Bach’s Resplendent Organ Music
J.S. Bach
TALKING TO internationally acclaimed German organist Stefan Engels is an educational and inspirational experience. You quickly realize that you will never think about—or listen to—the organ the same way.
But the first thing I happened to notice about this charming man who will be performing at Bach Festival Charleston was his shoes, which looked like ballroom dancing shoes. He chuckled and said: “Every American organist has them. Fifty bucks. From organmastershoes.com.” Then he explained: “They have a heel, as you can see (holding up his foot), and that’s important for making a distinction between the sharp and flat keys on the foot pedals. The shoes are very light and they let you touch the pedals with your feet the same way you touch the keyboard with your fingers. You want to be able to feel the pedals, which are different on each organ.”
This was just the beginning of many new insights about the organ, the physical demands of playing it, and why its music is so special. It also corresponded to something that JeeYoon Choi, the Artistic Director for the festival, had told me the day before: “The organ is the king of instruments. It can be performed as a solo or as an orchestra, with the full sounds of an orchestra. Most people have no idea what is required to set up the organ for playing each concert piece.”
The organ at First (Scots) Presbyterian Church
The four keyboards at First Scots. The stops are the white buttons below each keyboard.
Stefan went on to say that “this organ has enormous capabilities in terms of color. It has 70 to 75 stops (registers) and each is a different color. There are certain sounds that a layperson connects with an organ which relate to a church service or some kind of emotional experience related to a church service. But there is so much more. I think that what often happens is that organists don’t make enough use of the various combinations of stops to bring out all the color possibilities.
“The other thing that is so interesting about the organ is the coordination that is required in the playing of it. For example, this organ has four keyboards. And, of course, you play with your feet as well. Playing the piano is really quite relaxing compared to playing the organ. With the organ you have to be extremely well organized to manage all the keyboard changes. It’s like flying in your own little cockpit. For instance, just below each keyboard there are presets (buttons) where you set the different colors, different sounds. The presets allow you to save different combinations of stops (which control the valves on the organ pipes). You program the whole thing in advance, which takes a lot of time, especially in the case of colorful music. And you write your presets into the score.
The foot pedals (beige & brown) and swell boxes (white).
“Then, underneath the console, you have the foot pedals as well as swell boxes that allow you to expand the sound (the First Scots organ has three swell boxes).
“Working at a console like this is very much like a conductor working with an orchestra. Setting the presets is like rehearsal with an orchestra where you stipulate, for example, that here you want the oboes a little softer, there the flutes louder, and again in another place the violins and cellos more pronounced. That is what an organist does all by himself with all the stops, keyboards, and swell pedals.
“Really, what I do when I practice is I rehearse my orchestra. And every organ is different. Sometimes you have one or two or more keyboards, and one or more swell pedals. And each organ has a different specification, meaning different types of stops.”
I later had a chance to see the organ chamber on the opposite end of the church from where the console is—in a large closet of a room above the altar, behind the white organ grates. Inside this room is a confusing array of tall pipes on one side and long, horizontal wooden sound boxes on the other, each with their own tuning device, and all connected to a computer logic board that receives the electronic signals from the console before issuing ‘play’ commands to the pipes. You can even say that one of the oldest instruments—which you originally had to pump air into physically to make it play—is now one of the most high-tech instruments that classical musicians play.
The 3 ornamental grills covering the organ pipes.
Stefan continued: “If laypeople were more aware of what is involved in playing the organ, then I think the organ would be more appreciated. In fact, during this concert there will be a large video screen so that the audience downstairs will be able to see me playing. As you know, most organs and organists, especially in Europe, are up in the gallery, unseen. The congregation just hears the sound and has no idea what is going on. I think we need to find more ways to bring all that is involved with playing the organ closer to the people. And something like a video projection can help with that. That’s why it’s also useful to have organ concerts, because people listen differently to the organ. It’s not just something going on subconsciously, in the background, which makes a big difference.”
I then asked Stefan: “What is it about Bach’s music, and his organ music in particular, that makes it stand out?”
“His music is so difficult to interpret and perform. It is so emotional and intellectual, and so varied in its style. And there are so many different theological connections. What a genius of a mind he was. There is always something new to discover. As a keyboard player, Bach had large organs at his disposal. We have some documentation that suggests he was a brilliant virtuoso and that he improvised really wildly, wanting to show off his technique by doing all kinds of unusual things for his time. So in terms of organ music, Bach is still the center; the major cornerstone.”
The organ console (upper left) in the balcony at the opposite end of the church from the organ pipes.
What makes Bach’s music so hard to interpret?
“The level of quality in his compositions is so extremely high. There is never a note that is not in the very right place. Every note is always just where it needs to be. Not too many. Not too few. Always just right. The artistry, the perfectionism in the contrapuntal texture, and the deep theological and symbolical meaning behind the music. To deeply understand what is behind a certain piece, you have to really study the life of Bach, the society he lived in, the political climate, and the problems he had to deal with. With Bach it is all very intense, very deep, very extreme, and all these things make it challenging to play his music in a convincing way, so that there is a message that comes across which people can understand.
“We listen, for example, to his cantatas on our iPod and think how beautiful it is, but we don’t realize how Bach, when he was in Leipzig for instance, was struggling from week to week to produce a new cantata, to write all the parts for the instruments, to get the young boys’ choir ready to sing it, to organize the musicians—and all with very little rehearsal time. Then to copy all the music, even though he had help with that. What a stressful life it must have been.”
We then talked about the selections Stefan will play: five by Bach and five by the twentieth-century German composer, Sigfrid Karg-Elert.
How did you choose the pieces for this concert?
Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1787–1933)
“I am now focusing on recording the complete works of Karg-Elert. The project will comprise about 15 CDs.” (Stefan was on his way to England the next day to do a recording in one of the many churches around Europe and in the U.S. which have organs built between 1880 and 1930.)
“JeeYoon” (who studied for two years under Stefan and later wrote her doctoral dissertation on Karg-Elert) “had the idea of establishing a connection between Bach and Karg-Elert. We came up with the title for the program: ‘J.S. Bach and S. Karg-Elert: Influence and Inspiration’ because Karg-Elert was very much influenced by Bach. He studied his music thoroughly. He himself wrote extensively for the organ, as well as writing a lot of church preludes based on religious tunes. His pieces are large-scale works, and he used forms and techniques in his compositions that go back to Bach. It is therefore quite logical to establish this connection between them.
“So what I did to shine light on all this was to select the program the following way. I open with the Bach Concerto in C Major, which is a transcription of Vivaldi’s Concerto for Violin and Strings. Bach knew that Vivaldi’s concertos were popular, and knew if he transcribed them that organists would play them, and that he would be recognized for it and become more known. It was a business decision.
“In fact, the concertos I will play stand out from the other concertos that Bach transcribed because Bach extends the cadences—the free-style sections—even further than Vivaldi did. In this particular cadenza he does it at great intensity and duration. It is so fascinating how he takes the material of a violin cadenza and turns it into an organ cadenza. The result is so interesting and unusual and enormous for the organ that you hear sounds and colors you would never connect with Bach. He was extremely progressive in composing this cadenza.
“The second piece I will play was written by Karg-Elert in 1921 after he had spent time with his family at the Lake of Constance in Southern Germany near the border of Austria. The climate there can change rapidly and dramatically—from pure loveliness to wild thundering—and Karg-Elert composed these weather characteristics for the organ in his Pastels from the Lake Constance. It is very impressionistic.
“No other organ composer up to that time had ever written in such an interesting way for the organ. He was the first to bring out those unusual impressionistic colors in the organ. And the parallel between Karg-Elert’s impressionistic ideas and Bach’s progressive cadenza is just right there.
Organist Stefan Engels
“Then I will play another set of Bach and another set of Karg-Elert to show a parallel between their use of Baroque forms and structure. First I will play a fantasia, a canzone, a passacaglia, and a fugue by Bach. Then I will play exactly those same forms by Karg-Elert. Another interesting thing is that Karg-Elert actually incorporated these four forms into another piece of his, the 2nd Symphonic Canzone. In other words, Karg-Elert used these forms the same way that Bach did, but he also used them to create his own symphonic form.
“Karg-Elert spent almost his entire life in Leipzig where he was an active composer of chamber music, as well as of piano, organ, and harmonium (reed organ) music. As a professor of music theory and composition at the Leipzig Conservatory, he was very un-German for his time: an open-minded and colorful composer who was interested in different styles of music. For example, he wrote in the late Romantic style, but also in expressionistic and impressionistic styles. He experienced a true Renaissance—a rediscovery—in piano, choral, and organ music.”
You can learn more—and hear live demonstrations—on Saturday afternoon when Stefan gives his lecture, “The Leipzig Organ Tradition,” a few hours before he performs what promises to be a very special concert of organ music.
And here’s a tip for those of you who read all the way to the end of this interview: sit up in the gallery near the organ so you can watch Stefan first hand …and listen carefully.
Also read my interview with Choirmaster Ricard Bordas who will conduct the cantatas on Sunday.
Read more about Bach Festival Charleston 2011.
Wow! What great reviews and interviews. You really got into this one. It is obvious that you spent a lot of time with everyone involved… with a wonderful result. Thanks for sharing.