Prom 55: Organ Recital – Nathan Laube (28.08.22)

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Prom 55: Organ Recital – Nathan Laube
11:30 Sunday 28 August 2022
Royal Albert Hall

Richard Wagner: Tannhäuser – Grand March (transcr. W. J. Westbrook & Nathan Laube)
César Franck: Grande pièce symphonique
Charles-Valentin Alkan: 11 Grands préludes – No. 10: Scherzando
Franz Liszt: Piano Sonata in B minor (transcr. Nathan Laub)

Nathan Laube organ

When the Royal Albert Hall’s ‘Father’ Willis organ thunders into action, the air itself seems to shake. It’s the musical soul of this great building and, with its 9,999 pipes, it’s the second largest organ in the UK. No Proms season is complete without a chance to hear it in full, majestic, flight, and this year the honour goes to the superb Chicago-born organist Nathan Laube. He’s pulling out all the stops (almost literally!) with a programme of showpieces and transcriptions from the peaks of the Victorian organ repertoire – as well as his own transcription of Liszt’s B minor Piano Sonata. It’s a tour de force on the piano; on the organ … well, come and hear for yourself.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm rarely convinced by organ transcriptions, though I can understand that organists may want to extend their repertoire.

[Petrushka]

I'm rarely convinced by organ transcriptions, though I can understand that organists may want to extend their repertoire.

I don't like organ transcriptions at all and much prefer to hear music written specifically for the organ. The problem I have is akin to listening to an opera sung in English when I know much of it by heart in the original language. What I'm actually doing is a double translation simultaneously in the opera and, because I 'hear' orchestrally, I find I'm doing exactly the same thing with an organ transcription of something like the Wagner that opens this recital.

[Pulcinella]

I'm with Pet on this, and actually disagree with Alpie to the extent that surely there's enough repertoire without looking to expand it.
Why Anna Lapwood thought it a good idea to arrange the Britten Sea Interludes, for example, utterly escapes me.

[cloughie]

I'm with Pet on this, and actually disagree with Alpie to the extent that surely there's enough repertoire without looking to expand it.
Why Anna Lapwood thought it a good idea to arrange the Britten Sea Interludes, for example, utterly escapes me.

Disagree with you there Pulc - I love Anna’s Sea interludes.
Surely Organ transcriptions are a valid form of music making, bearing in mind the organ, particularly the Church organ with all its instrument simulations in the stops and pipes was designed to produce a quasi orchestra with a sound big enough to fill a Church or Cathedral.

[Pulcinella]

Disagree with you there Pulc - I love Anna’s Sea interludes.
Surely Organ transcriptions are a valid form of music making, bearing in mind the organ, particularly the Church organ with all its instrument simulations in the stops and pipes was designed to produce a quasi orchestra with a sound big enough to fill a Church or Cathedral.

Point taken, and I think that the recital aspect, especially in a non-religious venue, can invite pieces not necessarily written for liturgical or other church use.
But there's still an awful lot of 'original' music that rarely gets an outing, wherever the venue.

[Jonathan]

Looking forward to this prom, if only because it's the first time a piece by Alkan has been performed at the proms!

[cloughie]

Point taken, and I think that the recital aspect, especially in a non-religious venue, can invite pieces not necessarily written for liturgical or other church use.
But there's still an awful lot of 'original' music that rarely gets an outing, wherever the venue.

Yes there is a lot not heard.

If I attend a wedding, funeral or memorial service I always find the ‘Organist Entertains’ time prior to the start of the service. The range can be quite interesting and sometimes have to hold back from singing along.

[Petrushka]

I'm not against anyone doing organ transcriptions if they want, it's just that I have a big problem with listening to one where I know the original well. Those well known Wagner transcriptions are a good case in point; when the Meistersinger Prelude was done at a Prom a while ago I had to listen simultaneously in my head to the orchestral original in order to properly follow what was going on so it all felt rather pointless.

I believe that there is an organ transcription of the Bruckner Symphony No 8 which has been recorded. If the Wagner gave me a headache, this one would make my brain explode!

There is no shortage of original organ music from Bach and Buxtehude to Messiaen and good programmes can be built up from it. I love the sound of the organ (I was in a church choir after all) but these transcriptions are not for me.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

I'm not against anyone doing organ transcriptions if they want, it's just that I have a big problem with listening to one where I know the original well.

I'm somewhat hypocritical in that I'm not particularly keen on organ transcriptions of orchestral music, but I do love and appreciate orchestrations of original organ music, which seem to free the music from the (huge) box - if you follow my drift...

[Pulcinella]

I'm somewhat hypocritical in that I'm not particularly keen on organ transcriptions of orchestral music, but I do love and appreciate orchestrations of original organ music, which seem to free the music from the (huge) box - if you follow my drift...

True: Gordon Jacob's arrangement of the Elgar Sonata is a case in point, I would venture to suggest!

[Keraulophone]

.
Those allergic to organ transcriptions should most definitely avoid Nathan Laube's organ version of that most pianistic of sonatas, the B minor of Liszt. He has been playing it quite a lot recently, including at the inaugural recital on the rebuilt organ of Canterbury Cathedral (by Harrison and Harrison of Durham at the astonishing cost of £4.2 million).

This (questionable?!) tour-de-force of organ playing can be heard on YouTube at 34'00 from the start of the Canterbury recital:

https://youtu.be/zeF74Dq8v7w

[Vile Consort]

Another vote against transcriptions here.

I find two objections to transcriptions. The first is that, in my mind's ear, I can hear the original, and wish that was what I was listening to. Dr Johnson's comment about dogs walking on their hind legs comes to mind. Or perhaps the one about the violinist playing a difficult work.

Secondly, if organists don't play organ repertoire, who is going to play it? Isn't a performer's primary duty to the repertoire?

I've made transcriptions myself, though the results were generally far beyond my ability to play. It's a fascinating activity. You learn a huge amount about the work you are transcribing, whilst the business of reading C clefs and dealing with transposing instruments presents a challenge that is very satisfying to rise to.

However, I don't want to listen to transcriptions, thank you very much - not even my own. This means I have effectively had to cease attending organ recitals in this country.

[peterthekeys]

I've made transcriptions myself, though the results were generally far beyond my ability to play. It's a fascinating activity. You learn a huge amount about the work you are transcribing, whilst the business of reading C clefs and dealing with transposing instruments presents a challenge that is very satisfying to rise to.

As a pianist, I often play transcriptions, and I enjoy playing them; I've also made some of my own (Delius' Brigg Fair, for one - until I found that Philip Heseltine had made a much better job of it!). I agree that playing them gives a lot of insight into the works. I sometimes have a feeling that orchestral musicians are occasionally suspicious of pianists and organists because of their ability to play the entire work without any assistance or interaction, even if it entails playing 12-15 notes at once.

I'm listening to the organ prom at the moment, and enjoying it enormously. There was a marvellous piece of comedy at the end of the Cesar Franck - a bottom F sharp on one of the pedal reeds ciphered, so that Laube had to turn off the blower to make it stop, resulting in a despairing groan from the offending pipe as it expired. Wisely, they'd ensured that the organ tuner was present, and he went in and sorted it out (probably just kicked something).

Organs! I remember from my own organ-playing days that it was wise to carry a few tools and things like bootlaces and gaffer tape, so there was at least a fighting chance of fixing anything that went wrong. Ron Newton, one of the piano lecturers at Huddersfield School of Music when I was there, was also a brilliant harpsichordist. I heard that in the year before I arrived, he'd given a harpsichord recital in the Town Hall. At one point, something went wrong with the harpsichord. Ron stopped playing, opened up the lid, tinkered about inside and eventually fixed the problem. He then turned to the bemused audience and said: "Now you begin to understand why the piano superseded the harpsichord". He then sat down and continued with the recital.

[bluestateprommer]

Latest in the late-listening catch-up before all of this summer's Proms relays become unavailable. From the timing of the last post, it would seem that no one here listened to this Prom to comment on it. If so, then to be honest, your loss, because this was a very fine Prom, with very good work from Nathan Laube, traipsing across the Atlantic (carbon footprint be d-mn-d) for it. Besides his musicianship, you get some unintended comedy at the very end of the Franck (won't spoil it, you need to listen to what happens, though Martin Handley does provide running "sports commentary" in the aftermath).

On the whole question of transcriptions, I do understand people's comments, in particular the negative ones. I would put those aside for this one occasion, as the Wagner transcription from Tannhauser comes off quite well. To my great surprise, Nathan L.'s transcription of Franz Liszt's Sonata in b actually works exceptionally well indeed on the organ, at least to me. Maybe it's partly because I find it a tricky work to grasp in of itself (and it's me, not the work), in the original piano version. For whatever subliminal reason, the work goes very successfully on the organ, IMHO. Folks here should give it a go.