Contemporary music for organ and carillon
Be honest: what kind of music do you think of when you hear the organ and the carillon? ‘church’ and ‘old’ will probably be your first associations. When thinking of the organ, many people think of psalms on Sundays, or Bach’s extensive work. When we think of carillons, we immediately think of the ancient, ubiquitous Valerius collection, which often rings out over picturesque old town centres.
But Contemporary Music is extremely flexible. There is a modern repertoire for every instrument, and that certainly includes organ and carillon. Today we will be introduced to a few of those compositions. To begin with, we will hear excerpts from a double CD recently released by the Wergo label. The pieces are for automatic organ. Some modern organs (especially in Germany) have an electronic module to which you can connect a laptop. This makes it possible to use MIDI to play the organ automatically. Complex serial compositions that are impossible to perform by human hands can now be heard. In addition to four contemporary compositions, we will also hear one modern classic: an etude by Conlon Nancarrow, originally composed for the pianola.
After that, we will move to the carillon, to be precise, the carillon of St. John’s Cathedral in ‘s-Hertogenbosch. With this instrument, we are accustomed to automatic playing. For centuries, the carillon has been ringing at set times thanks to a cylinder with pins. But here we hear a real-life city carillonneur. Joost van Balkom performs one of his own compositions and also a work by Jorrit Tamminga at November Music 2005. Live electronics are also used in the latter work. To be able to hear all of this, the audience had to be seated in the tower – and we also had to record in the tower!
Playlist
- Conlon Nancarrow, Etude for pianola no. 11
- Hampus Lindwall, AFK movement 2
- Jessica Ekomane, Tipping point
- Nils Henrik Asheim, Lost and found loops no. 1
- Phillip Sollmann en Konrad Sprenger, Excerpts
- Joost van Balkom, Bereshit
- Jorrit Tamminga, Vierkant
