Episodes: 1998

A summing up of the past year, with celebrations and memorial tributes, highlights of some exceptional recordings, and some glimpses into the future.

Celebratory anthems and organ solos, domestic and imported, for the holiday season.

A coast-to-coast collection of memorable and mesmerizing manipulations of seasonal songs.

From Provence to Poland and New York City to Norway, we offer a global tour of compositions on Christmas themes.

Musical meditations for Advent on themes of expectation and wonderment.

An extravagantly colorful autumn collection of recent recordings in review.

We take the psalmists directive, at least for few moments, and venture Beside Still Waters on our next Pipedreams program by listening to music by American composers. Douglas Cleveland plays Dan Locklair’s Windows of Comfort… a series of movements inspired by Tiffany stained glass window scenes. David Higgs presents the world premiere of Three Meditations, by Augusta Read Thomas, and Mary Preston joins the Colorado Symphony for a colorful and sizzling new Concerto for Organ and Orchestra by Gerald Near which might make you stand up and shout bravo. From alpha to omega, we explore the living art of colorful contemporary repertoire with Douglas Cleveland, David Higgs, and Mary Preston as our soloist guides. From an Organist’s Guild Convention in Denver, it’s the American Muse at work, this week on Pipedreams.

A first program of highlights from the 1998 National Biennial Convention of the American Guild of Organists.

Transcribed, transformed, and untraditional organ works by Bach, Beethoven and Brahms.

Celebrating a recent recorded summary of historic instruments and young performing talent in France.

Whether bullish or bearish, the musical environment in Washington, DC is enlivened by the sounds of instruments such as these.

Sampling sounds of six recent organ installations in Washington, California, Arkansas, Florida and North Carolina.

With organologist and restorer Susan Tattershall, we explore the musical legacy of the Spanish conquest of the New World, visiting historic instruments in the regions of Oaxaca, Tlaxcala and Mexico City. Less than a century after the first expedition of Christopher Columbus, the art of organbuilding, taught by Spanish monks and practiced, to large extent, by indigenous artisans, was firmly established on the North American continent. Our program travels the countryside, revelling in the ‘sights and sounds’ of a remarkable culture, and listening to instruments built in the 17th, 18th and early 19th centuries, some small enough to stand on a card table, others as grand as the finest cathedral organs of Old Spain. Performances feature Jose Suarez of the Mexico City Conservatory, and Roberto Oropeza. All recordings were made on location and generally in compromised circumstances, and in most cases the organs were pumped by hand. Sites and musical selections include:

Music on Old Testament themes for Synagogue services or concerts.

A trio of historic instruments, a contemporary piece for two to play, and a centenary bouquet for a past master of melody.

American composers Frank Ferko and Stephen Paulus confirm the influence of a medieval mystic, Hildegard of Bingen, upon their contemporary art. Hildegard believed music to be the highest form of human activity, a mirror of the celestial resonance of angel choirs and the harmony of the heavenly spheres. Why shouldn’t composers today be inspired by her example?

Behold! We bring you both powerful and poetic musings from one of the greatest organists of the 20th century, Marcel Dupré.

Glittering interpretations of cosmic compositions on brilliantly shining and heavenly themes.

Faculty and student soloists demonstrate instruments by Flentrop, Aeolian-Skinner, Brombaugh and Holtkamp on the campus of the famed Oberlin Conservatory in Ohio. The Oberlin Conservatory was established in 1865 as an adjunct to the co-educational Oberlin College, they each being the first such institutions of their kind in the United States. At present, the Conservatory serves approximately 500 students, a bit less than one-fifth of the total college population. In addition to the 1974 Flentrop tracker organ, III/44, in Warner Concert Hall and the 1955 Aeolian-Skinner, III/68, in Finney Chapel, the campus boasts 23 other pipe organs of various sizes and styles for practice, teaching and performance.

Early Baroque and late Romantic repertoire from the organ’s spiritual home.

Spirited and creative variants on themes of heavenly grace.

Capsule coverage of some recent organ installations showing an interesting variety of styles.

Bay-area favorite Tom Hazleton returns to home territory for concert performances at the Castro Theatre and Trinity Episcopal Church on Bush Street, where California landmark instruments were recorded during an Organ Historical Society convention.

Concert performances on the 1985 Schantz pipe organ at the Church of Saint Leo the Great in Saint Paul, MN.

A miscellany of music for organ and various other instruments.

A summer quarterly review of recent releases of organ music on compact disc.

instruments built by John F. Nordlie and Charles Hendrickson envigorate the organ scene in and around Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

a collection of unusual repertoire featuring Canadian composers and performers.

portraits of four historic instruments, in Portland and Bangor, Maine; Ocean Grove, New Jersey; and Round Lake, New York, famous for their summer concert schedules.

A sonorous survey of nine instruments by the most illustrious of North German Baroque organbuilders, Arp Schnitger [1648-1719], in celebration of the 350th anniversary of his birth.

From Rocky Mountain country, a sampler of instruments in and around Denver, Colorado.

Premiere performances and other sonically exceptional music presented in southern comfort at a national convention of the American Guild of Organistrs.

Reminiscences of an American Guild of Organists Convention in America’s organ city.

Showing independence of spirit and diversity of expressive means, a sampler of music from Norway.

A survey of some deliciously romantic music by Joseph Jongen of Belgium, with commentary and performances by his biographer John Scott Whiteley.

A visit with convivial scholar-performer John Butt of Cambridge, England, who plays in recital in Boston and on instruments in the O’Neill Collection of the University of California-Berkeley.

What better way to explore the composers’ and the organbuilders’ art than through some sets of variations?

A spring survey of recent releases of organ music on compact disc.

Celebratory selections for the Spring festival of rebirth and renewal.

A sampler of unusual repertoire from one of Eastern Europe’s major musical centers.

And why shouldn’t the King of Instruments play a special role in our enjoyment of music from the lyric stage?

Mostly smaller chorale settings from the landmark volume, Clavierubung III.

The goal of our next Pipedreams program is clear enough, discover exceptional women musicians and given them center stage. And so we shall, with Irmtraud Krueger marching around the sanctuary in Poligny, France, Kathleen Scheide playing her own composition in Boston, Dorothy Papadakos improvising to the songs of humpback whales at the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City, now isn’t THAT an image?! and Katharine Pardee responding to the muse of Sweelinck in Syracuse. Whether Under the Linden Green, or in the depths of the sea singing with humpback whales, talented women organists play for us, showing off a multiplicity of talents and tastes as we Cherchez les Femmes, and find them…this week on Pipedreams.

In Iowa and Indiana we explore notable installations of imaginatively-conceived organs by American builders Lynn Dobson and Daniel Jaeckel.

Finalists of the 1997 Dallas International Organ Competition play at the Meyerson Symphony Center.

Performances by and conversations with entrants in the prestigeous and lucrative 1997 Dallas International Organ Competition, recorded on the C.B. Fisk pipe organs of Southern Methodist University and the Meyerson Symphony Center.

Vibrant and colorful compositions by 20th century composers in the United States, important additions to the organ’s ongoing tradition.

Though symphonies and choral music have secured his fame, it was the organ he first loved and which remained a life influence.

Performances by members of the Alamo Chapter of the American Guild of Organists in Texas.

Hot sounds from Kansas university campuses in Wichita and Pittsburg.

Concerts from American Guild of Organists gatherings in Sioux Falls, South Dakota and Sioux Center Iowa.

A New Year’s survey of recent releases of organ music on compact disc.