Sunday 11 February 2024 at 8:00 PM
Eccles Organ Festival Recital
David Briggs
Artist in Residence, Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York, NY (USA)
Organist Emeritus of Gloucester Cathedral (UK)
Eccles Organ Festival Recital
David Briggs
Artist in Residence, Cathedral of St John the Divine, New York, NY (USA)
Organist Emeritus of Gloucester Cathedral (UK)
Program
David Briggs (1962)
Improvisation in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Pavane pour une infante défunte
(transc. by David Briggs)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Pièce d’Orgue, BWV 572
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H
Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)
Fileuse, from Suite Bretonne, Op. 21
Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
Final, from Symphonie No. 1
David Briggs
Improvisations on Seven Frescoes by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel (Padua, Italy)
David Briggs (1962)
Improvisation in the style of Johann Sebastian Bach
Maurice Ravel (1875–1937)
Pavane pour une infante défunte
(transc. by David Briggs)
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Pièce d’Orgue, BWV 572
Franz Liszt (1811-1886)
Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H
Marcel Dupré (1886-1971)
Fileuse, from Suite Bretonne, Op. 21
Louis Vierne (1870-1937)
Final, from Symphonie No. 1
David Briggs
Improvisations on Seven Frescoes by Giotto in the Scrovegni Chapel (Padua, Italy)
- The Last Supper
- The Arrest of Christ
- The Mocking of Jesus
- The Way of the Cross
- The Crucifixion
- The Lamentation
- The Resurrection
“Mr. Briggs is one of our finest organists,
and also a particularly good transcriber of orchestral works for his own instrument. “
The New York Times
and also a particularly good transcriber of orchestral works for his own instrument. “
The New York Times
David Briggs is an internationally renowned organist whose performances are acclaimed for their musicality, virtuosity, and ability to excite and engage audiences of all ages. Consistently ranked as one of the finest organists of his generation, David’s extensive repertoire spans five centuries. He has also become one of the foremost organ transcribers of symphonic works, thereby giving listeners the opportunity to experience the organ in a new way. He has transcribed orchestral compositions by Schubert, Tchaikovsky, Elgar, Bruckner, Ravel, and Bach as well as Mahler’s Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, and Eighth symphonies.
Described as "an intrepid improviser” by Michael Barone, host of American Public Media’s Pipedreams, David also frequently performs improvisations to silent films such as Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Nosferatu, Jeanne d’Arc, Metropolis, King of Kings, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the General, and a variety of Charlie Chaplin films.
At the age of 17, David obtained his FRCO (Fellow of the Royal College of Organists) diploma, winning the Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. From 1981-84 he was Organ Scholar at King’s College, Cambridge University, during which time he studied with Jean Langlais in Paris. The first British winner of the Tournemire Prize at the St Albans International Improvisation Competition, he also won the first prize in the International Improvisation Competition at Paisley. Subsequently David held positions at Hereford, Truro and Gloucester Cathedrals.
Deeply committed to ensuring organ music remains relevant and vibrant, David enjoys giving pre-concert lectures and demonstrations that help make organ music more broadly accessible. He teaches performance at Cambridge University, frequently serves on international organ competition juries, and gives master classes at colleges and conservatories across the U.S. and Europe.
David performs more than 50 concerts a year at such venues as Maison Symphonique, Montreal; Royal Albert Hall, London; Notre-Dame, St Sulpice and St Eustache, Paris; Kimmel Center, Philadelphia; Berlin Philharmonie, Germany; St James Cathedral, Toronto; International Performing Arts Center, Moscow; Valencia Cathedral, Spain; National Auditorium, Madrid; Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria (BC); Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim, Norway; Grace Cathedral, San Francisco (CA); and King’s College, Cambridge.
David Briggs is also a prolific composer and his works range from full scale oratorios to works for solo instruments. He has recorded two DVDs, and 37 CDs, many of which include his own compositions and transcriptions.
David is currently Artist-in-Residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.
Described as "an intrepid improviser” by Michael Barone, host of American Public Media’s Pipedreams, David also frequently performs improvisations to silent films such as Phantom of the Opera, Hunchback of Notre-Dame, Nosferatu, Jeanne d’Arc, Metropolis, King of Kings, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, the General, and a variety of Charlie Chaplin films.
At the age of 17, David obtained his FRCO (Fellow of the Royal College of Organists) diploma, winning the Silver Medal of the Worshipful Company of Musicians. From 1981-84 he was Organ Scholar at King’s College, Cambridge University, during which time he studied with Jean Langlais in Paris. The first British winner of the Tournemire Prize at the St Albans International Improvisation Competition, he also won the first prize in the International Improvisation Competition at Paisley. Subsequently David held positions at Hereford, Truro and Gloucester Cathedrals.
Deeply committed to ensuring organ music remains relevant and vibrant, David enjoys giving pre-concert lectures and demonstrations that help make organ music more broadly accessible. He teaches performance at Cambridge University, frequently serves on international organ competition juries, and gives master classes at colleges and conservatories across the U.S. and Europe.
David performs more than 50 concerts a year at such venues as Maison Symphonique, Montreal; Royal Albert Hall, London; Notre-Dame, St Sulpice and St Eustache, Paris; Kimmel Center, Philadelphia; Berlin Philharmonie, Germany; St James Cathedral, Toronto; International Performing Arts Center, Moscow; Valencia Cathedral, Spain; National Auditorium, Madrid; Christ Church Cathedral, Victoria (BC); Nidaros Cathedral, Trondheim, Norway; Grace Cathedral, San Francisco (CA); and King’s College, Cambridge.
David Briggs is also a prolific composer and his works range from full scale oratorios to works for solo instruments. He has recorded two DVDs, and 37 CDs, many of which include his own compositions and transcriptions.
David is currently Artist-in-Residence at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City.
Program Notes
by Dr. Kenneth Udy, University of Utah
A pavane is a slow processional dance that was common in the courts of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1899, while a composition student of Gabriel Fauré at the Paris Conservatory, Ravel composed Pavane pour une infante défunte [Pavane for a Departed Princess] in G major for piano solo. Although the piece is dedicated to his patron, Princess Winnaretta Singer-Polignac (an heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune), the unusual title does not refer to a specific princess or an event; rather, it simply evokes a dance that a young princess might have enjoyed in former times. Over the next decade Pavane became so popular that Ravel orchestrated it in 1910; however, as often happens with composers, Ravel grew to resent the piece as its popularity overshadowed his other works that he considered more deserving. Nonetheless, the piece reveals an expressive and lyrical style as well as Ravel’s gift for an exquisite melody encapsulating emotional coolness, restrained melancholy, and mysterious timelessness.
Composed in Weimar around 1708–1712, Bach’s Pièce d’Orgue, BWV 572 in G major is one of the master’s most spectacular works with its chromatic descending bass lines and accompanying harmonic sequences. It is unique not only because of the peculiar title but also the French-language tempo markings given to the three individual sections. Played without pause, the sections are related harmonically but are very different in character, possibly analogous to the three stages of life. The rollicking and bravura introductory section (Très vitement) in 12/8 is a representation of carefree youth. It is made up of a series of arpeggiated chords, as if written for the lute, in a single voice with multiple imitations and echo effects which descend little by little from the top of the keyboard to the bass. Directly following is the central section (Gravement) suggesting the power of maturity with its torments portrayed in grand plein-jeu style. It is a dense ricercar of opulent five-voice polyphony filled with harsh, chromatic dissonances, brutally ending with an abrupt and questioning diminished seventh chord. The final Lentement depicts old age with its slow and inexorable descent finally landing stubbornly on a dominant pedal D and concluding with a simple and peaceful perfect cadence.
Liszt left only three major organ works. The most frequently played is his landmark Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H (the four notes B-flat, A, C, B-natural). It was intended for the September 26, 1855 inauguration of the largest organ in Germany at Merseburg Cathedral but was not completed in time. (It was eventually premiered there May 13, 1856 by its dedicatee, Liszt’s 21-year-old pupil Alexander Winterberger.) Typical of his customary creative process, Liszt produced several versions of the piece. A piano arrangement was also composed in 1855, later followed by revised organ (1870) and piano (1871) versions. The Prelude begins by forcefully sounding the theme in the pedal followed by long and short chords and arpeggios. The fugue begins mysteriously with a subject comprising eleven different notes. After the fugal exposition, the counterpoint is reduced to just the beginning of the subject, while the form fades. An Allegro then marks the return of dazzling material from the prelude which travels through a complex circuit of keys, including stormy pedal trills, before the piece finds a solemn conclusion using full organ.
Dupré came from a wealthy musical family based in Rouen. His two grandfathers and his father were organists. Just as Ravel was leaving the Paris Conservatory, Dupré entered there in 1902 studying with Widor, Guilmant, and Vierne. Dubbed the Paganini of the organ, Dupré launched his stellar career in 1920 by performing Bach’s 154 organ works from memory over ten evenings. He then commenced regular concert tours across the world, all while maintaining his posts as organ professor at the Paris Conservatory from 1926–1954 and as organist at the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris (succeeding Widor) from 1934 until his death. He also composed some 65 opus numbers of solo organ music. Early in 1923 Dupré wrote his Suite Bretonne, a triptych depicting three memories of a journey to Brittany, and premiered the suite that November at Wanamaker Auditorium in New York to launch his third transcontinental tour. The middle movement, Fileuse [Spinning Woman], in B minor is the best known. Cast in ABA form, the left hand plays sixteenth notes on the Voix céleste imitating the spinning wheel of the Breton lace makers. The right hand plays detached staccato chords against offbeat pedal notes. In the middle section a contrasting legato theme of triads enters on the Flûte Harmonique. Following the recapitulation is a coda in the parallel major concluding with a bar of silence and a short chord as the spinning wheel comes to a halt.
Over 700 years ago, the wealthy Paduan banker Enrico Scrovegni built an extraordinary private family chapel on the grounds of his lavish palace at the northern edge of the city. Enrico was an heir to his father Reginaldo’s fortune made from usurious money-lending–a serious crime in the eyes of the Catholic Church. When Enrico determined to build a sumptuous chapel to the glory of the Virgin Mary, the monks living nearby were dubious and complained bitterly suspecting that Scrovegni was more concerned with expiating his father’s sins than he was in humbly showing his reverence for the divine. Scrovegni commissioned Giotto di Bondone (ca. 1267–1337) to fresco the interior. For two years from 1303–1305 Giotto created one of the most important masterpieces of Western art on the walls of the chapel. The fresco medium involves applying water-based pigment directly to a layer of still-wet plaster in such a way that pigment and plaster form an impermeable chemical bond. Only a small amount of wall could be painted each day. Covering over 7500 square feet, there are four separate pictorial cycles: (1) the Life of the Virgin, (2) the Life of Christ, (3) the Cardinal Virtues and Vices, and (4) a massive Last Judgment on the west wall of the chapel. No fewer than 23 frescoes depict the Life of Christ in an exquisite late-medieval sequential art narrative, including the final scenes which are the basis of this evening’s improvisation. Particularly noteworthy are the intensity of human joys and sorrows that emerge in Giotto’s art. The Chapel was acquired by the City of Padua in 1880, and the vulnerable frescoes were conserved during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
by Dr. Kenneth Udy, University of Utah
A pavane is a slow processional dance that was common in the courts of Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In 1899, while a composition student of Gabriel Fauré at the Paris Conservatory, Ravel composed Pavane pour une infante défunte [Pavane for a Departed Princess] in G major for piano solo. Although the piece is dedicated to his patron, Princess Winnaretta Singer-Polignac (an heir to the Singer sewing machine fortune), the unusual title does not refer to a specific princess or an event; rather, it simply evokes a dance that a young princess might have enjoyed in former times. Over the next decade Pavane became so popular that Ravel orchestrated it in 1910; however, as often happens with composers, Ravel grew to resent the piece as its popularity overshadowed his other works that he considered more deserving. Nonetheless, the piece reveals an expressive and lyrical style as well as Ravel’s gift for an exquisite melody encapsulating emotional coolness, restrained melancholy, and mysterious timelessness.
Composed in Weimar around 1708–1712, Bach’s Pièce d’Orgue, BWV 572 in G major is one of the master’s most spectacular works with its chromatic descending bass lines and accompanying harmonic sequences. It is unique not only because of the peculiar title but also the French-language tempo markings given to the three individual sections. Played without pause, the sections are related harmonically but are very different in character, possibly analogous to the three stages of life. The rollicking and bravura introductory section (Très vitement) in 12/8 is a representation of carefree youth. It is made up of a series of arpeggiated chords, as if written for the lute, in a single voice with multiple imitations and echo effects which descend little by little from the top of the keyboard to the bass. Directly following is the central section (Gravement) suggesting the power of maturity with its torments portrayed in grand plein-jeu style. It is a dense ricercar of opulent five-voice polyphony filled with harsh, chromatic dissonances, brutally ending with an abrupt and questioning diminished seventh chord. The final Lentement depicts old age with its slow and inexorable descent finally landing stubbornly on a dominant pedal D and concluding with a simple and peaceful perfect cadence.
Liszt left only three major organ works. The most frequently played is his landmark Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H (the four notes B-flat, A, C, B-natural). It was intended for the September 26, 1855 inauguration of the largest organ in Germany at Merseburg Cathedral but was not completed in time. (It was eventually premiered there May 13, 1856 by its dedicatee, Liszt’s 21-year-old pupil Alexander Winterberger.) Typical of his customary creative process, Liszt produced several versions of the piece. A piano arrangement was also composed in 1855, later followed by revised organ (1870) and piano (1871) versions. The Prelude begins by forcefully sounding the theme in the pedal followed by long and short chords and arpeggios. The fugue begins mysteriously with a subject comprising eleven different notes. After the fugal exposition, the counterpoint is reduced to just the beginning of the subject, while the form fades. An Allegro then marks the return of dazzling material from the prelude which travels through a complex circuit of keys, including stormy pedal trills, before the piece finds a solemn conclusion using full organ.
Dupré came from a wealthy musical family based in Rouen. His two grandfathers and his father were organists. Just as Ravel was leaving the Paris Conservatory, Dupré entered there in 1902 studying with Widor, Guilmant, and Vierne. Dubbed the Paganini of the organ, Dupré launched his stellar career in 1920 by performing Bach’s 154 organ works from memory over ten evenings. He then commenced regular concert tours across the world, all while maintaining his posts as organ professor at the Paris Conservatory from 1926–1954 and as organist at the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris (succeeding Widor) from 1934 until his death. He also composed some 65 opus numbers of solo organ music. Early in 1923 Dupré wrote his Suite Bretonne, a triptych depicting three memories of a journey to Brittany, and premiered the suite that November at Wanamaker Auditorium in New York to launch his third transcontinental tour. The middle movement, Fileuse [Spinning Woman], in B minor is the best known. Cast in ABA form, the left hand plays sixteenth notes on the Voix céleste imitating the spinning wheel of the Breton lace makers. The right hand plays detached staccato chords against offbeat pedal notes. In the middle section a contrasting legato theme of triads enters on the Flûte Harmonique. Following the recapitulation is a coda in the parallel major concluding with a bar of silence and a short chord as the spinning wheel comes to a halt.
Over 700 years ago, the wealthy Paduan banker Enrico Scrovegni built an extraordinary private family chapel on the grounds of his lavish palace at the northern edge of the city. Enrico was an heir to his father Reginaldo’s fortune made from usurious money-lending–a serious crime in the eyes of the Catholic Church. When Enrico determined to build a sumptuous chapel to the glory of the Virgin Mary, the monks living nearby were dubious and complained bitterly suspecting that Scrovegni was more concerned with expiating his father’s sins than he was in humbly showing his reverence for the divine. Scrovegni commissioned Giotto di Bondone (ca. 1267–1337) to fresco the interior. For two years from 1303–1305 Giotto created one of the most important masterpieces of Western art on the walls of the chapel. The fresco medium involves applying water-based pigment directly to a layer of still-wet plaster in such a way that pigment and plaster form an impermeable chemical bond. Only a small amount of wall could be painted each day. Covering over 7500 square feet, there are four separate pictorial cycles: (1) the Life of the Virgin, (2) the Life of Christ, (3) the Cardinal Virtues and Vices, and (4) a massive Last Judgment on the west wall of the chapel. No fewer than 23 frescoes depict the Life of Christ in an exquisite late-medieval sequential art narrative, including the final scenes which are the basis of this evening’s improvisation. Particularly noteworthy are the intensity of human joys and sorrows that emerge in Giotto’s art. The Chapel was acquired by the City of Padua in 1880, and the vulnerable frescoes were conserved during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
