This piece was my gateway drug to more modern organ music. Before I listened to Alain, I regarded most 20th century organ music with disgust. It really is a beautiful piece. Thank you!
Composed in 1934, first performed in 1938 and published in 1939, this composition is seen as one of Alain's seminal organ works. You capture all the mystery and exotic atmosphere of the music perfectly, Ben, with your beautiful registration choices . . . and how wonderful to hear the Cathedral bells at the end (fortuitous timing!). I've seen the piece described as a feat of cross-cultural legerdemain! Ostensibly a dreamy evocation of Babylon and the 1,001 Nights, as you remark Alain builds his composition upon a great structure of the European Baroque: the chaconne. Slow, soft, and remote, the work begins its four-bar ostinato not in the bass as expected, but in a very high register. (In keeping with the image of a suspended garden, no truly low notes tether the composition to the Earth!) A commentator has noted amusingly how part of the melody seems to be a slow-motion version of "All the girls in France do the hoochie-coochie dance" - though this may simply be an unfortunate coincidence! Bravo!
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My favorite piece 😊 thank you 🌟
One of my favourites! Thank you for this beauteous vision to pierce the gloom.
Learning this for my diploma. Thank you very much for your beautiful performance
quite hypnotick - beautifully played Ben.
This piece was my gateway drug to more modern organ music. Before I listened to Alain, I regarded most 20th century organ music with disgust. It really is a beautiful piece. Thank you!
Composed in 1934, first performed in 1938 and published in 1939, this composition is seen as one of Alain's seminal organ works. You capture all the mystery and exotic atmosphere of the music perfectly, Ben, with your beautiful registration choices . . . and how wonderful to hear the Cathedral bells at the end (fortuitous timing!).
I've seen the piece described as a feat of cross-cultural legerdemain! Ostensibly a dreamy evocation of Babylon and the 1,001 Nights, as you remark Alain builds his composition upon a great structure of the European Baroque: the chaconne. Slow, soft, and remote, the work begins its four-bar ostinato not in the bass as expected, but in a very high register. (In keeping with the image of a suspended garden, no truly low notes tether the composition to the Earth!) A commentator has noted amusingly how part of the melody seems to be a slow-motion version of "All the girls in France do the hoochie-coochie dance" - though this may simply be an unfortunate coincidence! Bravo!
The "suspended garden" sans thumbing down. Haha.
Perfect clef reading!
🤣