Prom 66 (1.9.12): Cameron Carpenter plays Bach (1)

[Vile Consort]

I can't help feeling that the more critical comments about CC are coming from those who are comparing him with organists of the Hurford/Preston calibre. Why not think of the Prom as a superior mixture of Town Hall Concert, complete with the usual arrangements, and a cinema organist's recital of the 1930s? I wish I could have been there. It sounded as if the audience really enjoyed it.

Why not? Because you are not comparing like with like for a start. CC was giving a Bach recital, not a light music recital or accompanying a silent film, so it is perfectly valid to compare him with others who have given Bach recitals in high-profile venues such as Hurford and Preston.

Secondly, cinema organists of the 1930's were often very good classical organists turning their hand to light entertainment because the pay was good and the work plentiful. The splendidly named Shackleton Pollard (organist of Halifax Parish Church in the 40's and 50's) was an example of such, and by all accounts he was an excellent Bach player and a highly-regarded teacher. So even you choose to fight the battle on that ground, Cameron Carpenter doesn't come off at all well. Shack would certainly have been utterly scathing about him.

[Tony Halstead]

cinema organists of the 1930's were often very good classical organists turning their hand to light entertainment

The name PERCY WHITLOCK comes to mind. I wonder what his Bach playing was like?
As you mention 'Shack' Pollard I must say that I had hoped to study with him at the 'old' RMCM in the 1960s as a '2nd study organist' ( my main study being the horn) but he wasn't able to take me on, so, instead, I had the occasional class with Eric Chadwick ( now the late/ lamented).
Fortunately my main organ teacher was the beatific RONALD FROST ( now organist of St Anne's, Manchester) who taught me, among many other virtuous things, to stay with the same registration throughout a Bach organ work.

[french frank]

It's worth thinking about what constitutes, for most people, 'musical entertainment': it's the personality, the showmanship, the energy, and it wouldn't matter what Carpenter played they'd enjoy it just the same. The uninhibited (tasteless?) performance gives them permission to let their hair down too. It's a fun afternoon. It's what Carpenter does and that's why he was invited to give two afternoon Proms - to pull in the audience that will enjoy it: I wouldn't like to guess what percentage would equally enjoy Preston or Hurford in a similar choice of programme.

Two packed halls for afternoon concerts will reduce the amount of subsidy Radio 3 will have to put towards the Proms season. In which context, it's interesting to see Page One of the Editor's Choice of 'the very best clips from the 2012 BBC Proms'.

[Vile Consort]

The name PERCY WHITLOCK comes to mind. I wonder what his Bach playing was like?
As you mention 'Shack' Pollard I must say that I had hoped to study with him at the 'old' RMCM in the 1960s as a '2nd study organist' ( my main study being the horn) but he wasn't able to take me on, so, instead, I had the occasional class with Eric Chadwick ( now the late/ lamented).
Fortunately my main organ teacher was the beatific RONALD FROST ( now organist of St Anne's, Manchester) who taught me, among many other virtuous things, to stay with the same registration throughout a Bach organ work.

How absolutely fascinating. Never for a moment did I imagine anyone on here would have heard of Shackleton Pollard! I take it he must have had a high reputation as a teacher.

I took organ lessons with Philip Tordoff at Halifax Minster, who had himself been taught by Shackleton Pollard there in the 1950's. Some of Philip's scores were inherited from Shackleton Pollard and include his frank comments on the music, such as "this is tosh!!!" on the C sharp major rhapsody of Herbert Howells. I can never hear the piece without thinking of that.

Yes, I wonder what Whitlock's Bach playing was like ... not to our taste these days, I expect.

[Contre Bombarde]

No it isn't. In almost all cases, the arrangement is a pale imitation which makes the listener painfully aware of how much better the original is, and how preferable it would have been to have spent his admission fee on admittance to a proper performance of the work by the instruments for which the composer wrote it. It is like a dog walking on its hind legs - not done well, but one is amazed it can be done at all. And of the difficulty of performing such arrangements: "Difficult do you call it, Sir? I wish it were impossible!"

Transcriptions of orchestral works for the organ were made so that the man in the street could afford to hear the music by going along to their local town hall on a Saturday afternoon and paying a few pennies for the admission fee. The cost of travelling to a concert hall and paying the entrance fee for an orchestral concert would have been out of reach for most ordinary people. This is why Victorian town halls in large towns and cities have or had monumental instruments by the finest organ builders of the day. The RAH is a Victorian town hall...

I do tire of the sniffy reaction to transcriptions of orchestral works for the organ but am expected to admire Leopold Stokowski's frightful arrangement of JSB's T & F in D Minor for orchestra. Once again, the organ is regarded as a second-class cousin to other instruments. These arrangements, thinking especially of those by Edwin Lemare, are in the main exceptionally difficult to master but boy oh boy aren't they worth the months of effort when it all comes together?! And yes, the techniques required to play them should be admired by listeners. Do they realise what is involved in controlling a 4 or 5 manual instrument of perhaps 100 stops, two or three expression pedals, ranks of thumb pistons, toe pistons, steppers and sequencers and then playing the notes in the right order, and above all musically, with hands and feet, often double and triple pedalling and "thumbing" the theme on a lower manual while accompanying with the other nine fingers on the manual above?

I do not play many transcriptions because my first love is the French repertoire but on the occasions that I have offered one on a concert the audience reaction has been hugely appreciative, more so than for some mainstream music. I repeat, borrow a copy of Thomas Trotter's BTH DVD from a library and I wager that you will be swayed towards the genre.

[french frank]

Perhaps in some cases it's less the transcriptions as the performances?

[Contre Bombarde]

Perhaps in some cases it's less the transcriptions as the performances?

Good point, well put.

[Vile Consort]

Transcriptions of orchestral works for the organ were made so that the man in the street could afford to hear the music by going along to their local town hall on a Saturday afternoon and paying a few pennies for the admission fee. The cost of travelling to a concert hall and paying the entrance fee for an orchestral concert would have been out of reach for most ordinary people. This is why Victorian town halls in large towns and cities have or had monumental instruments by the finest organ builders of the day. The RAH is a Victorian town hall...

And the reason for playing them now that orchestral concerts are just as available to ordinary people as organ recitals is what exactly?

[ahinton]

And the reason for playing them now that orchestral concerts are just as available to ordinary people as organ recitals is what exactly?

Broadly analogous to that which justifies performances of Liszt's piano transcriptions of Beethoven Symphonies, I would guess; that said, I imagine that it's a matter of case by case basis on the merits or otherwise of each.

[Vile Consort]

Do Liszt's Beethoven symphony transcriptions feature often in piano recitals?

[ahinton]

Do Liszt's Beethoven symphony transcriptions feature often in piano recitals?

Not particularly, but more so than used to be the case.