Played with great feeling. A superb contribution by Balazs Barnkopf to this memorable concert. Nimrod established Elgar's international reputation in 1899.
I hadn't before heard a Varnus protegé tackle this. The pianissimos do suffer, but it is gorgeously played nonetheless. This nearly "out-of-control romanticism" is irresistible, but so are the haunting pianissimos, holding everything in check-almost !
I’m listening to this piece like the whole week already, it’s beautiful! I just grabbed the sheet music and got through the first 3 bars with both hands, very awesome feeling to play succesfully. Just got to buy a proper organ console and a house without neighbors lol :-)
I had the honor of hosting Dr Fred Geoghegan, Director of Music at the University of Vancouver, in Virginia Beach on his numerous visits, and this was his 'signature' piece. Unfortunately, for the World of Music, Fred never permitted his performances to be recorded, depriving us of his mastery.
Does one have to have a good understanding of musical theory in order to truly appreciate and enjoy classical music or it's simply a natural affinity to its overall sound?
@@dustsky It's natural... you only need to know music theory if you are going to play it. And i think 80% of the skills for playing this is just in practicing, repeat repeat repeat.. note reading skills, knowing the way on the manuals and pedals without looking. Once in concert and not using sheet music, then an organist is relying on muscle memory. Things like the circle of fifths and learning all the key signatures is only needed if you're going creative, improvisations and so. If someone is going to evaluate a performance by comparing it to music theory, then i think that person is more busy with pretending to be a conservatory judge than actually feeling and enjoying the music. 🙂
Played beautifully...pity that the organist chose a piece that had so many pianissimos, pianos and mezzopianos in it, and in that way wasn't able to cover the compulsory need to cough of some members of the audience. Really people, if you have pulmonary problems, go to a doctor, take a medicine and stay at home.
It less a need to cough than an inability to focus - listening to classical music is an art in itself - it makes the less sensible fidget - coughing is a kind of fidgeting.
@Andrew Ernyes I am so glad that at least you know how to behave.. According your comment. By the way I didn't register a cough. I was completely immersed in the music. Have a good day. A (former) Hungarian
@@thethikboy If you listen to this on good high volume that you can feel the bass shaking your bones at the beginning, then the coughing really is disturbing. At some coughs i wonder if they needed to call the cleaning department for what has landed on the floor. I don't understand what's wrong with people to cough like that during a concert.... if i ever had to cough during a concert (never had to) then i would do my utter best to not make such loud noises during a quiet part of a concert. It's just a-social and shameless towards the other 2000 spectators, the artist, and the people watching the recording afterwards.
The coughing, which was way to rude, had little to do with the performance. It was fairly good until the major rumble. Modern organists have yet to lear than the use of 16' on the manuals make the sound muddy. But it went well otherwise. Decent job but not a #1.
Beautiful playing but boy what a horrible sounding full organ. It almost sounds like it has had very little maintenance or was poorly voiced. It clearly runs out of wind at the big section and screeching mixtures and out of tune reeds. What a shame for such a great festival, great playing and musician.
He alters his playing on that ff section to compensate. There is no worse feeling that reaching that final verse of chord of a hymn, full organ, couplers and pedals included to hear it wheeze a slow death due to lack of wind pressure.
I have listened to Xaver Varnus play this organ and although the quality was a lot better it was not what it should be. I have a suspicion it may be the recording technique in such a big building. Old organs run out of wind but this is a new one . RU-vid can distort the tonal range of organ pieces, after all is said and done this instrument spans the entire range of human hearing.
I'm pretty sure if a multi-million organ would run out of wind that they would add a blower quite quickly.. so i think the running out of wind part is nonsense. Maybe you're referring to the detuning sound during the loud parts. I believe that's caused by pipes which are standing close to each other, their individual frequencies gets influenced by their neighboring ones. It's natural for an organ and i actually like it.
Beautifully played! The tempo was fine also. Interestingly enough, I never noticed the coughing because he had my attention. The only complaint was the odd sound at 4:00 and shortly thereafter. For such an impressive organ, the full organ sounded like a cacophony of old theater organs with the oddest vibrato and dissonance, if one would call it that. Nevertheless, it was very puzzling. The train wreck occurs 4:15 to 4:25. However, I love this organist! Waiting for more.
Just about the perfect tempo. This piece is the biggest reason I learned how to to play the organ. When I play this, I sometimes run even a slightly slower tempo than what is heard here. It allows one to perform the piece with with more feeling and meaning. There are many videos of orchestras performing this here on RU-vid. And if you see and hear some of them, you'll understand what I'm getting at. Please do check out the orchestral video on Gennaro Lettieri's channel. It's awsome. I've also performed this in a full orchestra playing string bass back in high school, and to this day remains my all time favorite piece of music. Kudos on the great registration and not letting the distractions influence your performing abilities.
