Lincoln (Nebraska) Organ Showcase

[KB7DQH]

By Christopher Marks

What are all of those buttons for?" This is a question that you might expect to hear in the cockpit of a 747, but those of us who play the pipe organ hear it more often than any other question—except, perhaps, "How can you play with your hands and feet at the same time?" Both questions point to the complexity of the King of Instruments and the incredible artistry that goes into performing an organ recital.

Nebraska has an unexpectedly rich organ heritage, as evidenced by the existence of Lincoln Organ Showcase (LOS), a recital series featuring nationally and internationally acclaimed organists performing on local instruments. On Sept. 19, LOS opens its 30th season with a concert by Jonathan Ryan in O'Donnell Auditorium at Nebraska Wesleyan University. Ryan, first-prize winner of the prestigious 2009 Jordan International Organ Competition, will present a program tailored specifically to the Wesleyan organ, built in 1963 by the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company.

In a one-size-fits-all, mass-production, chainstore age, the pipe organ is an outlier. The people who make and play pipe organs are participants in a unique art form that is seldom understood by the general public. Organ builders maintain a tradition of interdisciplinary craftsmanship that dates back centuries. They combine knowledge of acoustics, metallurgy, electrical and mechanical engineering, cabinetry, musicianship and, more recently, computer technology to create custom-designed works of art that must be visually striking, aurally pleasing and practical. Each project results in a one-of-a-kind instrument.

If every instrument is unique, how does the organist know how to use it? What if all 747 cockpits had different layouts of dials, switches and buttons and each aircraft responded in its own fashion to these controls? A pilot would have to spend hours learning the ins and outs of any individual airplane before taking flight. This is exactly like what a concert organist must do when she travels to a new location to perform a recital. Most other musicians travel with their own instruments and never face this challenge. The way that a concert organist custom fits her recital program to each instrument and the craftsmanship that she displays run parallel to the organ builder's art. Each performance is an ephemeral, unrepeatable work of art.

The first step in creating this one-time-only performance is finding out about the organ on which the concert will take place. Even from a distance, the organist can learn much about the organ from reading its specifications: who built it, when it was built and what stops it has. Organs almost always conform to a particular historical or geographical style. Organs built in France in the 19th century, for instance, are very different than organs built in northern Germany in the 18th century. An organist must know the difference and choose pieces that fit the instrument. "With [the specification], along with what I know of different builders, eras, styles, etc., I can make an educated guess as to what the organ will 'want' to play," says Ryan. "When organs are built with one particular style of music in mind, such as French Baroque or North German Baroque or English Romantic, and so forth, [it] can allow this music to be heard in a manner closer to what the composer heard and knew."

Having chosen appropriate music for a recital, the organist must then learn the music. Often, he will select music that he already knows, in which case rehearsing or relearning are required. This is when he learns the coordination between hands and feet (slightly different with each piece) and flexibility as to which keyboards ("manuals" in organ-speak) the hands will play. Since organs normally have pedals plus two, three, four or even five manuals, this aspect, too, is different from one venue to another. If he is lucky, the performer might practice on an instrument near his home, one that is similar in style and size to the concert instrument, making preparation less unpredictable.

Upon arrival at the concert location, the organist's main tasks are to adjust the coordination of hands and feet to the specific physical demands of the organ console and to select appropriate stops for the music. (Eating, drinking and sleeping tend to be optional at this point.) "Stops" are the knobs that control which pipes are speaking. Generally, each stop controls one kind of pipe and each kind of pipe has a different sound. Wood pipes sound different from metal pipes; tall, skinny pipes sound different from short, wide pipes. The combinations of these sounds and the changes throughout a piece create a kaleidoscope of tone color. The art of "registration," or choosing which stops to use, is unique to the organ and a difficult skill to master. While the organist can learn notes before arriving at a concert venue, the registration must be done on-site.

If you think of each stop as a different instrument, registration can be seen as analogous to orchestration. "An organist must be the equivalent of the conductor, all the members of an orchestra and half of the composer all in one," says Ryan. "As the composer chooses what instruments to use in the musical score, whether it is piano only or string quartet or voices or trumpets or full symphony, so organists choose the sounds (called 'stops') to use in solo and in combination." However, registration is even more complex, since the makeup of the "orchestra" can change with every performance. Imagine a conductor having to prepare a Mahler symphony with a different combination of instruments for each performance—this is essentially what an organist does. The organist's creativity in using a particular organ is of tremendous importance and is often unrecognized by the average listener. The selection of stops, along with getting used to the physical differences between organ consoles, can take hours prior to a performance. While most other instrumentalists can show up shortly before a performance to check the acoustics of a hall, an organist will normally need to plan a full day or more for preparation. Ryan says that he spends "a minimum of six hours of practice on the performance organ, but more typically 10 to 12 or more if it's a large, difficult program and/or an unusual organ. I greatly enjoy registration, and I often look for hidden sounds, colors and effects. The possibilities are nearly limitless!"

Present-day organ consoles most often have combination actions—electro-mechanical technology that allows the organist to change quickly from one combination of stops to another by pressing a button (usually located between the manuals) with a finger- or toe-stud (larger buttons just above the pedals) with the feet. These buttons (known as "pistons" in organ lingo) can be custom set by the organist in preparation for a particular piece. In some pieces these pistons can be used quite frequently, creating changes in sound color, sometimes subtle and sometimes quite abrupt. Since pistons are located in widely differing places from one organ to another, a significant amount of the organist's preparation

time at a new location is practicing these piston changes. The timing of such changes requires utmost precision and pushing those buttons is like playing another note in the music. Imagine playing an instrument where the keys for playing these "notes" change places at every venue!

Very little of this work is apparent to the audience—nothing happens visually to correspond with the stop changes. At its best, an organ performance can offer relatively little for the audience to watch, unlike a virtuoso violinist. In the worst cases, the organist can be hidden from view entirely, especially if the console is in a balcony behind the audience. In recent years cameras and projectors allow close-up images of the organist to be viewed by audiences in real time, which often adds interest to the performance. Many organists will also combat this problem by speaking to the audience between pieces about the music or the organ. This can be a surprise for audiences whose expectations are based on the majority of classical performers who typically don't break the fourth wall.

Although Nebraska may seem an unlikely place for a thriving organ culture, the state boasts some of the best pipe organs in the country, a world-class organ building company (Bedient in Lincoln) and a recital series that brings in the best organists in the world to perform concerts.

Because of the long history of organ teaching at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the city of Lincoln serves as an epicenter for Nebraska organ culture but is by no means the only place where pipe organs are found. New and historic organs exist in cities of all sizes throughout Nebraska, many gems that are little known. Lincoln Organ Showcase's goal is to show off some of these wonderful instruments in Lincoln and its surrounding region. Over its 30-year history, LOS has featured more than 100 different artists and dozens of regional pipe organs.



Tickets for the concert are $15, $10 for seniors. Ages 18 and under and students with a current ID are admitted free. For more information about LOS, please visit www.lincolnorganshowcase.org or email info[at]lincolnorganshowcase[dot]org.

http://www.prairiefirenewspaper.com/2011/09/the-rich-heritage-of-the-pipe-organ

Eric
KB7DQH