The Beatles
Cristina García Banegas (organ)
rec. 9-10 July 2019, St Peter’s Church, Woolton, Liverpool, UK
DRAMA MUSICA DRAMAM012 [40:49]
I refer m’learned readers to my earlier review suggesting that Uruguayan organist Cristina García Banegas, on her first visit to Liverpool in 2018 to record some organ music associated with The Beatles, came across simply as “an enthusiast having fun, not so much with the music or the instrument, as with the recording location”, and, furthermore, implying that the recording was more in the nature of a personal challenge than something intended to provide musical value to any listener. In short, I really found nothing to commend it.
She’s turning out to be a repeat offender. She made her second visit to Liverpool the following summer and recorded this all-Beatles programme then. Like all critics, I am quite happy to see that my views have been largely discounted by the artist and record label, but she did take something on board from my comments, and chose a different Liverpudlian church as the recording location. (Hateful as it is to admit it, I doubt it was my derogatory opinion of the organ of St Barnabas Church, Penny Lane, that prompted her to make this second recording at St Peter’s Woolton.) Like St Barnabas, St Peter’s has a Beatles connection, albeit a much more specious one; Banegas speculates that “the sound of this organ was probably present during the first meetings between John, Paul and George”. That speculation is based on the highly improbable idea that someone was playing the organ with the church doors wide open while a fete was taking place in the church grounds and in the church hall at which a band called The Quarrymen, of which John Lennon was a member, was playing. That meeting is commemorated by a plaque in the church (which makes a nice change from plaques commemorating dead benefactors or past organists), so the church has a definite connection with the Beatles dating back to 1957. The organ was built for St Peter’s by Foster & Andrews of Hull in 1895, and rebuilt by Rushworth & Dreaper in 1945. But that is not quite the end of the story. The organ was further rebuilt in 1994 by David Wells of Liverpool, at which time, according to the National Pipe Organ Register, a new solid state capture system was added to facilitate the organist’s use of the stops. However, it does not look as if tonal changes were made at the 1994 rebuild, so this presumably sounds just like the instrument churchgoers would have heard there in 1957. Whether it ever was loud enough to be heard at a distance over the sound of The Quarrymen is an altogether different issue.
If there might be some faint hope that the sound of this organ might provide a key to the Beatles’ unique sound, I have to quash such hopes straight away. What we have here is a bog-standard largish English church organ; three manuals, around 40 speaking stops, set in a very dry acoustic and sounding, like it looks, rather uninspiring. It clearly never was affected by the Baroque revival movement and, for those that are interested in such things, fewer than a third of those stops are above 8 foot register, and only two are mutations. That may all seem like gobbledygook to non-organists, but the result is a thick, heavy and muddy sound with little at the player’s disposal to lighten the gloom. A resourceful player could doubtless add colour and brightness through judicious use of octave couplers and octave transpositions, but Banegas is not a particularly resourceful player and her registrations, while as varied as they can be, lack that illuminating aspect which can allow transcriptions to cast the originals in a refreshingly new light. If you like the Beatles’ songs on this album, you will enjoy reliving familiar music; if you are left cold or, worse still, do not know the Beatles, this is never going to encourage you to delve deeper.
Many of the songs will be unfamiliar to all except the most ardent Beatles fans, since the big hits – “Hey Jude”, “All You Need is Love”, “Yesterday” - are not here. Strangely there are also numbers which were not Beatles originals – the most obvious example being “Till There Was You”, which comes from the 1957 stage musical The Music Man, and had already become quite a hit before the Beatles recorded a version of it in 1963. On top of the 11 direct transcriptions of the individual songs, Banegas includes two Medleys, each comprising a number of songs, so altogether we have here a grand total of 21 Beatles songs. Given the meagre playing time of this disc it is clear that she does not do anything to add or expand on the originals, and even reduces some of them. Many of these songs have considerable potential to yield up to an extended organ treatment, but that opportunity has not been taken, and, together with the rather dreary sound of the instrument, the result is, frankly, disappointing.
There is no doubt that this has been a real labour of love and Banegas is very committed to the project. But as with her earlier disc, the genuine enjoyment she derives from revisiting hallowed ground with a Beatles association is not communicated.
Marc Rochester
Previous review: John France
Contents
When I’m sixty-four [3:07]
Till there was you [1:24]
Strawberry Fields for ever [2:34]
In my life [2:03]
Lucy in the sky with diamonds [1:43]
I will [1:48]
Because [3:06]
We can work it out [2:29]
Medley: Come together/Something/My Love/Across the Universe/I me mine/Fool on the Hill [12:01]
If I fell [2:08]
Julia [1:58]
The long and winding road [2:36]
Medley: Golden Slumbers/Carry that weight/You never give me your money/The End [3:51]
