Across the centuries many outstanding musicians--from Johann Sebastian Bach to Charles-Marie Widor--are recognized for their outstanding achievements in composition, performance, and other notable contributions to organ culture. At the same time, many of these individuals contributed to other musical fields--instrumental and choral--not directly related to the organ. On the other hand, in the wider musical world sometimes this focus has been reversed, when outstanding practitioners in the instrumental and choral fields exhibited significant capabilities with respect to the organ.
This article will chronicle the activities of six selected outstanding figures of the broader musical society whose connections with the organ are perhaps not so widely known. The criteria for their selection include their prominence in music history within their chosen areas of activity, along with the availability of significant information about their involvement with the organ to make interesting stories. While their status in the world of the organ does not match those of the "giants" mentioned above, they worked industriously and successfully within the context of their other major activities as "alternative" organists.
Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) was the son of an innkeeper in the tiny village of Le Roncole, near Parma, Italy. His first music lessons were at age 3 with the village schoolmaster-organist, succeeding him at his death six years later. His father bought his promising 8-year-old son a battered spinet; Verdi's love for the instrument was such that he kept it for eighty years. In 1823 he was sent to a grammar school in the nearby town of Busseto, where he lodged with a cobbler; he walked three miles back to Le Roncole every Sunday and on other feast days to play the organ, often carrying his boots so as not to wear them out. In Busseto the young Verdi studied for four years with Ferdinando Provesi, the choirmaster and organist of the collegiate church of San Bartolomeo and director of the Philharmonic Society. By age 12 Giuseppe had decided to pursue a serious musical career. He gave his first organ concert at age 13, replacing someone who was ill, when he played some of his own music on the chapel organ.
In 1829, at age 16, his application for the post of organist in nearby Soragna was rejected, perhaps because of his youth, so he continued to deputize for his ailing teacher at Busseto in composing for services, processions, and concerts, while also playing at Le Roncole. As an unpaid apprentice it was expected that he would take over both the salary and the position when Provesi died. Other musical activities included teaching younger pupils, copying parts for the Philharmonic Society, and playing the piano at musical gatherings. By the time he was 18 he had written an assortment of musical compositions, including marches for a brass band, various pieces of church music, and piano pieces.
In 1833 Verdi went to Milan to further his musical education, but he was refused enrollment at the Conservatory on the grounds that it was overcrowded, he was over the maximum age for entrance, he had problems with his hand position on the keyboard, and was a "foreigner." This rejection was a source of bitterness throughout Verdi's life. Nevertheless, he studied canons and fugues with the Conservatory's accompanist and director of music. Meanwhile, his former music teacher in Busseto, Provesi, died, leaving his post at the church vacant, and Verdi applied for it, unsuccessfully. Verdi's lifelong passion for theatergoing started about this time, and his habit of reading novels and plays unrelated to music prepared him for his later intense commitment to opera.
In 1834 musical "civil wars"--street brawls, church invasions, lampoons, arrests, and prosecutions--were waging between members of the Philharmonic Society, which supported Verdi, and opposing factions over the proposed appointment at Busseto. These events resulted in a royal decree banning the use of instrumental music (other than the organ) in church; this edict remained in effect for seventeen years until Verdi succeeded in having it removed in 1852.
Partly to avoid involvement in these uproars, Verdi applied for the position of cathedral organist at Monza, a larger town close to Milan; the Philharmonic Society threatened to restrain him with physical force if he tried to leave Busseto. On this occasion his examiner, the court organist, assured him that he had enough knowledge to be a maestro in Paris or London. In April 1836 he signed a nine-year contract as maestro di musica of Busseto; he took up his new position in 1838.
Now Verdi began work on an opera for Milan's Teatro Filodrammatico, which he continued until leaving Busseto in 1839. His first effort, Rocester, was never performed, but parts of it were reworked into Oberto, Conte di San Bonifacio, which opened on 17 November 1839 with moderate success. At this point Verdi's interest in the organ had ceased with his increasing involvement with opera. By 1860 Verdi was the most successful opera composer of the age. In time, his works, such as Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, La Traviata, Aida, and Otello, became among the world's best-known and most-loved musical dramas. On the other hand, he wrote no compositions for solo or accompanying organ, and none of his operas include the instrument in any way. The organ world's loss--not a significant deficit considering Verdi's many misfortunes and missed opportunities surrounding the organ--was the opera world's gain.
Anton Bruckner (1824-1896) was the first-born son of a family of eleven children of a village schoolmaster and organist in the town of Ansfelden, near the provincial capital of Linz, Austria. Young Anton ("Tonerl") received his first music lessons from his father, then from his cousin-godfather, who was a competent composer of church music. In 1837 he became a choirboy at the nearby Augustinian monastery, St. Florian, where he later served as a substitute organist. The organ there was a large four-manual instrument built by Krismann in 1771; it was one of the greatest on the continent at the time, and one from which the young player received inspirations of beauty and grandeur.
Until 1840 Tonerl led a secluded but thoroughly musical existence as a chorister who also studied piano, organ, and violin. In that year he enrolled in a one-year course of studies at Linz that would qualify him as an elementary school teacher, although for a while he had considered studying law and entering the civil service. Nevertheless, in 1845 he returned to St. Florian as a deputy organist and became chief organist in January 1855; this appointment lasted for ten years. Earlier, on a journey to Vienna in October 1854, he requested an examination by three outstanding Viennese organists who gave him enthusiastic testimonials; these were followed in 1855 by similar tributes from a well-known master organist from Prague. However, he was rejected for the post of cathedral organist at Olmütz in the summer of 1855.
Although Bruckner had intended to study organ with one of his examiners, he abandoned this plan when the post of organist at Linz cathedral became vacant. Bruckner, who was attending as a listener at the preliminary competition, joined in at the last moment and beat his competitors with his improvised performance of a fugue; he won again in the main competition in January 1856. This appointment freed him forever from the drudgery of teaching and the monastic seclusion at St. Florian, and introduced him to the livelier surroundings of the provincial capital.
In November 1861 Bruckner passed his final examination at the Vienna Conservatory. His improvised fugue on a given subject so overwhelmed the examiners that one of them stated, "He should have examined us! If I knew one-tenth of what he knows, I'd be happy." Another one thought that his improvisations closely resembled Mendelssohn's music.
Although Bruckner's earlier application for the position of organist-designate at the imperial court chapel in Vienna had been unsuccessful, he was finally given the post at the Hofkapelle in September 1868. It was an unpaid but prestigious position without much opportunity to assist on great occasions, apart from playing for the emperor and his family; eventually he achieved a paying position. In addition to playing the organ at services and coaching the choirboys, he directed performances of his own church music. His organ recitals at St. Epvre in Nancy and at Notre Dame in Paris in 1869 were warmly reported in the press, and were welcomed by the organ-building firms of Cavaillé-Coll and Merklin-Schütze, on whose new instruments Bruckner had improvised. Encouraged by these successes, Bruckner briefly considered a career as a concert organist. He apparently made strong impressions on such knowledgeable musicians as Franck, Saint-Saëns, Gounod, Auber, and Thomas.
On a journey to England in August 1871 as an official delegate of the Vienna Chamber of Commerce and participant in an international organ competition on a new instrument in Royal Albert Hall, Bruckner's performances received mixed reviews, but his improvisation on God Save the Queen was a highlight of his program of works by Bach and Handel. In July 1886 he was honored with the Franz Josef order and he was also received by the emperor personally, who enjoyed listening to his organ playing. In 1886 Liszt had just died, and Cosima Wag-ner invited him to perform at her father's funeral; Bruckner marked the occasion with improvisations on themes from Parsifal.
Reports on Bruckner's performing style as an organist vary greatly. Although he never composed seriously for the instrument, his powers of free improvisation were generally admired. One of his obituaries suggests that the professional critics had a poor opinion of him. Nevertheless, his early experiences at St. Florian undoubtedly left indelible imprints on his creative imagination, since some aspects of his orchestral style reveal influences of the dynamism of the organ.
His compositions for organ include: Four Preludes (ca. 1836); Prelude in E-flat major (ca. 1837); Prelude and Fugue in C minor (1847), strongly reminiscent of Mendelssohn; Two pieces in D minor (ca. 1852); Fugue in D minor (1861), which has been described as "academic and uninspired"; and Prelude in C major (1884). In the broader musical field his international recognition rests on his nine symphonies, choral church music, chamber works, piano pieces, and a few solo songs.
Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) was born in Nelahozeves, near Kralupy, Czechoslovakia; his parents ran a village inn and his father was a butcher. He had violin lessons and played for village occasions as a child. When he was a butcher's apprentice, while living with his childless aunt and uncle in Zlonice in 1853, he had music lessons with the town cantor who filled the post of organist and choirmaster, as was the custom with village schoolteachers in those days. At this time Dvorák began to learn harmony and keyboard instruments.
Eventually his father allowed his son to become a musician and to qualify as an organist, so in 1857 the youth entered the Prague Organ School, where he remained for two years, studying theory and singing, as well as organ with the director of the choir at the Cathedral of St. Vitus. Young Dvorák was poor, shy, and sensitive, and not particularly fluent in German, so his talent was not immediately recognized at the school. Nevertheless, in 1859 he graduated with a second prize; his leaving certificate testified that he was "admirably fitted to fulfill the duties of organist and choirmaster." At the graduation concert Dvorák played some of his academic-style preludes and fugues. Around this time he supported himself as a violist in a small orchestra that played in restaurants and at dances. He also worked as an organist and teacher, and eventually married the sister of one of his pupils.
After his marriage he left the National Theater orchestra, in which he had played the viola for eleven years, to become organist at St. Adalbert's Church in 1874; this post left more time for composition, besides raising his status in the eyes of his mother-in-law. While there, Dvorák was appointed to a committee that judged the competing bids for the reconstruction of the church organ and supervised the completion of the project.
In the course of his career Dvorák served on numerous committees and administrative bodies dealing with musical matters, such as theater and arts societies, music competitions, and editorial boards; more specifically, a jury for government stipends to artists, and a member of the board of directors of the Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts in 1890.
A purely private matter was his donation of a new organ, on the occasion of his fifty-third birthday, 8 September 1894, to the church at Vysoká, near a mining town about forty miles south of Prague, where his brother-in-law had his estate.
Concerning Dvorák's ability as a performing musician, little attention has been paid to his achievements on the organ, but his abilities undoubtedly were much above average. Although he held a regular organist's position only from 1874 to 1877, he was appointed as organist for the inauguration of the renewed Czech University in Prague in 1882.
Although Dvorák produced no works specifically for solo organ, a number of his compositions--several songs and vocal duets--specify organ accompaniment. His total creative output includes eleven operas, choral and vocal works, nine symphonies and other symphonic works, various instrumental concertos, chamber music, and piano pieces. His "New World" Symphony (op. 95 in E minor, 1893) and the "Dumky" Trio (op. 90, 1890-91) are frequently heard on recorded radio programs.
Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924) was born at Pamiers, a little town in the Ariège region in the south of France. The youngest of six children, Gabriel's father was a teacher and his mother was the daughter of a retired captain. His earliest introduction to music was when he lived with foster parents in another town, where he would listen to a harmonium being played in an old convent chapel, which inspired him to improvise on the instrument on his own. One day the 4-year-old child was overheard by an elderly blind lady, an excellent musician, who suggested to his parents that his evident talent should be developed.
Eventually, in 1854, he secured a scholarship at Louis Niedermeyer's École de Musique Classique et Religieuse in Paris, a newly established boarding school for training organists and choirmasters. He remained there for eleven years, studying organ (the school had a 12-stop instrument and a pedal piano), piano (one classroom contained fifteen pianos), singing, plainsong, and theoretical subjects. His acquaintance with contemporary music came from Saint-Saëns, who became his piano teacher in 1861 after the death of Niedermeyer, and who remained a close friend and furthered his academic career. While at school Fauré and his friend, Eugène Gigout, planned their future careers as eminent church musicians.
Fauré was not particularly inspired by the organ, perhaps thinking that the mechanical instrument lacked the sensual subtleties of the piano. Even so, the organ's special feature, its powerful bass pedals, left a lasting impression as indicated by the strong bass lines in some of his piano pieces. According to Saint-Saëns, Fauré was a "first-class organist when he wanted to be," but he never kept up his technique and preferred to improvise. He left the school in January 1866 with the first prize in piano performance, organ, harmony, and composition. During this period he composed his first songs, piano pieces, and one choral work.
Fauré's first position was as organist at St. Sauveur in Rennes, which he held from January 1866 to March 1870. He was in trouble with the clergy from the outset, when he used the sermon time for a smoking break. He was dismissed after appearing at a morning service dressed in white tie and tails worn at a municipal ball the night before. His next appointment, at Notre-Dame de Clignancourt in Paris, also ended abruptly with his dismissal for missing a service to hear a Meyerbeer opera.
Following military service in 1871 Fauré was employed briefly as organist at St.-Honoré d'Eylau, a rich parish church in Paris. A more important appointment was as second organist at St. Sulpice in Paris, assisting Charles-Marie Widor; the church had a magnificent 100-stop Cavaillé-Coll instrument. The two musicians amused each other by improvising competitively in tandem during services; their subtle modulations probably were not understood by the clergy or other listeners, however.
A high point in Fauré's career was his appointment in 1877 as choirmaster, a prestigious but low-paying position, at Ste. Madeleine, Paris's most distinguished and fashionable church, where he succeeded Saint-Saëns, who had resigned; he held this position until 1896. Although Fauré's duties did not specifically involve organ playing, the church's impressive Cavaillé-Coll instrument was available for practice purposes when he was not teaching or working on his compositions.
Fauré's renown strengthened during the 1920s, and societies devoted to giving concerts of his music and publishing his works were formed in France in the 1930s and in succeeding years. He was not a widely popular composer, and his music had more appeal to connoisseurs than to the wider musical public. Even so, he cannot be counted among the "giants" of musical history.
Fauré's creative works include one opera, sacred choral works, nearly 100 songs, chamber music, piano pieces, and works for piano and orchestra. His Thème et variations, op. 73, Dolly Suite, 4-hands, is frequently heard on recorded radio programs, and performances of his Requiem still attract good audiences. Although Fauré respected the organ as an instrument having a classical repertoire, his compositions did not include any works for solo organ, but several of his choral and vocal works specify organ accompaniment. Consistent with his respect for Bach, he wrote the preface for an edition of Bach's "48" and revised the whole of Bach's organ works with unofficial help from Joseph Bonnet and his friend Gigout.
Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924) was born in Lucca, a small city in northern Italy, which had enjoyed a considerable reputation for its church music up to the end of the eighteenth century. The Puccini family had an impressive musical lineage of five generations of musicians in two centuries (eighteenth and nineteenth). Giacomo, the fifth of seven children, was expected to follow the family tradition and become organist at San Martino Cathedral. Giacomo's father encouraged his lazy son's mastery of the organ--the child was 5 years old at the time--by placing coins on the organ keyboard so that the boy, trying to grasp them, would have to push down the keys and produce sounds.
Following his father's premature death in 1891, Giacomo's uncle on his mother's side assumed the position at San Martino and continued instructing Giacomo until the child reached the appropriate age of succession. In time, Giacomo's organ playing improved to the level of assisting his uncle at San Martino, as well as performing in other smaller churches. He also played the piano at weddings, in taverns, and in houses of prostitution, as well as at a local convent, where he was rewarded with cups of hot chocolate in addition to his small fee of a few lire that was to be sent directly to his mother.
As a member of a fun-loving gang of youths, when he was playing the organ at a small village church where his brother acted as organ-blower, they decided to get extra money by stealing some organ pipes and selling them to a scrap dealer. In order to avoid detection of the crime, Puccini adjusted his playing of harmonies by avoiding notes of the missing pipes, which delayed discovery of the theft for a long time. Another source of income was from his only pupil, a young tailor--both were 16 years old at the time--and the lessons continued for four years, 1874-8. Puccini wrote his earliest compositions, consisting of short organ pieces, for him; the young man later became a composer of organ pieces himself.
Around this time, Puccini began composing in earnest, chiefly organ music for the church service. Many of these pieces were improvisations that Puccini later transcribed; some of them were derived from folk songs and popular operas, which startled both the priests and congregations. Puccini also introduced lively marches as postludes to play the congregation out of the church; for this he was reprimanded by his elder sister who was preparing to become a nun.
Puccini's first contact with opera was through his teacher, who introduced him to the scores of Verdi's Rigoletto, Traviata, and Trovatore. This experience probably had a decisive influence on Puccini's subsequent career, because he and several friends made a thirty-mile round trip to Pisa to hear Verdi's masterpiece, Aida. At this time Puccini abandoned the family tradition of becoming a full-time church organist and decided to pursue operatic craft at the Milan Conservatory, which he entered in 1880 with the aid of a scholarship from Queen Margherita. His scholarly record was consistently brilliant in counterpoint, his main subject, although he had yet to discover the secrets of the stage.
Puccini's fame rests chiefly on his twelve operas, particularly Manon Lescaut (1893), La Bohème (1896), Tosca (1893), Madama Butterfly (1904), and Turandot (1926); two of his operas, Edgar (1889) and Tosca (1893), contain parts for organ. He also composed various pieces of church music, several choral works, two orchestral works, chamber music (chiefly string quartets), two pieces for piano, and seven songs with piano. His catalogue of works also contains several pieces for organ (before 1880).
Charles Ives (1874-1954) was born in Danbury, Connecticut, where his father, George Ives (1845-1894), was a music teacher who directed bands, choirs, and orchestras. The father had an intense interest in musical innovation and experimentation, such as microtones, bitonality, and acoustics, which he shared with his two sons, Charles and Moss. For example, independence of mind was developed by practicing ear-training exercises such as singing in one key and being accompanied in another. Charles recollected playing drums in one of his father's bands that marched past another group, generating a discordant clash of conflicting keys and rhythms; this phenomenon is reflected in some of his later unconventional compositions.
While at home, young Charles studied drums, piano, and organ with various teachers, becoming a competent pianist by age 12. In 1889 he took his first salaried post as organist at the Second Congregational Church, then at the Baptist Church, in Danbury. At the same time, he composed songs and choral works, along with occasional organ solos that may have been used as interludes in church services or in church-sponsored recitals.
In 1893 Ives moved to New Haven to attend Hopkins Grammar School in preparation for entry into Yale University. While at Hopkins he took a job as organist at St. Thomas's Episcopal Church to help his father pay his expenses. In March 1894 he tried out for an organist position at the Baptist Church, but his application failed.
When Ives began full-time study at Yale in September 1894--he went there primarily for the athletics and as part of the family heritage--he was already an accomplished organist, a skilled composer of band music, and songwriter in the popular style. For his entire four years at Yale he played the organ at Center Church in New Haven--the oldest and most prestigious church there--where he was allowed to play his own compositions. Prior to, and during this appointment he commuted to New York to take organ lessons from Dudley Buck, one of the leading organists of the country. At Yale he took composition lessons from Horatio W. Parker, an established young composer of church music. Under Parker's direction Ives composed his First String Quartet, over forty songs, and several marches, overtures, anthems, part songs, and organ pieces.
Following his time at Yale, Ives moved to New York in September 1898 to take a position as a clerk with the Mutual Life Insurance Company; later he founded his own insurance company, Ives and Myrick. Even before the end of the Yale term, he had secured a position as organist at Bloomfield Presbyterian Church, New Jersey, to begin the following summer. He commuted to this position for two years before moving to Central Presbyterian Church in Manhattan, where he remained until June 1902. In these organist positions Ives remained a well-rounded musician, playing services and recitals, and composing practical pieces. His recital repertoire included works or arrangements by Bach, Mozart, Handel, and Brahms, and often music of his own. One of his works that received its premiere at Central Presbyterian Church was The Celestial Country, an ambitious work scored for two solo quartets and choir, string quartet, brass, tympani, and organ. Around this time Ives decided never to apply for another musical position in order to achieve his musical freedom from the demands of audiences. Although his ultimate decline in composition is sometimes attributed to health problems, he simply may have exhausted his ability to achieve his high artistic aims. Even so, he received the Pulitzer Prize for his Third Symphony in 1947.
Ives's music has its roots in the nineteenth-century Romantic conception of music as an embodiment of emotion and national feeling. The principal aim of his mature works was the personal representation in music of the range of human experience--particularly American experience--in all its drama, emotional power, and confusion. This aim is often revealed in the titles of some of his compositions that deal with specific events: for example, The Fourth of July, Decoration Day, Holiday Quickstep, Thanksgiving, and Washington's Birthday. His musical productions include choral music, vocal music, chamber music, orchestral music (including four symphonies), two piano sonatas, and the Variations on America for organ (written at age 17). Although the original scores of a number of his compositions for organ have been lost, they were incorporated into works for other instruments.
Ives's compositional style reflects his earlier experiences with his father's innovative experiments: explorations of tonality and serial procedures, polymetric and polyrhythmic constructions, experiments with quarter-tones, the use of space as a compositional element, and layered polyphony and multidimensionality. Ives's works were rarely performed during his lifetime, nor were they widely published. In recent years the Charles Ives Society has generated editions and playing materials of his music that are a challenge to all and a threat to some.
In addition to the six alternative organists discussed above, several other well-known names might be added to this group.
Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) learned to play many wind instruments from his father in London before embarking on an intense period of musical training, including the Leipzig Conservatory, 1858-60. Returning to London, he worked as a teacher and accompanist, as well as organist at St. Michael's, Chester Square, 1861-7, and at St. Peter's, Cranley Gardens, 1867-72. His musical collaboration with W. S. Gilbert produced some of the best-known pieces of popular musical theater, many of which still are traditional offerings of school and college musical groups.
Gustav Holst (1874-1934) first learned music from his father, an organist and pianist. He began conducting local orchestras while attending grammar school, and then played the organ at Wyck Rissington, Gloucestershire, in 1892, although the instrument never figured in subsequent professional appointments. Some of his orchestral compositions became enduring contributions to the musical world. His powerful Choral Fantasia (1930) for soprano, chorus, and orchestra, also includes the organ.
Hamilton Harty (1879-1941) learned piano and counterpoint from his organist father. From age 12 he held organ posts, first at Magheracoll Church in Antrim County, Ireland, then at Belfast and Bray (near Dublin). He played viola in a Dublin orchestra and became known as a piano accompanist in London. In 1920 he became the conductor of the Hallé Orchestra, which he formed into one of the country's finest orchestras.
Leopold Stokowski (1882-1977) entered the Royal College of Music, London, at age 13, where he studied piano, organ, and composition, receiving his diploma in 1900; he also studied at Oxford University (B.Mus., 1903). He was organist at St. James, Piccadilly, 1902-5. In 1905 he moved to New York as organist and choir director at St. Bartholomew's Church on Madison Avenue. Following his debut as a conductor in Paris, he was engaged by the Cincinnati Orchestra in 1909, then by the Philadelphia Orchestra in 1912, an internationally famous organization that he led for twenty-four years.
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) began to compose at age 8, even before any formal instruction. He entered the Paris Conservatory in 1919, achieving prizes in counterpoint and fugue, accompaniment, organ, and improvisation (with Marcel Dupré), history of music, and composition. In 1931 he was appointed organist at l'Église de la Sainte Trinité in Paris, remaining in that position for over forty years. Many of his composed organ works reflect aspects of the theological creed of the Catholic faith. Although not a member of any particular school, Messiaen has had a major influence on contemporary music.
William Herschel (1738-1822), British musician and astronomer, is an unusual figure to conclude this section, considering his unique combination of occupations. He pursued an active career as violinist and conductor in the 1760s, and he played the organ at the Octagon Chapel in Bath from 1766 onwards. In 1780 he was accepted into the Bath Literary and Philosophical Society. In the following year, using a telescope he had partially designed and constructed himself, he discovered the planet Uranus.
There is a music wherever there is a harmony, order, or proportion; and thus far may we maintain the music of the spheres.
--Sir Thomas Browne (1605-1682)
Religio Medici [1642]
