My “fascinations” are a sub-set of the many recordings I enjoy. For reasons which can’t (and don’t need to) be fully explained, some compositions niggle at the aeolodicon mind – they become fascinating to the extent of obsession. This can happen quite quickly…but sometimes it takes years, or even decades, for the fascination switch to flick. Once the fascination kicks in, I become an obsessive collector of recordings of the music in question. Simply put, there cannot be too many recordings of a “fascination”.
Is there a common link between the various fascinations? I’m not sure there is, but I do know that they are exclusively longer and/or more complex works; and often they are ‘pure’ music rather than works based on chorales, hymns or secular melodies, or program music that is painting a specific picture or telling a certain story.
Die Kunst der Fuge, Johann Sebastian Bach
I think Bach’s Art of Fugue (BWV 1080) was my first fascination. I knew the music from listening to versions in my father’s collection, and eventually purchased a CD of Ullrich Böhme playing the autograph version on the Riepp organs of Ottobeuren Abbey (published by Motette). At that time I didn’t really know of the distinction between this early autograph and the final published version, but I did realise that my autograph recording didn’t have the famous Contrapunctus 14 (fuga a 3 soggetti) which, unfinished, peters out at the point where an aged Bach was taken, for greater glory, to join the angelic host in heaven (yes, I know now that this is a somewhat romanticised tale!).
So I purchased a recording of Régis Allard playing the published version on the glorious Aubertin organ of Saint-Louis-en-l’Ile, Paris (published by Editions Hortus). For some reason I became transfixed in the purity of the music – over an hour of fugues in the same key was just heavenly, and a good antidote to the (pleasurable) excesses of romantic canvases and contemporary plink-plonk.
Goldberg Variationen, Johann Sebastian Bach
Bach’s Goldberg Variations (BWV 988) was a clear example of where a fascination can kick in many years after first listening to the music. I am a listener of organ music (not keyboard music; not classical music), and despite the breadth of music that this opens up to me, there are many superb works which I won’t be listening because they’re not recorded on the organ. I know, I know, this seems to be a foolish approach, but I simply can’t help it.
With some excitement in getting a substantial Bach work that I had hitherto not heard, I purchased (on Motette) a recording of Frank Volke playing the Goldbergs on a crisp von Beckerath organ in Düsseldorf. For many years that was that…I enjoyed the music, but didn’t think much about it beyond that. At some point, 10 or 20 years later, Bill van Pelt (who runs the American Raven record label) sent me some bonus discs to complement a large order I’d placed. One disc was of Daniel Sullivan playing the Goldberg Variations on the Aeolian-Skinner organ in St Philip’s Cathedral, Atlanta. At first I was wary…not least because the organ was quite ‘unsuitable’ for Bach, and was used in a way that certainly didn’t try to make it a Bach organ. Alas, the liner notes didn’t explain the philosophy behind the interpretation.
For a while, the disc sat uneasily on my shelves, but it seemed churlish to get rid of it. And then something happened…I became intrigued in how such a different approach on such a different organ could still be so enjoyable. Which got me thinking, and prompted me to seek out another view point of the same music. And from there I became fascinated, with more than twelve recordings currently in my collection (and more to come).
Variationen und Fuge über ein Originalthema Op.73, Max Reger
Test
Sonata in C minor, Percy Whitlock
Test text on Whitlock