Listening For The Listener

Cesar Franck [See blog, The Cesar Franck Pose], French Romantic composer who had enormous reverence for the music of Bach, in climactic passages of his organ music, sometimes calls for the drawing of the "Grand Orgue 16" suboctave coupler (photo).  A  notable example of this occurs on the last 3 pages of his Grande Piece Symphonique for organ, which couples every stop in that division an octave lower on itself.  With this coupler engaged all unison (8-foot) foot stops sound at 16-foot, octave (4-foot) stops sound at unison 8-foot, and so on.  Besides foundations all reeds and mixtures also sound an octave lower which creates a very massive, thick sound.  Since the 16-foot stops in the Grand Orgue division are already drawn, considerable 32-foot manual tone is also generated.  Franck took this into account by keeping notes in spread chords for both hands generally no lower than the middle C octave.  When the instrument at hand lacks this suboctave coupler, the spread chords in the last 12 measures of this piece, as written, sound thin and unsupported compared with the effect Franck had in mind.  In this situation, to get something of the same effect the composer intended for the final three  reiterated tonic chords, the left hand "pinkey" finger might, with perfect justification, include the tenor A# [3rd scale degree] at the same time that the unused right foot might play the high pedal F# [1st scale degree] to add the kind of sonority demanded for this passage.

The suboctave coupler on the main manual was generally not built into the German organs known to Bach, and, unlike Franck and others from the French Romantic school, it was not his habit to write full block chords for both hands above middle C.  His scores instead show low final notes and chords in the tenor octave.  It would be inappropriate therefore, on organs where this coupler is supplied, to draw it with the full organ at the conclusion of any of Bach's music which presumes an 8-foot plenum registration, as it would make the music sound too muddy.  Instead, to get a bit of added sonority for final chords in Bach's music, some organists exercise their artistic license by electing to use the left hand to double certain notes (octaves and fifths) in the bass/tenor octaves of the main manual.  In other words, without changing the underlying harmony, they "change the manuscript mentally" to help bring out with the full organ all the majestic powers at work on the page.  Those players who slavishly follow manuscript scores note-for-note would object to this practice, but, as far as the listener is concerned, when this is done judiciously it serves the music.     

Taking another example from the later French Romantic repertoire, in the case of those big reiterated D Major chords which conclude the Final from Vierne's 1st Symphony for organ, once again the composer obviously wanted everything the organ at hand could create at full tilt in this passage to perform those crushing final chords, and, on the instrument he knew, he would have employed the same subcoupler on the main manual.  When this coupler is lacking the organist may want to consider breaking the double pedal indicated in the manuscript and move the right foot from the middle D on the pedalboard all the way up to the high F# [third scale degree] for these closing full-spread chords to better reproduce the kind of sonority the composer had in mind.  Some experimentation is required, of course, but having to practice music like this on an instrument lacking this subcoupler is, in a sense, a blessing because it will help sharpen the performer's ingenuity in taking steps to provide the kind of rich, massive sound with which late 19th century French organists were familiar.

With other composers such as Reger, who also had an enormous reverence for the music of Bach, a lot of the things inside his organ music, as notated, didn't always make it for the listener.  When a big Reger piece is performed exactly as written, sometimes the listener hasn't heard everything on the page, and it's wonderful writing.  Here the performer has to break hundreds of rules in how he wrote it, but we do it because our ear tells us that we can't hear clearly what we're playing, and we listen to it until we find a way that it sounds musical.  It comes with experimentation and listening for the listener, which is really a great concept.

One teacher said his teacher, in turn, who had studied in Paris with Dupre, told him, over, and over, and over:  "Don't listen to it as YOU hear it, separate from that and listen to it as THE LISTENER hears it, these are 2 different things."  If the player only listens to it as he or she hears it, sometimes things aren't kept clear that really need to be kept clear.  The same is true of singers [choir members].  We talk to them about diction until we're blue in the face, that they need to exaggerate their diction to have the words heard clearly by the listener, but they don't want to exaggerate, it's more work.  They're content because it makes sense, the words are right in front of them.  The listener doesn't have the words in front of them.  The listener doesn't know the notes.

What composers wrote on the page isn't always what the listener gets to hear.  Organ music is so beautiful, the desire to play it is so great, and the standard repertoire is so vast that once the mechanics of fingering, hand division, pedaling, and manual changes for one piece have been worked out, the temptation is to move on to another piece before fully considering the listener's ear as it relates to performance.  Sometimes when we're  practicing we start too quickly.  In our mad rush to practice extremes we tend to become occupied with rattling off all the right notes at breakneck tempo but don't always think about getting the listener with us.  We don't always pay heed to how much time is needed for rests, or a bit of a breath, like in singing.  The listener needs a bit of a breath too, to catch up, and be ready to move on.  Often we take off too quickly and leave them behind, then they have to catch up, and they're a little lost, briefly.  It's helpful if we linger a barely appreciable trifle on the first note when something else starts in order to get the listener with us, and not jump in at a perfectly regular tempo; we are then free to speed up in the middle, then slow down a trifle at the end.  In the course of a piece it's very advantageous to incorporate minute stretches ("pull outs, stretch outs") in the tempo just before something else starts, such as when the Pedal line in a fugue is about to enter, a quick flurry of notes ends, or a new section begins, and slow down slightly, all while maintaining the overall rhythmic framework.  Too much rhythmic freedom is just the opposite.  It's very easy to let the excitement which builds as the piece develops to cause the tempo to pull ahead.  It's simply a matter of adopting a tempo but not letting the pulse be perfectly regular and predictable with every single move it makes; the idea is to add subtle nuance in certain places so that it doesn't sound like a machine is playing, page after page.

Obviously, some judgment is needed here [See blog, Trust Your Ear].  In certain places a pinch of a pull out is good, but if we pull out too much it will ruin the drive.  It's sometimes better for the sake of clarity, even when the score indicates otherwise, to release everything in the hands before a Pedal solo starts.  Very often the Pedal line benefits from remaining legato through big detached chords -- but not always, not 100 per cent of the time.  Heavy chords may have to be detached more than what's indicated on the page to allow the Pedal line to come through.  Knowing that repeated low Pedal notes particularly with 32-foot stops drawn need time to get on speech, it's also important to hold these notes long enough so that a clear pitch is evident to the listener.  For a fast moving Pedal line to remain clear under big held chords for both hands some bold adjustments may have to be made.  The lowest note or two of a big left hand chord, if it blocks the Pedal line, may have to be dropped in order to let the bottom notes of the chord out of the way.  Now, if the player had the right organ with a really, really driving Pedal, then it might still be okay to hold that whole chord as the manuscript indicates.  In most cases however, to get things clear to the listener, the bottom portion of the chord may need to be released, perhaps gradually upward, as the Pedal line begins.  The part of the chord which doesn't block the Pedal line, obviously, should never be dropped.  A rapidly descending Pedal line written against high held chords also should never run straight down as though it were a race to get to the bottom.  That loses the listener.  We should pull out a little as we go, otherwise it's over with before it starts.  We ought to start it with a little bit of ease, not exaggerated, just a little easy to get the listener with us, then keep it energetic, speed up some in the middle, then slow down a little bit at the end.  The idea is to introduce subtle nuance to slightly stretch the take off and the landing.  If the player just takes off like a rocket and leaves the listener behind, that's virtuosity -- but not serving the music.