Pièce d’Orgue, BWV 572 - David Briggs plays the 1973 Marcussen organ at the Laurenskerk, Rotterdam, NL 😎🎶🎶🎶
It’s sometimes the instruments themselves which are the best teachers! Three weeks ago I had the wonderful experience of getting to know the beautiful 1973 Marcussen instrument in the Laurenskerk, Rotterdam, NL. With 85 stops and 7600 pipes, it is the largest organ in the Netherlands and the largest church organ with mechanical action in Europe. But somehow it’s about much more than just the sound - the whole ‘feel’ of the instrument directly affects the way you play. There is something about the directness of contact with the finest mechanical touch which is very stimulating and enabling. With four manuals coupled, the touch is certainly quite chunky and you have to work for your sound, but the base of the key is so welcoming and reassuring (especially if your finger was over the right note). With a superbly-engineered key touch, such as seen here with the Rotterdam Marcussen, the control especially of the release of the notes can make a real difference to the sound.
I hope you’ll enjoy this performance. I like to add quite a bit of naughty ornamentation - not being a Bach specialist, I have no idea if it’s authentic or otherwise! But I do have a hunch that, if we were to go back in a time machine, probably what was on the written page was just the beginning of the story, when the master played. I suspect he put a lot of himself into everything he played, and it was probably different every time.
We know that, even if he probably did not travel much, Bach was very interested in the music of other countries (particularly French and Italy), and used to copy manuscripts of French composers like Nicolas de Grigny, in order to first and foremost to learn about French harmonic techniques. The ‘Pièce d’Orgue’ is in three parts, all with French titles: Très Vitement, Grave and Lentement. The first section is for the hands and is very similar to harpsichord music, where harmonies are created in a single line of music. The second part, Grave, shows that Bach has a complete mastery of harmony, joined to a real contrapuntal equality. The harmonic suspensions and twists are incredible. The final section is a bit of an Oxymoron - the harmonies move slowly but the notes are very fast and bright, ending on the Full Organ. Of course, it's more than a pastiche of French Baroque - in 2 bars you can tell the composer must be Bach
5 сен 2024
