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Blake Hargreaves
Improvisations on the Pipe Organs of Europe
Ultra Exzema - 2019
Harun Zulic
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The art of improvisation no longer plays a considerable role in classical music as it did 500 years ago or even 100 years ago. But it is still an essential requirement of a church organist. Blake Hargreaves, a Canadian composer and organist, has been seeking his artistic aesthetic through improvisation on this, 'the king of instruments', since he was eleven.
His album Improvisations on the Pipe Organs of Europe is an unusual cycle of nine short improvisations, recorded on eight different organs in eight different churches/cities (Genova, Hochst, Paris, Den Haag, Berlin, Prague, Budapest, and Frankfurt). The listener would think that nine improvisations are a picture of every church or city listed. But considering that each organ has its own story and its own sound, Hargreaves wanted to feel each one through his improvisation on them. He was also, in his own words, "convinced that sharing music made on them could help preserve them".
The style of these improvisations is portrayed by the slow tempo here, the result of the composer's thinking at the moment. Hargreaves strives for wet acoustics that are rich in overtones and distortions but with a prosaic melodic narrative. These elements can be observed as part of the New Simplicity, a stylistic manifestation of the postmodern era; but they can also be found in the more spiritual parts of American minimalism.
Most of the titles on Improvisations... seem carefully chosen, given that they belong to music forms that are mostly represented by a slow tempo, coral texture and a prosaic melody. The record opens with a 'Prelude at Chiesa di San Filippo Neri, Genova', a short piece of homophonic texture. Musically, 'Nocturne At Bazilika Svateho Petra A Pavla, Praha' seems the best suited to its title. By combining different registers, Hargreaves has created a highly impressionistic piece with its mixture of piano, celeste and flute sounds. The tone color and fluidity are very similar to Ravel's masterpiece 'Gaspard de la nuit'. Improvisations... closes with a homophonic meditation called 'Meditation at KunstKulturKirche Allerheiligen', rounding out this improvisational cycle.
If you are looking for the sort of spiritual catharsis that you might get from Frank's 'Chorale No. 3 in A Minor' or one of Bach's masterpieces like 'Little Fugue', you will not find it here. But what you will find is a respite of sorts, the kind that comes from listening to eight organs on an acoustic journey through Europe.
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Blake Hargreaves
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