Organ Landscape  Salzburg 　Florian Pagitsch, organ   MDG 319 0990-2

    What is a 'good performance' done by a performing musician?  Music described through words and musical experience itself is quite different in the first place.  I know this but thinking about music criticism even on that basis, there are at least two means of expression. One is, I think, literary approach, such as allegorical expression and another is technical explanation of how it is played on a certain part of score. If given a literary expression or several adjectives separated from the part of a certain musical passage from a person with incompatible ideas to me,  after all they could not be understood at all,  and on the contrary,  if given an explanation of musical terms, note by note,  keeping up with it would be hard for almost everyone.  And a more fundamental thing is whether the 'good performance' is nothing more than the issue of personal taste, or it would be, in part, agreed between well-trained persons. 

     Well, I can't come to a conclusion. However, if we took a stance that the CD format still had the capacity to contain the nature of the performance in it, the 'good performance' would be apparent in the actual sound arrangement. And if we know the magic that the CD records loudness along the vertical axis, time passage along the horizontal axis (divided in 44.1KHz fineness) as waveform and digitizes them to 1 or 0 in 16bits, all celestial performances are reducible in 5,780,275,200 ways (Stereo) of dynamics (amplitude axis), color and tempo (both time axis). 

     So, do you know about automatic piano players?  Though it might have computerized nowadays, early automatic pianos had been like a punching machine installed piano that rotated a toilet tissue like paper roll and punched holes on the flowing paper according to the keystroke of the piano. Doing so the machine recorded which key had been struck and how strong it was, then rotated the roll again, blew into punched holes so that it could strike the corresponding keys, we can replay the music using a real piano.  There is a Rhapsody in Blue roll paper that Gershwin himself recorded before his death and once released a vinyl LP that ghost George played by the roll with modern orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson Thomas of our time.  It was a well-planned amusing LP with a ghost like Gershwin exactly illustrated on the cover but the piano part was heard quite hollowly.  The word 'soulless' seems an immaterialism and still, I would like to say the sound was like that kind.  In fact it was my fault that I expected the real performance,  rather,  I had to say 'amazing I can witness Gershwin's ideas through this device and the sound is fairly good.' I know I was disappointed on my own.  After that I had a fateful encounter with a modern version of an automatic piano placed in a hospital waiting room it was much more sophisticated then, boy, I heard quite the same sound.

     In terms of key touch,  if the key acceleration was accurately duplicated,  the same sound would let out regardless whether it was caused by human or machine. In such a sense, both roll piano and modern automatic piano can't record the accurate dynamics in infinite steps and only a few steps recovering at the very most, I think, the inanimate sound would come out.  If we could measure the hammer speed of the piano in 16-bit fineness, and attached an electromagnetic or hydraulic driving gear that could control the hammer delicately,  of course we could give an unattended concert by prerecorded memory.

    The sound that came out through these kinds of device would have been accurate enough to make the original sound replay, if the key driving mechanism was correct,  because that procedure wasn't routed through any kind of recording or playback equipment. Okay will that really happen?  I want to hear that.  Do we feel every time that there sure is the sense of the presence of the performer herself feeling and thinking at the concert hall?   Do robots make the same thing possible?   Is there the air of excitement that the deeply moved audience sends to the performer?   And is there the performer's ability to concentrate in concert with the air of the audience?  Are they something conducting through the medium like  'ether'  other than the sound itself,  when we are feeling each other as our delight,  as if we encounter a psychic phenomenon?    

    The organ: Is it a much more exquisite instrument than the piano?  There might be some different opinions about that.  But the organ is the first keyboard instrument and said to be the king of all the instruments.  When we hear the organ sound in cathedrals of Europe, enveloped in deep bass sound from the soles of the feet,  the whole large space beneath the awesome high ceiling vibrates,  even a heathenish tourist feels devout sense.  Some believers may hear God's voice.  But that instrument simply sends wind from the bellows, then blows whistles by the open/close operation of its valve.  Of course modern organs are using electric fans but the wind speed itself doesn't vary, even if the performer's key touch becomes stronger according to her excitement. Therefore the loudness of the organ is pre-determined by the amount of wind through its blower duct.  Though there is a device that can change the tonal volume, you know a
recorder sound could distort when we blow too strong and make no sound when we blow too weak, the structure of the device isn't designed to depend on the wind distribution. It closes up a box of pipes by boards named 'swell shutter' operated by the foot pedal. Closing amount can adjust by the degree of the Venetian blind like shutters. It is, so to speak, a prima donna who can only sing in a loud voice and you cup your hands over her mouth then release to assist her expression. 
　　　　
     On the other hand, tone color could be changed through a mechanism called 'stop' which operates by moving levers (draw-knobs), stop switches or mixes different colors of pipes and that combination comes to a vast number.  But basically it can only change by setting the knobs beforehand and selecting the corresponding keyboard row.

     Briefly speaking, sound volume and color are (half) fixed, the performer's emotional swing is only expressed in tempo, in fact, in other words, expansion and contraction of the temporal axis; that is the pipe organ.  I don't want to criticize and the organ itself then must be still the king of instruments that has unlimited possibilities of expression.  But once the operation of which key, and when it has been pressed, stop knobs have been set precisely recorded in some memory, I would like to say that an 'automatic organ' can be built easily, at least in principle, than an automatic piano.  If the music like this reproducible kind, even when the instrument is played by a real organist, could make the audience amazed, and exchange sensations with each other, what does all this mean?           

     Florian Pagitsch,  do you know the name of this organist?   I am very proud I know this special name,  this is not the story of that name. Just simply this performer came to Japan only once, also he was one of the guest performers of the opening concerts of a new hall built in Nagoya, Aichi-prefecture where he unveiled a new organ. For me, it was a casual try to attend the concert, I wondered how the new organ was. It was very good. So good I sent a letter automatically via the organizer of the concert then, a return mail came from the performer himself. And we exchanged letters several times. He is an Austrian.  At that time he had recently graduated from adolescence, returned from a backpacking trip around Asian countries for years, searching for himself seemed the most recent career. He said he was invited to Cremona recently to play a church organ and frankly asked me whether there was the opportunity of holding a concert in Japan again, even a piano performance would be acceptable.  I didn't know any promoter and now don't know if he played in Tokyo after then or released a new CD from a major label.
 
     In 1986,  he won the first prize at the International Organ Competition  "Anton Bruckner"  improvisation category.  On this day,  at the concert,  he gave a beautiful improvisation performance like a harmonic modern piece.  Because I'm not acquainted with this category,  I can't explain how that really was as an improvisation,  but the impression was bold and bright. And then, Passacaglia (and Fugue in c-moll) was read in the program of the day.
               
     A familiar piece became a new piece,  that effect is common when we listen to an exceptional performance.  Actually I didn't much care for this piece among other pieces.  As for the Bach's organ piece,  I would have preferred and put on plain melody pieces like Trio Sonatas to architectural pieces like this Passacaglia or Toccata and Fugue that dense notes make a dramatic effect.                    

     Passacaglia BWV582: But I forgot a specific part of the performance.  I don't have enough knowledge to explain about stop selection. He didn't use a remote console which could be controlled electrically from the stage and played directly from the keyboard right below the pipes.  I think the tempo was sort of slow.  I have no idea there is 'period performance' in the world of organ performance,  and there was no eccentric expression.  There definitely was tempo rubato but was not any agenda of distinguishing himself by adopting characteristic expressions. It was kind of an introvert character and the nature of staring inside,  speaking to himself.  In the beginning I received a sense of discretion and balance, then it gradually increasingly became excited.

    Though this may be my way of feeling, some kind of good performance evokes in me a sensation which I may feel when I look back on my whole life at the moment of death. I don't know if it is true, 'cause I'm not dead yet but I hope I will be able to experience that sensation. When we face our past life through regression hypnotherapy, that life is already completed, therefore we can understand the purpose of life by looking at it from above,  that was probably a feeling like this. A life which had been drifted away from at the time of checking the painter on a big windy day, a life which reached the final time after roaming winter streets on an empty stomach sits on the church stairs where a caring priest was,  or a life remembered...the landing boat's front gate dropped open and right after the beach was stepped on,
fly like something with a whiz across penetrated through the body which slumped on the sand, kept looking at the very close stream of fellow soldier's boots, all of these come to the point of time, they are not shame any more, are liberated, and they all make sense. Choices flapped in the unlimited possibilities are settled and forgiven.  I think my story is now
becoming a little bit expansive though, Passacaglia was drawing near the end, and I was touched like I've never experienced. Guides came for the one who completed one's own challenge. That was awesome but rather overwhelming light and joy than comfort. And the last note resounded, of course the acoustic pressure itself might be huge,  It was an experience like my body has been blown away.  I thought I saw there was something coming to the performer while I looked at his back. Materialists would deny a uniqueness or exchanging sensations in the sense of musical spirituality. 
But I believe it was the moment I shared something with the performer.  It was my subjective view and at the same time something beyond that.

     A long preface and landing on my personal story, I apologize and I am sorry I can't show you CD this time.  Also I can't introduce the best performance of this piece performed by another organist. I tried several performances that I had on CD on my shelf but I could hardly imagine that was the same piece.  The only thing I can say is this, there sure are talented performers who become a conduit of vision through trained skills even a little out of the spotlight that professional critics compliment in line with each other and I felt somehow I was very glad about that. Though this may
be not much more than the issue of the richness of culture, I think these kind of unexpected interactions are the most pleasurable thing of music.                  

     There are some CDs Performed by the organist Pagitsch, even though they are not the Bach's masterpieces.  Three CDs are released from MDG (MUSIKPRODUCTION DABRINGHAUS UND GRIMM), a relatively small German label bringing out a lot of gem recordings, which introduce little pieces including some forgotten ones using different historical organs
around Europe. They might be less familiar but one I placed the cover image above is a beautiful collection worth listening to. That is 'Organ Landscape / Salzburg 2000' (also 'Carinthia' and 'Eberlin 9 Toccatas and Fugues' are available).

     I feel comforted from the very first note softly reverberated in the quiet air.  Is this devotional feeling from the sound quality of organ,  or from the performance?   Changing the organ every few pieces,  first he plays Heinrich Finck of the Renaissance,  then next three pieces are Austrian organist Paul Hofhaimer's of the same era.  We will pay attention to the connections between the pieces by choosing their tonality and the tune when we make a compilation album,  that way, these pieces are almost like a suite.

     Then,  same Austrian composer of the Bach's era, Gottlieb Muffat,  and the seventh track is also a beautiful piece:  The composer's name is Johann Ernst Eberlin born in 1702 whose works bridge the baroque and classical era. Mozart's father Leopold highly praised him and he was famous for its time but later almost had been forgotten except his organ pieces. Sometimes we hear in the Bach's serene organ chorale a prayer that fully accepts all things as it is,  this set of pieces begin with that feeling. Cyclic howling that arises from overtone interference causes a light dizzying feeling and envelops our body, then moves to light development, in joyful variations.

     In addition to two pieces of Michael Haydn, younger brother of the famous 'papa' Franz Joseph Haydn, can be heard.  And then, one mustn't miss two Mozart's pieces in his late years. Andante for Mechanical organ K.616, and one number older K.617 is the famous Adagio and Rondo for Glassharmonica and Quartet. The latter is well known as a piece which
reflects the composer's mental state of the last years by the fantastic glass sound and its CD is released. The same period of that piece, K.616 is also one of the purest swan songs of Wolfgang Mozart.  He hated a mechanical organ, I knew it! , and wrote an arrangement for wind instruments, but this time Pagitsch plays it with his own fingers.
     
     Next K.574 is 'Eine kleine Gigue'. This is written in 1789, that was two years before his death.  When Mozart went to Leipzig,  he was asked to write an organ piece from a local organist Engel, then accepted the request and composed it in honor of the Great Bach who rests there.

     Relishing the beautiful historic organ like a full-course meal, this really is a gem of a collection of organ pieces.  With my exciting memory, I can't help but introduce this recording. Materialistically, this is an almost-error-free gold CD which is made of gold plated reflective layer.