Prom 21: Olivier Latry - 4.08.19

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

11:00 Sunday 4 August 2019
Royal Albert Hall

Aram Khachaturian: Gayane – Sabre Dance (transcr. Kiviniemi)
Manuel de Falla: El amor brujo – Ritual fire dance (transcr. Latry)
Ludwig van Beethoven: Adagio in F major (for mechanical clock)
Johann Sebastian Bach: Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 565
Eugène Gigout: Air célèbre de la Pentecôte
Franz Liszt: Prelude and Fugue on the name BACH, S 260 (arr. Guillou)
Charles-Marie Widor: Bach’s Memento – No. 4: Marche du veilleur de nuit
Camille Saint-Saëns: Danse macabre (arr. Lemare)


Celebrated French organist Olivier Latry returns to the Proms for the first time in over a decade for a programme centred around transcriptions and arrangements for the ‘King of Instruments’.
The organist of Paris’s Notre-Dame Cathedral roams through 250 years of music in a wide-ranging recital programme that stretches from Bach to Falla.
There’s a rhythmic charge to the recital, which includes virtuosic transcriptions of Khachaturian’s frenzied Sabre Dance, Falla’s hypnotic Ritual Fire Dance and Saint-Saëns’s devilish Danse macabre, as well as Bach’s dramatic Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and Bach arrangements by French organist-composers Widor and Gigout.


Olivier Latry organ

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I know there are many fans of the organ on the forum, but I do have something of a problem with organ transcriptions.

Piano transcriptions are like a monochrome pencil drawing of a colour image, the lack of orchestral colour being so evident that the difference is not so much of an issue. But with organ transcriptions, different sound colours are there, but somehow, it just doesn't seem as good, so I wonder why they bother - other than as a way of paying only one musician, rather than 50+.

My loss, I'm sure, but I'd be interested to hear the views of others.

[Braunschlag]

I know there are many fans of the organ on the forum, but I do have something of a problem with organ transcriptions.

Piano transcriptions are like a monochrome pencil drawing of a colour image, the lack of orchestral colour being so evident that the difference is not so much of an issue. But with organ transcriptions, different sound colours are there, but somehow, it just doesn't seem as good, so I wonder why they bother - other than as a way of paying only one musician, rather than 50+.

My loss, I'm sure, but I'd be interested to hear the views of others.

Not your loss at all, I can’t abide any transcriptions by any organist (strictly speaking they’re arrangements but they seem to think transcription adds kudos, it doesn’t). I find them utterly tedious and facile and I really do wish it would all go away. The worst one I ever heard was something by John Adams - turning the utterly banal into something so monotonously boring I cleared off early, it was truly dreadful.

[VodkaDilc]

I know there are many fans of the organ on the forum, but I do have something of a problem with organ transcriptions.

Piano transcriptions are like a monochrome pencil drawing of a colour image, the lack of orchestral colour being so evident that the difference is not so much of an issue. But with organ transcriptions, different sound colours are there, but somehow, it just doesn't seem as good, so I wonder why they bother - other than as a way of paying only one musician, rather than 50+.

My loss, I'm sure, but I'd be interested to hear the views of others.

I heard him a couple of years ago on the new Dobson organ at Merton College, Oxford. He played mostly transcriptions, as well as an improvisation - absolutely stunning. If you need a sample of his playing before committing to the Prom, I'd suggest listening to his CD called Voyages, recorded on the Rieger at the Philharmonie de Paris, which includes a good selection of his transcriptions of Bach, Debussy, Khatchaturian, Wagner and so on.

[Richard Tarleton]

There's an interview with Olivier Latry in today's Times - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/t...ying-5njwlsjwm

I believe non-subscribers can read a free article or two.

[Lento]

Good to see Olivier Latry confirm that the Notre Dame organ is basically fine. It is, unsurprisingly, currently dismantled while the cathedral undergoes lead decontamination (plus much else, as we know). His guests for a fantasy dinner party?: JS Bach and Jesus Christ. A deeply devout and serious-minded gentleman, by all appearances.

[vinteuil]

His guests for a fantasy dinner party?: JS Bach and Jesus Christ. A deeply devout and serious-minded gentleman, by all appearances.

... not sure there will be much top bantz. The wine shd be good, if the 'second' guest brings it. ( I like the priority : for a good catholic like Latry to put the Lutheran organ pounder over the Divine Master.... )



.

[jonfan]

I know there are many fans of the organ on the forum, but I do have something of a problem with organ transcriptions.

Piano transcriptions are like a monochrome pencil drawing of a colour image, the lack of orchestral colour being so evident that the difference is not so much of an issue. But with organ transcriptions, different sound colours are there, but somehow, it just doesn't seem as good, so I wonder why they bother - other than as a way of paying only one musician, rather than 50+.

My loss, I'm sure, but I'd be interested to hear the views of others.

Transcriptions became popular when the big town hall organs were built and hearing a live orchestra was a rare and expensive habit. Now we have recordings maybe the excuse isn’t there but IMO they’re a load of fun and thanks to the likes of Thomas Trotter in Birmingham, Simon Lindley in Leeds and Gordon Stewart in Huddersfield, amongst others, they are kept alive in their recitals as well as in recordings.

[Master Jacques]

Transcriptions became popular when the big town hall organs were built and hearing a live orchestra was a rare and expensive habit. Now we have recordings maybe the excuse isn’t there but IMO they’re a load of fun and thanks to the likes of Thomas Trotter in Birmingham, Simon Lindley in Leeds and Gordon Stewart in Huddersfield, amongst others, they are kept alive in their recitals as well as in recordings.

Proms rationale: hire the finest organist in the world and force him to do a programme of popular classic transcriptions worthy of Blackpool Tower. This is just awful.

[Bryn]

An inauspicious start to Kate Molleson's presentation with the likely specious claim that the only work in the programme originally written for organ is the Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565. There are several respected musicologists who would seriously challenge that assertion.

[Master Jacques]

An inauspicious start to Kate Molleson's presentation with the likely specious claim that the only work in the programme originally written for organ is the Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV 565. There are several respected musicologists who would seriously challenge that assertion.

Specious indeed: but then, Kate Molleson's middle name is Fakenews. She'll doubtless also give us the benefit of her instant, unsolicited review of proceedings when poor Latry has got through his chores.

[Cockney Sparrow]

Radio 4 this morning, about 7.25 - 7.35, he was interviewed. He said he was asked to play transcriptions for the Proms recital.

[oddoneout]

Proms rationale: hire the finest organist in the world and force him to do a programme of popular classic transcriptions worthy of Blackpool Tower. This is just awful.

Forced - how? Or asked as per #12? In which case Latry presumably had some say as to whether he did the concert or not, and the choice of music within the category requested, although given the events earlier this year at Notre Dame it could be regarded as a fortuitous engagement.
I have no strong(or indeed informed) views about the merits or otherwise of transcriptions but I wasn't overly struck by the concert either in terms of the sound(which may have to do with the difficulties of hearing such an instrument in a domestic setting) or the playing itself at times. I have several LPs and CDs of organ works(including transcriptions) any one of which I would choose over this concert, but it was evidently well received in the Hall and doubtless was much more thrilling there.

[Master Jacques]

Forced - how? Or asked as per #12?

The difference is perhaps semantic: "asked" by your potential employer means the engagement is conditional on doing what you are told. It remains one of the strangest myths, that performers somehow have carte blanche to choose their own repertoire. In the case of the proms, the first things to be put in place are the starry orchestras doing their world tours of (generally) safe repertoire, then the programming is devised around that, after which it is dumbed down a bit by the suit committees - and only then do they get around to thinking who's going to be asked to do what.

In this case, the scenario would certainly have been: "it would be nice to have a light Sunday morning prom devoted to popular organ transcriptions. Now who might we ask? I know! Oliver Latry doesn't have Sunday duties at Notre Dame right now, and he might be glad to come along and publicise what's going on there on the BBC and play a few pops. Done deal".

The R4 morning news appearance was undoubtedly part of the deal. I doubt much of the programming was (though he did squeeze in Guillou's intriguing "syncretic" rewrite of the Liszt - where I thought his playing bucked up considerably.)

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The difference is perhaps semantic: "asked" by your potential employer means the engagement is conditional on doing what you are told. It remains one of the strangest myths, that performers somehow have carte blanche to choose their own repertoire. In the case of the proms, the first things to be put in place are the starry orchestras doing their world tours of (generally) safe repertoire, then the programming is devised around that, after which it is dumbed down a bit by the suit committees - and only then do they get around to thinking who's going to be asked to do what.

You have made this allegation before, MJ - how do you know this? (Genuine question - I'm sure Forumistas would be fascinaed to know.)