heavily edited and some edits are indeed rather badly handled.
See disc 2: Track 2 @ 0’43, Track 5 @ 9’30 and Track 11
@ 1’30.
Recommended
for the instrument.
Chris
Bragg
Robert Clark, organ
[70’46 + 75’19]
