A Singularly Uplifting Experience

Anthony Newman is a musical force, an organist, a harpsichordist, a pianist (usually fortepianist), a conductor, a composer, a lecturer. He is a master of the Baroque – particularly of Bach – but he ventures into many musical realms. He certainly knows how to put together an intelligent and inviting program, which he did for Wednesday night at St. Bartholomew’s Church.(I hereby provide a piece of cocktail-party information: It was to St. Bartholomew’s – located at Park and 51st – that Leopold Stokowski came for his first job in America. He arrived to be organist in 1905.)Mr. Newman gave us an organ recital, beginning with a trio of pieces about birds. First was Rameau’s “La Poule” (“The Hen”), which the great virtuoso Georges Cziffra used to play on the piano. From Mr. Newman, it was crisp, jaunty – hen-like. There was a fine spirit behind that playing, as well as fine fingers. Then came a piece by Messiaen, who was mad about birds, followed by Louis-Claude Daquin’s “Le Coucou.” Mr. Newman was far from cuckoo, merely pleasing.A few years ago, I was interviewing the composer Ned Rorem, and he made an obvious point – but a point that has to be made in order to be obvious, if you know what I mean: Until 1915 or so, we had no split between the composer and the performer; they were one and the same; only about then did composer and performer become separate beings.Well, Mr. Newman is a throwback, thank goodness, playing and writing and playing what he writes. He did several of his pieces on Wednesday night, including a “Fantasia on the Te Deum,” which was rollicking, slashing, and altogether exhilarating. This piece was “drawn from an improvisation,” Mr. Newman informed us in his program notes. And it did have that quality – the organist was jammin’.He next played Bach’s Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue in C, which pianists used to play in Busoni’s transcription, quite frequently. That is out of style now, although Evgeny Kissin, the youngish Russian, plays the transcription. In the original, Mr. Newman exhibited ample technical control, and a sense of the work’s architecture. But he was sometimes muddled, and in the fugue, he rushed. He slurred over some of Bach’s figures more than he might have wished.Mozart’s F-minor Fantasia is a wonderful work, alternating quiet sections with an invigorating one. In the former, Mr. Newman was delicate while not prissy; in the latter, he was … well, invigorating. He then played an Allegro from one of the composer’s sonatas, a rush of Mozartean joy.According to Mr. Newman, Bach’s G-minor Fantasia and Fugue is “the world’s most often played piece of organ music” – and Mr. Newman did his bit, giving us a creditable rendition, although that fugue could have had more definition, a greater feeling of marcato. This, I’m afraid, was truly slurred over.Some Stravinsky? Why not? Mr. Newman has taken a prelude from that composer’s “Canticum Sacrum” and coupled it with a fugue of his own, “based on a Stravinsky-like subject.” Preparing the audience for this fugue, he said one of the most charming things I have ever heard at a concert: “It is very dissonant, very strident, and very loud – but also very brief!” In addition to those things, Mr. Newman’s fugue is excellent and enjoyable.Then, some more Bach. It was smart of Mr. Newman to intersperse his Bach, instead of confining him to this or that portion of the program. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E minor, nicknamed the “Wedge,” is a grand and intricate affair, and Mr. Newman traversed it nimbly and confidently. He then played a Toccata and Fugue of his own, the fugue borrowing from the Bach work in E minor. This was virtuosic, complicated, and thrilling.I thought of something a colleague of mine once asked me – he was seeking some loud, exciting organ music. He said, “Jay, is there a CD called something like ‘Mad Men of the Organ’?” I thought of that as Mr. Newman played this composition of his.Mr. Newman did not give himself the last word, but rather Bach – his Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor.The evening reminded me that, as nice as a recording may be, there is no substitute for hearing an organ live – it can be a singularly uplifting experience. And a small band had just such an experience in St. Bartholomew’s Church. There were about a hundred of us, I guessed. But so what? One could only pity the absentees. And I think we all clapped a little more energetically.

A Singularly Uplifting Experience

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