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Christ Church Cathedral
June 14, 2013
As a child, I harboured strong likes and dislikes in matters of music. I absolutely abhorred the reedy sound of the church organ. To my unpolluted ears, the organ was right up there with the accordion, the harmonica, the bagpipe and similar noise generators. It took several decades for me to change my mind. Because I dabble at piano-playing, I was once asked to play the organ during an Anglican Christmas service in Southern France ("if you can play one keyboard instrument, then surely you can play them all, right?"). The organ had more horsepower than I had counted on, and I practically blew the roof off the church with my Wagnerian rendition of "Silent Night". It was like having a Ferrari or Harley Davidson experience, and eventually I even acquired an electronic organ of my own.
Thus reconciled with the sound of the organ, I was looking forward to Michael Gormley's all-Bach recital at Christ Church Cathedral. But there was another obstacle: I am a romantic at heart and don't care much for Baroque music. I mentioned this to a friend once, justifying my antipathy by the plodding texture of the genre compared to the music from Beethoven onwards. She shrugged and replied: "But after an evening of all that romantic stuff, you need a bit of Baroque to clean out your ears." It took me a while to digest the depth of that thought, and I am still working on it.
As the audience arrived before the start of the concert, they must have been encouraged by the sight of the large video screen that displayed the as yet unmanned organ. Usually the organist is a demi-god perched out of sight somewhere in the upper regions of the vast edifice. For once, we were going to be virtually sitting next to him. To begin with, Michael Gormley stood before the audience to introduce the programme. He described how he had chosen the works partly because they were his favourites, and partly to illustrate the full spectrum of Bach's compositional styles.
The visual complement to the mighty sound of preludes, toccatas and fugues was mesmerizing. Gormley's hands could be seen flying across the four keyboards as expertly as if he were piloting a jumbo jet on take-off, while his feet danced across the pedals with an agility that would put a tap-dancer to shame. This was multi-tasking at its best. The new instrument, installed in 2005 and whose timbre is inspired by organs found in Austria and Southern Germany, sounded fresh and crisp. Naturally, some of the works were more familiar than others. Most of them were variations on traditional chorales. For those so inclined, the programme notes helped to unravel the sometimes highly complex structure of the variations, while other listeners seemed content to just close their eyes and be transported into that sphere of consciousness called Nirvana.
Chatting with Michael Gormley after the concert, I enquired about his "fast footwork." He confirmed what I had noticed on the screen, namely that organists use both their toes and heels on the pedals - e.g. when a rapid switch from a "black" key to an adjacent "white" key is called for - but he also mentioned that excessive use of the heel is not considered quite comme-il-faut. He uses special shoes, tailor-made in the U.S. and similar to dress shoes but with a sole of velvet rather than bare leather.
As for reedy sounds and plodding textures, Baroque organ music is rather like a geyser: there is a lot going on beneath the surface!
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