Bach, organs and eclipses

Yesterday, I went to an all-Bach organ concert at Memorial Church.
The performer was James Kibbie, a renowned Bach expert.
He played all of the pieces expertly and with a lot of care.

It all sounded lovely in this venue, which, when completely empty, has a 6.4-second reverb. (A nightmare for singers; lovely for sweeping organ sounds) Last night, the place was reasonably full, so the reverb was considerably dampened, but there was still a pleasant lingering of notes.

I must confess that while I think organ is cool as an accompanying instrument, it is not one of my favorite solo instruments.

It's a perfectly lovely thing to listen to the sounds of organ drifting from up yonder while being surrounded in semi-darkness in a beautiful church setting. However, I've always liked organs more for the mood they convey than the actual quality of sound they emit. I know this is not the way I'm supposed to listen to music, but I prefer to listen to organ music "passively" and not be over-analytical about what I hear. Once I start listening for individual textures, chords, etc. , I start to find its sound a bit overwhelming; depending on the stops used, it sounds at once like a percussion instrument, keyboard, clarinet, flute, french horn, or heck, like itself. I tend to like instruments that have a very clear "narrow" sound: oboes, English horns, violins, cellos. Conversely, I'm not a huge fan of most french horns, clarinets, or flutes because of the "fuzziness" of the sound. I don't know if my manichean fuzzy-vs.-narrow worldview of musical instruments makes sense, but when I listen to an oboe or violin, the notes sound like someone taking a brand new sharpie marker and drawing sound waves in the air. With the "fuzzier instruments", the sound produced is like a worn sharpie drawing that same line-- blurred and fuzzier. Whether it be metaphorically speaking or in real life, I really don't like worn-out sharpies. (Actually, in real life, they drive me nuts, because I can't write my parents' address on a package with blunted sharpies.) Maybe I haven't heard enough good french hornists, flutists, etc., but the result of this worn-out sharpie-like playing is that I can't quite nail the pitch.

Now, with the organ, it's not a single sound wave drawn with a sharpie--sharp, worn or otherwise--but an impenetrable wall of sound, coming at you at unrelenting speeds.

Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's just that it's not the kind of sound that is conducive to refined attentive listening. But this is also a reason to like organ music: for once, I don't feel like I have to be a sophisticated listener to enjoy it. Of course, this might just mean that I'm an organ music philistine.

Either way, I enjoyed the concert--as much as I could enjoy an organ concert.

As an added bonus, we got to witness the different phases of the lunar eclipse: before the concert, a full eclipse in which the moon was rendered a muddy hue and obscured behind a haze; at intermission, a partial eclipse wherein the brightness of half of the moon really made the red colors come out, and then the bright, full moon, towering over us and bidding us adieu when the eclipse had ended, by the time we got out of the concert.

For those of you who like Bach's organ music, Kibbie is engaged in a 3-year project in which he plans to record all of Bach's organ works on original 18th century German organs. Recordings of these entire works are available free* on the web, compliments of a generous grant from Barbara Furin Sloat. Hurray to free music, organ or otherwise!

(*note to the digital copyright gestapo: I'm sharing this website on my blog, because I learned about it (the Bach organ works website) at a concert I recently attended and believe it's a useful resource. I admit I'm a bit fuzzy on copyright laws, since you now tell us that even copying legitimately bought cds onto our computers is illegal, but it looks like the copyright is listed on the website. It is also sponsored by University of Michigan, so I'm assuming that that is also an indication of this project being legit. Thus, as far as I'm concerned, I'm sharing this link legitimately and not violating any copyright laws. Since I'm ignorant of doing anything illegal, please do not sue me. Instead, if this is somehow illegal, please warn me first, and I'll happily remove this link from this blog.)