was E. Power Biggs good?

[buzzyreed]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?

**Bangs head against keyboard** kkkkkkkkkdddddddddddjjjjjjjjjjjjjdddddddddddd

"baroque purists?" Ohh.. music education why have you foresaken America??


Wait, Chet Atkins?

(explains to museum docent) "I was supposed to be in the Egyptian Room! Can you help me find my mommy?"

[erfüllt]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?

I love E. Power Biggs. I like Virgil Fox alot as well. Biggs reading of BWV 544 on the Flentrop is simply scalding...he turns that sucker on it's head. So passionate and vital.

[nadav]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?

biggs was one of the first organists i've heard about and listend to his recordstoday i think i wold not recomend him to people who are not familiar with organ music.
there are many others far better especially europeans like ton koopman and gustav leonhart.

[orgatrain]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?

Before we ALL start being critical of either man we should try to think REALLY hard about who in this day and age has stepped up to the plate in a worldwide way to promote the organ like both of these men did.

These men are our forefathers in organ, performance and showmanship. Yes they were different, but aren't we all?

We need to promote the organ in any way we can, not by being critical of our performers but by encouraging new people with support, not criticism.

Gosh, who would want to be part of a feild were criticism is rampant.

[music2skateby]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?

AMEN! Agreed!

[Jerry]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?

Posted By: orgatrain on 01/06/2006 10:21 AM
Subject: Re: was E. Power Biggs good?


Gosh, who would want to be part of a feild were criticism is rampant.


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welcome to the Organ Forum!

[Tutti]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?

Since when did Jerry crawl out from under his rock?

[NYCFarmboy]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?

back to the subject...

I find myself more and more listening to E. Power Biggs over Fox just because of the vast supiority of his recordings at least from a purely technical standpoint.

I'm NOT talking about artistic playing. I'm talking about the methods of mic'ing and recording used by Biggs (CBS).

They sound like they were just made today.. very alive. In fact I don't know of any recordings made today that sound the way Biggs recorded on the Flentrop. They really knew what they were doing on those recordings.

[Jerry]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?

About the same time you took your "bone" out of your mouth Tutti Frutti!

[MD1032]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?



Well I just got back from a long trip and on the ride home I popped in my E2c's and listened to both the Virgil Fox and the E.P. Biggs interpretations of the Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, the Virgil Fox Volume IV "Command Performances" CD, and the Biggs "Bach - Great Organ Favorites" CD were used.</P>


Well first off, this is one of the greatest organ pieces forever as you know, andBiggs and Virgil take very different approaches to this piece. Very different organs, too. Virgil is at Riverside and I believe Biggs's isplayed on the Flentrop Organ in the Busch-Reisinger Museum Harvard University. To be honest, I prefer Virgil's playing. Virgil really adds a lot of dynamic expressiveness to it that Biggs avoids. Virgil pulls basically everything out at the end, clearly working the recording equipment's limiters, and really leans into the final chords as he does during certain phrases during the piece. He basically tends to add a lot of musicality to the piece at the expense of the raw accuracy that Biggs posesses. Biggs is very accurate, keeping a very consistent tempo and avoiding crescendo, registration changes,as well as registering very differently from Virgil. His instrument has a lot of chiff and has arounded tone and good articulation, again adding to the very square-sounding performance. His final notes on both the passacaglia and the fugue are very plainly stated with even ritardando while Virgil builds up to an enormous finale with heavy rallentandoand repeats the dissonant chord several times at the end before resolving. To be honest, I find Virgil's performance infinitely more interesting to listen to.</P>

[John Bittner]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?

One of the first organ LP's I purchased was Fox playing the organ at NY Philharmonic Hall (now Avery Fisher Hall and without pipe organ) on the Command label. It opened with the Passacaglia. I suspect you may be referring to the same recording.

As I've grown older since purchasing that recording over 35 years ago, I've come to regard that performance as more of a transcription, in the vane of Stokowski's and Schoenberg's orchestral transcriptions of Bach, or even a Wendy Carlos synth version, than an actual organ performance.

It makes for great listening and I still enjoy hearing it from time to time, but I find now that the incesssant registration and tempo changes and other romantic trappings of the playing distract from the structure and genius of the music. My tastes have changed.

I think many prefer Fox over Biggs because Fox's interpretations are those from a musical era much closer in time and style to our own than the late Baroque of Biggs. Nothing wrong with that, unless you prefer historical accuracy, it's simply matter of preference.

[toodles]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?



I concur about an overly romanticized interpretation getting "in the way" of hearing the clear structure of Bach.</P>


Toodles.</P>

[Jerry]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?

<DIV>Being that Fox's life stylewas very similar to Bach's, more so that Biggs.I think it is safe to presume that Bach played his works very much like the way Fox interprets them .</DIV>
<DIV>Biggs, on the other hand is so sterile that to call anything he interprets anything else but boring. Is a stretch of the imagination</DIV>

[ReedGuy]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?



I definitely agree that both Fox and Biggs had different syles and interpretations. But that is why I find them both so interesting, and why I think listening to them helps me to be a better organist.</P>


Sometimes I may not be fond of someone's interpretation on a piece,but nonetheless I will still listen to it because there's always somethingI can learn from any interpretation and I think it takes courage to stand up there and perform your ownunique take on something.Besides, we organists need all the promoting and support we can get. </P>

[radagast]

Re: was E. Power Biggs good?

Yeah Biggs was good. He was good at destroying the popularity of the pipe organ in America by his narrow minded obsession with neo-Baroque organs. It is a crime that Biggs and his Neo-Baroque Mongol Hordes were responsible for the destruction of many beautiful Skinner organs.