1976 Brombaugh organ at Central Lutheran Church, Eugene, Oregon

1976 Brombaugh organ at Central Lutheran Church, Eugene, Oregon
Photo–Naxos CD-8.554548

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Programs that feature this organ

#0014: Going on Record

It’s kind of like a test drive. This week’s Pipedreams program is a review of a dozen recent compact discs, including one from an obscure - and ravishingly lovely - parish church in Waltershausen, Germany. We’ll visit Saint Mark’s Cathedral, Seattle, the old Paramount Theatre in Brooklyn, a lavish museum near Los Angeles, and Meyerson Symphony Center in Dallas, Texas. We’ll have music by Bach and his pupil Krebs, a French organ symphony rediscovered, and an introduction to the explosive improvisational talent of Wayne Marshall, who takes George Gershwin for a ride.

#0238: Play It Again, Sam

A good tune is a joy forever, but instead of repeating the same melody over and over, why not make it different? This week’s show illustrates the art of variation. Organist, Hannes Meyer toys with a European folksong, while the late, great George Thalben-Ball takes the ferocious fiddling of Paganini and transforms it into a virtuosic dance on the organ pedals. Secular or sacred, sumptuous or sometimes just plain silly, our themes provide remarkable opportunity for creative possibilities. It’s all about the altered intent, where one good tune demands another take. By the end, even you’ll be calling out, Play it Again, Sam.

#0239: Hamburger Hotdish

When you’ve got it, flaunt it. As a center for trade and diplomacy, the seventeenth-century north German port of Hamburg was one of the most prosperous independent cultural centers of Europe. As a city, it supported composers like Scheidemann, Praetorius and Reincken who, in turn, provided the foundations of a German Baroque style. This week, we sample the musical life of this cosmopolitan Hanseatic center and hear some of the music and instruments for which the city was, and remains, famous. Guy Bovet, Douglas Bush, Gustav Leonhardt and Julia Brown play upon a proud cultural tradition, and we serve up delectible samples from our Hamburger Hotdish.

#9952: An Organist’s Millennial Yearbook

Pipedreams rings in a new century with a retrospective of the old, paying tribute to important anniversaries and personalities of the year gone by, and reflecting on the new millennium. You’ll hear the new organ at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, soloists Martin Jean and Jelani Eddington, and the pioneering recitalist, teacher, and organbuilder Robert Noehren. You’ll sample archive concert tapes, and new compact disc releases, too, as host Michael Barone leafs through the pages of An Organist’s Millennial Yearbook.