Antonio SOLER (1729-1783)
Six Concertos for Two Organs [33:25] ¹
Johann Tobias KREBS (1690-1762) (mistakenly attrib.
JS Bach)
Eight Little Preludes and Fugues BWV533-560 [30:56]
E. Power Biggs and Daniel Pinkham¹ (organs)
rec. 1954 and 1955 (Krebs-Bach) and March 1959 (Soler)
PRISTINE AUDIO PAKM 050 [77:40]
There’s a delightful photograph in Barbara Owen’s
biography of E. Power Biggs that shows the august British-born
organist at the console of his 1958 Flentrop organ, a tracker-actioned
instrument. He smiles over his right shoulder, whilst to Biggs’s
right the young Daniel Pinkham sits at his Hess organ, an eighteenth
century Dutch instrument loaned by a private individual, Charles
Fisher, for the recording of the Soler concertos which are to
be heard in this disc. It appears that Biggs had long known
the concertos, and indeed had gone so far as to record himself
on tape playing both organ and harpsichord parts. But it was
when he acquired the use of the Flentrop organ that he consented
to a commercial recording with Pinkham. You can read the specifications
in the biography and can also read how Biggs subsequently tinkered
with it, adding so called convertible stops. Organ aficionados
will have a field day.
Biggs was a much admired musician and recorded heavily almost
to the end of his life. His three-manual Flentrop was installed
in Harvard University, where the recording took place. The stereo
spatiality works very well in the circumstances, and there was
sufficient distance between the two instruments: the LP carried
a helpful note, reproduced in this CD’s transfer note,
that Biggs is heard on the left channel and Pinkham on the right.
Biggs brings all his experience of these works to bear and is
well partnered by Pinkham who had been a guest on Biggs’
radio programme. There is great buoyancy and contrasting sonorities
throughout, brisk and bright voicings in the A minor Concerto
(No.2) and even occasionally some fractious dialogues between
the two instruments. Folkloric elements haunt much Spanish music
of the period and Soler was no exception; the Minuet finale
of No.2 is almost harmonium like in this respect. Whether inclining
to more academic workouts or jovially spinning jaunty marches,
the performances are admirable. In particular there is the droll
aspect of the music, so deftly projected.
When Biggs went on a European tour he made a series of recordings of his performances
in various churches using portable equipment he’d shipped over from
America. The results were good in the circumstances but clearly pitch instability
was a problem and, as Andrew Rose, relates, hum too. He has dealt with these
problems, adding reverberation. The music was long thought to be by Bach,
indeed given BWV numbers, but it’s now believed that the Eight Little
Preludes and Fugues were written by Bach’s student Johann Tobias Krebs.
Biggs plays them on the various organs with great dexterity and assurance,
unfussy and direct musicianship, devoid of show. He always followed his revered
teacher Cunningham in being a truly musical organist, never one given to flashy
displays of temperament.
Slightly off the beaten track though this may be, I enjoyed
these restorations greatly.
Jonathan Woolf
Organ aficionados will have a field day.