Category Archives: Style

How to sound like Brahms

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Earlier this summer, I taught an organ masterclass at the National Pastoral Musicians convention in Cincinnati. Participants were encouraged to bring repertoire or ask questions about improvisation. One of the objectives of improvising can be to create a piece that sounds like it might be written down, so when the student was interested, we looked for improvisation skills to learn from the repertoire that we covered. One of the pieces presented then seemed like a great piece to share here, so let’s take a look at Johannes Brahms’ chorale prelude on “Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele.”

I recorded the video above earlier this spring at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen. A basic harmonization of the chorale can be found in the Hymnal 1982 which was in the pews at Christ Church Cathedral where the masterclass was held. So with scores for the chorale and the prelude on the music rack, we pondered, how did Brahms get from one to the other?

Form

Any time you start an improvisation, it is helpful to know the form you intend to create. You may choose or need to deviate in the form after you start, but if you haven’t chosen a form to begin with, it’s highly unlikely your improvisation will sound like a written piece….

The chorale in the hymnal is in four-part harmony. Brahms provides no introduction, and leaves the melody in the soprano virtually unaltered. In this way, the melodic presentation and form of the two scores stay the same. The differences appear in texture, harmony, and figuration.

Texture

Brahms reduces the texture from four voices down to three. Because one of them as the melody is given to us, this actually makes our job as improvisers a little simpler. We only have to create two different parts to accompany the tune. If this seems difficult, we could even consider simplifying further so that we are only playing with two voices. One of the joys of improvising is being able to customize the level of difficulty. Unlike repertoire where we work to play what the composer has indicated, in improvisation, we can adjust to what we are able to manage.

Harmony

The standard harmonization of the chorale borrows from related keys only a small number of times. Brahms begins borrowing in the first full measure. The chorale only borrows from B major and F# minor. Brahms borrows from A major, C# minor, F# minor, and B major. He doesn’t just use secondary dominants for these keys. He even manages to include a D minor (sub-median, vi) for F# minor as he enriches the harmonic vocabulary. Brahms also occasionally fits two chords in the place of one from the chorale.

Figuration

Finally, after the first two beats, Brahms manages to keep sixteenth note movement going throughout his chorale prelude. Neither the alto nor bass move consistently in sixteenth notes, but their combined movements provide continuous motion throughout the piece. He uses passing tones, arpeggios, neighbor notes, and suspensions all to help fill in this more active texture.

Sounds like Brahms

If we really want to sound like Brahms, we’ll need to look at more than just this one piece. However, as we compare the chorale to his chorale prelude, we can identify areas to study and develop in our improvisation tool box:

  • How do you harmonize a melody in only three voices?
  • What harmony can you imply with only two voices?
  • Where can you borrow from related keys to make the harmony more rich?
  • Where can you add additional harmonies to increase the frequency of changes?
  • Where can you add passing tones, neighbor notes, or suspensions to make more active figuration in the accompaniment?
  • What if you use triplets instead of eighth or sixteenth notes?

All of these are items that we can practice separately before combining them together. Work with them one at a time until you feel comfortable, then start combining them together. Brahms had a lifetime of experience before writing his chorale prelude. What will you be able to create if you continue practicing for the rest of your life?

Glenn

Newsletter Issue 65 – 2017 08 30

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The Final Grand Jeu

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In concluding this series on the French Classical Suite, we come to one of the most impressive sounds of the French Classical organ, the ensemble of reeds. Virtually every time I sit down at a historic instrument and pull out the small number of stops required for the Grand Jeu, I am impressed by the volume of sound. Listen to Jean-Baptiste Robin play Louis Marchand’s Grand Dialogue at Poitiers to hear what 6-7 stops can produce!

Registration

The Pre-classical Grand Jeu registration consisted of:

  • G.O.: Trompette, Clairon, Cromorne, Cornet, Tierce, Bourdon 8, Nazard, Quarte de Nazard

A distinction emerged in the Classical period between the Grand Jeu using the registration above and the Grand Dialogue which omitted the Jeu de Tierce:

  • Pos: Montre 8′ or Prestant 4′, Bourdon 8′, Cromorne
  • G.O.: Bourdon 8′, Prestant 4′, Trompette 8′, Clairon 4′, Cornet

As the organs grew larger and the Dialogue advanced, the registration expanded to:

  • Pos: as above
  • G.O.: as above
  • Récit: Cornet
  • Écho: Bourdon, Prestant, Doublette, Nazard, Tierce

Use of the pedal depended upon the organ, but was based on the Trompette, adding the Clairon and then Bombarde stops if available. Couperin and Boyvin specify the flute stop on the pedal when they include trio passages in their dialogues.

Forms

Multiple forms are used with this registration including Pedal points, Fugues, Dialogues, and Overtures. In an early suite, the Grand Jeu may only be 10-12 measures long and played entirely on one keyboard. Later composers created 10-12 minute Dialogues exploiting the varied palette of colors and demonstrating a variety of writing styles. For a short movement with a little variety, the overture provides an easy example for us to follow.

Start on the Grand Orgue in a slow tempo. Use dotted rhythms. Scales by either the right or left hand can provide movement while the other hand holds a static chord. This slow section is generally in a duple meter.

The second section is generally faster and in a triple meter. Voices could enter in a fugal style (one after the other in imitation). Typically this portion would start on the Positif and could have dialogue sections where the soprano or bass would be played on the Grand Orgue.

The final section would be a return to the material of the opening of the movement, but may be very short and serve more like a coda than a true repeat of the opening.

Conclusions

I hope you have enjoyed this series on the French Classical Suite. Please let me know if you have any questions or areas where I could offer further help as you improvise your suites. If you are able and willing to share recordings of your improvisations, feel free to include them in the comments section for this post.

Improvement comes not only through practice, but also feedback. This applies not just to improvising, but also to writing. If you have suggestions for the next series or ideas for how I can help you improvise better, I’d love to hear them.

May your improvisations continue to improve,
Glenn

Newsletter Issue 49 – 2015 09 21

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Not All Solos Are for Soprano

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As our ears are naturally attracted to the extremes, melodies often get placed in outer voices. The default location for a solo voice tends to be the soprano or uppermost voice. A soft gentle air will usually have the theme here. The most common exception to a soprano solo would be a rousing toccata where the extreme low end gets the theme played by our feet. Today, I want to look at two forms found in the French Classical Suite where the left hand gets the solo.

Basse de Trompette

The basic registration suggestion for a Basse de Trompette is:

  • RH (Pos): Bourdon 8′ with the Prestant 4′ or Montre 8′
  • LH (G.O.): Trompette 8′, Bourdon 8′, Prestant 4′ or Montre 8′

Depending upon the organ, a Clairon 4′ might also be added to the solo registration and the Doublette 2′ and/or Larigot to the accompaniment.

These pieces are generally in 2 or 4 beats to a measure and often start with the accompaniment alone. They may be imitative and occasionally are even titled as fugues. Most often though, the accompaniment remains simple once the bass solo begins. Whereas a soprano solo may be very lyrical with lots of motion by step, these bass solos are modeled more after pieces written for the viole de gamba with large skips. For example:
BasseTrompette

Like the other récits last week, it is possible to use other solo registrations for a bass solo. A Basse de Cromorne will have more stepwise motion that a Basse de Trompette, and a Basse de Tierce will be even smoother. Though large leaps will still appear with these other registrations, the frequency of them will decrease as the registration becomes further removed from the trompette. The tempo is also likely to slow down. Because of the activity in the solo voice, the harmonic rhythm is likely to be only one or two chords per measure. That makes these great pieces to work on if you want to practice thinking faster than you play!

Tierce en Taille

The earlier registration suggestion for the Tierce en Taille is:

  • RH (G.O.): Bourdon 16′ (or Montre), Bourdon 8′, Prestant 4′
  • LH (Pos): Bourdon 8′, Prestant 4′, Doublette 2′, Nazard, Tierce, Larigot

While the pedal is used for these pieces, no registration was specified as there would be so little to choose from on a French Classical organ. Most organs had a Great to Pedal coupler, and the only pedal stop available for accompaniment would be the Flute 8′. As the Tierce stop lost its’ strength in the 18th century, the accompaniment also lost some of its vigor by exchanging the Prestant for a Bourdon and even losing the 16′ stop(s). If a Montre 8′ was available on the Positif, it might be added to the solo and the Prestant 4′ changed to a Flûte 4′.

These movements are some of my favorite from this stylistic period. The registration is rather unique with the accompaniment surrounding the solo (written above and below, but also sounding in the same register as the solo). It was often used at the Elévation in Mass (where the priest consecrates the bread and wine – the most solemn moment of the celebration), but it also appears in other suites for verses of the Magnificat, Gloria, and other hymns. These solos are very vocal in style and highly ornamented. They should be considered like récitatives sung during the same time period, almost without tempo and with lots of freedom to explore the exquisite sounds of this registration. The Cromorne en taille would be slightly less active, but still extremely vocal and highly ornamented. These are delicate pieces so a Trompette would never be chosen as a solo here.

Left Hand Workout

These movements will encourage you to think more about your left hand. As the left hand often ends up playing in the middle of our improvised texture, it can be filler and often is mindlessly making noise. These two solo movements require that we focus our attention on the left hand, whether it is playing the lowest part of a Basse de Trompette or is in the middle as a Tierce en Taille. If you have difficulty focusing on the left hand, you could always rehearse the solo and accompaniment separately. Just like a live duo, the accompanist practices his or her part before meeting the soloist, and the soloist learns his or her part before meeting with the accompanist. Practice your left-hand solos alone to discover how to play the leaps and ornaments for these movements. Practice the right-hand (with pedal) accompaniment so that harmonically you have a support for the solo. Then schedule a joint rehearsal after each has learned his or her part!

May your left-hand solos be as creative and easy as your soprano solos!
Glenn

Newsletter Issue 47 – 2015 08 31

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Récits: Registration and Unwritten Expectations

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Structurally, a French Classical Récit may not seem too difficult to improvise. Pull out a solo stop and a bourdon (maybe with a montre 8′ or flute 4′).  Play for a couple of minutes. Make sure you cadence in the same key you started, and you’re done. Easy, right?

Maybe so. Maybe not.

At first glance, Récits come with a variety of registrations: cornet, cromorne, trompette, nazard, tierce, hautbois, and even voix humaine. There are even movements that dialogue between two different solo registrations so that you don’t even have to limit your selection to one at a time! While many of these movements are in some form of 4/4 time, pieces with three beats per measure are not uncommon. Aside from an occasional suggestion of some snippet of a phrase from the chant, there is usually not a distinctive melodic motif or other form expected for the piece. With so many options, what makes it so difficult to be authentically French Classical?

Unwritten Expectations

About twenty years ago, I came across an article that delivered an a-ha moment for me about improvisation and also prepared me to study abroad. Unfortunately, I have no idea who the author was or where the article appeared. (Presumably the photocopy I made of it might be hiding in an unopened box from my recent move, but was likely misplaced many years ago.) The article compared improvising to learning the unwritten rules of a culture. Every culture has and teaches its members a certain set of behavior an knowledge. Most people do not realize the extent of this cultural formation until they encounter a radically different culture while traveling. 

While it is easy to accept and understand that each culture teaches its members its own set of knowledge and behavior, the revelation for me in this article was that the level of assumed knowledge varies from culture to culture. The author compared the cultures of Germany, France, the United States, and Japan. Germany demonstrated the lowest level of assumed knowledge. Germans will explain what you need to know to you clearly. If the information is important for your understanding, it will be included and explained by a German. 

Moving to a slightly higher level of presumed knowledge are the residents of the US. (I’ll call us Americans for brevity even though I recognize there are many others on this continent that can use that title and not be the group the author referred to.) As an American, I am likely to presume that my audience has some familiarity with the topic I am presenting. Ask questions, and I’ll fill in any details you need, but I’m not going to bore you with details that you may already know if I can make my point without them.

in France, a great deal more knowledge is presumed. Where an American might presume you’ve heard of an author before, the French will not only expect you to know who the author is but also when he lived, what he wrote, and something about his style or why he was influential. I was very thankful to have learned this before I went to study in France. In a practical example, if I hadn’t known there was a discounted train ticket price for students, I would have never been told or offered one by the sales agent. Presumed knowledge is not explained.

The culture with the highest level of presumed knowledge in the article was Japan. I have never traveled to Asia, so cannot verify how different this is from the other three cultures (which I have experienced). I do know there are many more cultural rules and behavioral expectations in Japan, so this hierarchy of assumed knowledge seems to make sense to me. Neither the author of the article nor I imply that any of these cultures is better than the other. They are simply descriptions that are useful to know, especially when moving from one culture to another.

From Culture to Music

Music is often called a language, so carries it’s own set of implied knowledge and structure. The French presume a certain level of knowledge that remains unstated. The title of a movement not only gives the registration, but so far has also implied a tempo and character. It’s no surprise then to discover that Récits have different characters and compositional styles based upon the solo voice chosen. If more than one option is given by the composer for the solo voice, then it is expected that the tempo and ornamentation of the piece will change with the registration. 

Here are some of the differences between the different solo stop pieces:

Récits de Cornet, Tierce and Nazard

The Récits de Cornet are the quickest of these solo movements. Ornamentation is very florid with irregular groupings of notes (5, 9, or even 10) very common. For example:

CornetRecit

 

Slightly slower than the Récit de Cornet, but still generally a lively piece the Récit de Tierce often ends with two upper solo voices. The Récit de Nazard is the slowest of these three, generally marked Largo, Andante or Tendrement (Tenderly). Clérambault is the exception with a Récit de Nazard marked Gayment et gracieusement.

Récits de Trompette, Cromorne, Hautbois and Voix Humaine

Sometimes called a Dessus de Trompette because the trompette is used in the upper voice (as opposed to a Basse de trompette), these are the most lively of the reed solo movements. The solo writing often imitates gestures played by a real trumpet, with lots of skips between notes of the same chord:

TrompetteRecit

By contrast, the Récits de Cromorne are much slower and more melodic, imitating a singer:

CromorneRecit

 

The Hautbois being a later innovation to the French Classical organ, these récits are generally quicker and more active than a récit de cromorne. They are modeled more after writing for the violin than purely vocal styles. Finally, the Voix humaine is the slowest of the récits, played in a more legato, vocal style, reflecting the name of the stop.

Immersion

The best way to speak a foreign language is to live in the country where you are completely immersed in the language and culture. Learning to improvise in French Classical style requires the same immersion with the native speakers. Just as there are accents and dialects in a spoken language, each composer will write a little differently than the next, but they will still speak the same language. Exposure and focused study will allow you to notice the unwritten expectations of the style like the differences in tempo and ornamentation between solo stops.

What musical elements have you learned through immersion? How long were you immersed before the knowledge appeared? How did you become immersed in a particular musical idiom? We have so many different musical styles available to us now, I believe it is more difficult to truly be immersed in a musical language, but I’d love to hear any immersion stories you might have.

Hoping your Récits sound truly French!

Glenn

Newsletter Issue 46 – 2015 08 17

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The French Suite

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During the Baroque music period, French organists developed a style of playing and pieces that has become known as the French Classical School. Notable composers during this period include:

Before improvising in a style, it is always a good idea to play as many of the written pieces as possible. Scores from these and other composers from the era are available from IMSLP. While there will be differences in the pieces between composers, by playing through a large part of the repertoire, it becomes easier to identify the common characteristics of the style.

Movement types

Whether written for use with a hymn, movements of a mass, or for the Magnificat, French Classical composers created suites of pieces, often titled by the expected registration or texture of the movement. The most common movements include:

  • Plein jeu
  • Fugue
  • Duo
  • Trio
  • Récit
  • Grand jeu

While the order and number of interior movements varies, the suites almost always start with a Plein jeu and end with a Grand jeu. In the category of Récit, I am including movements that feature a solo stop and accompaniment such as Tierce en taille and Basse de trompette. Don’t worry if these titles don’t mean anything to you for now. I plan to spend the next few weeks explaining each one individually, offering comments on the style, registration, and steps we can take towards improvising these different pieces.

In the meantime, go find (or download) some scores to play through and enjoy this audio clip of one of the current French masters, Michel Chapuis, improvising in French Classical style for your inspiration:

MichelChapuis YouTube

Hoping you will find inspiration from the French Classics,

Glenn

Recent additions to organimprovisation.com:

Organists:

Themes:

Books:

Newsletter Issue 42 – 2015 07 20
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Practice with focus

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First I’d like to offer an update on information from the last newsletter. Last week I offered a review of an almost free edition of First Lessons in Extemporizing on the Organ by Hamilton Crawford Macdougall. Thanks to a couple of readers, I discovered the complete edition of the book is available for free here. No need to suffer through the incomplete version I had found on Forgotten Books. If any one knows of any other free improvisation method books that are available on-line, please let me know and I’ll pass them along as well.

Maurice Clerc

I spent most of this week attending the Church Music Institute of Shenandoah Conservatory where Maurice Clerc taught improvisation. My primary take away for the week was that I need to spend more time in focused practice. As we get better as improvisers, it is still important to spend time practicing with focus, and perhaps even challenging ourselves to master a particular element in a particular setting.

One note at a time

One of the focus areas for the week was harmony. After a brief review of traditional cadences, Maurice Clerc focused on creating harmonic progressions by changing one note at a time. The example he eventually wrote out for us was as follows:
ClercHarmony

Rather than following traditional harmonic progressions, these chords change by moving notes to neighboring tones. I’ve heard a very similar lesson from several French organists, so I believe this is one of the hallmarks of the French style of improvisation.

Registration

We first worked with this progression playing the chords on the celestes with the left hand and a melody on the harmonic flute with the right. (Think of ‘Clair de lune’ from Louis Vierne’s Pièces de fantasie.) Another suggested option was for a solo on the clarinet in the tenor range or even a 4′ in the pedal! The new registration I heard from Maurice Clerc this week was to use all the 8′ foundations. Can you play an active texture with lots of movement in different voices (not just tremolos) and still follow a progression of harmonies where basically one note changes at a time?

Form

If you practice the progression above in several different keys and with several different registration arrangements, it becomes very easy to create a lengthy 7-9 minute piece simply by modulating once or twice and changing the disposition of the material. Choose a tonic key for the opening and concluding sections with one registration. Add a contrasting middle section in one or two other keys and with a different registration, and suddenly you are on your way to improvising the slow movement of a symphony!

Focus

As we made the progression from simple harmonies to a symphonic form, each step required us to focus on some quality of the improvisation. For the students who mastered the harmony quickly, Maurice Clerc focused on the quality of the melody, critiquing the range, rhythm, and shape. If the melody was ok, could there be more movement in the accompaniment? Any problems that arose required a step backwards in the process and simplification. When it was time to work on the form, the different sections were mapped out in advance, making it easy to work on each section individually. Though some people might think we are taking the spontaneity out of the improvisation by working each section over and over, I prefer to consider it as exploring for better options. If you find something that works, were you focused enough to be able to do it again? Is there an even better option that you might discover (especially if you didn’t like the one you chose last time)?

Encouraging you to be focused in your explorations,
Glenn

 
Newsletter Issue 40 – 2015 06 22
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Film accompaniment

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For many years the pipe organ was used to provide accompaniment for films. The American Theatre Organ Society exists to help preserve and perpetuate the musical theatre pipe organ heritage that began in the early 20th century. Because the number of theatre organs has been greatly reduced, classically trained improvisers have started to accompany films on traditional church organs as one way to preserve and continue the art form. While film accompaniment may not require the contrapuntal skills to create a fugue, it poses other challenging demands for the improviser. Depending upon the movie, there can be long tension builds, sudden shifts of mood, and even the need to create a few sound effects. As an effort to catalog or discuss film accompaniment on the organ could be the focus of a whole other website, I have chosen to list below those organists already included here that also accompany silent films on a regular basis along with examples where available.

David Briggs
Scenes from The Phantom of the Opera

Thierry Escaich
Final Scene from ‘The Phantom of the Opera’ (Piano)
Freder’s Nightmare from Metropolis by Fritz Lang
Final Scene of Metropolis by Fritz Lang

Peter Krasinski
How Peter Krasinski Approaches Accompaniment

Baptiste-Florian Marle-Ouvrard
20.000 lieues sous les mers (Georges Méliès)
The Kid (Charlie Chaplin)

Dorothy Papadakos
often accompanies the silent films of Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton & Harold Lloyd.

Pierre Pincemaille
Pierre Pincemaille – the film FAUST of MURNAU – Saint-Ouen de Rouen

Mathias Rehfeldt
Nosferatu (1922) – Full Movie

Timothy Tikker

The King of Kings (The Criterion Collection)
Timothy Tikker provides organ accompaniment for the 1931 version of the film included in this DVD.

Todd Wilson
Chandelier Falls from Phantom of the Opera

Book:
Musical Accompaniment of Moving Pictures
A Practical Manual for Pianists and Organists, and an Exposition of the Principles Underlying the Musical Interpretation of Moving Pictures
by Edith Lang and George West
Available through Forgotten Books or Amazon.

The Silent Film Sound & Music Archive also offers a free download of the above title as well as several other instruction books for movie accompaniment.

In the Style of Mozart

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Wolfgang-amadeus-mozart_1-revert

Though Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart only lived for a short time, he is one of the great masters of Classical music. While he left only a small number of pieces for organ, many improvisers have set out to imitate his style at the organ. As I create (or find) instructions for ways to learn his style, I’ll add links from this page. For now, enjoy the videos from other performers and try to identify elements that you could incorporate to imitate the style of this great master.


Videos:
Gianluca Cagnani – Improvisation über ein Thema von W.A.Mozart (Allegro – Adagio – Presto)
John Riley – Overture in the style of Mozart – Paisley Abbey
John Riley – Variations on a theme by Mozart – McEwan Hall, Edinburgh

Sounds like a composition to me!

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For me, there is nothing quite like creating something on the spot and then having someone walk up and ask who wrote the piece I just played. This can be even more amazing to me if the person starts speculating that it might have been one of the great composers: Bach, Mendelssohn, Frank, or even Messiaen. When the person learns it was an improvisation, they often offer up some expression of disbelief. Has this ever happened to you? I’d love to hear your stories about people’s reactions.

While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, in music it can often be considered trite and artificial. How many of us have heard stories of assorted different themes being placed into Widor’s Toccata? As I never have actually learned the original, I can’t say that I’ve made the substitution there…. Regardless, I do think it can be a worthwhile skill to imitate other composers using either similar or new thematic material.

Much of my improvisation formation has been focused on learning to create my own style. Very little time was spent focusing on the style of any particular composer. While there are organists that improvise in different styles around, I feel like the current expectation is that to create music, even on demand, requires one to say something original. Treating a theme in the style of some other known composer even when well done seems to have the reputation of a party trick rather than a true skill.

Regardless of the reputation, I believe imitating well known composers is a valid avenue to learning the skills of improvisation. Recently I discovered a couple of pianists that improvise in the style of various classical composers. Jean-Jacques Hauser alias Tartarov debuted at the Tonhalle in Zurich in 1968 with improvisations in the style of Beethoven, Mozart and Liszt. Richard Grayson would take suggestions from the audience for both theme and subject before concluding his concerts with an improvisation. There are extensive collections of both available for viewing on YouTube. I, myself, got caught in a YouTube spiral when I found Grayson’s channel here. I’ve only just begun to explore Tartarov’s channel here. To get you started, I’ve included links for a video from each of them below. Let me know which one is your favorite!

Are there any composers that you are able to imitate well? How did you learn the style? Which composers would you like to be able to imitate? Your feedback will help me flesh out the website and will guide me in the resources I seek out or create.

Hoping your improvs sound like written pieces!

Glenn Osborne

TartarovChopinYouTube GraysonStravinskyMozart

 
Newsletter Issue 1 – 2014 04 21
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Richard Grayson

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Richard Grayson
Website:
http://faculty.oxy.edu/rgrayson/

Professor of Music, Emeritus, Occidental College
Music Faculty, Crossroads School
Richard Grayson (born 1941) is an American composer and pianist. He is best known as an improvisor of classical music, most often with live-electronics. By the 1980s, he was regarded as one of the best non-jazz improvisers (Shulgold 1985). He was also organist at St. Martin of Tours Church, West Los Angeles until his retirement on May 31, 2009, after having served in that position for 28 years.

He offers an improvisation handbook for free download on his website here.

YouTube Channel:
https://www.youtube.com/user/improvelectronic/videos
While not improvisations at the organ, the collection of videos present wonderful demonstrations of different composer’s styles and how themes from one era can be treated in the style of a completely different composer.
Examples include:
“Singin’ in the Rain” in the style of Wagner
“Singin’ in the Rain” in the style of a Chopin Waltz
Moonlight Sonata in the Style of Khachaturian
Stravinsky’s “Rite of Spring” in the style of Mozart
Can Can in the style of Stravinsky
And this is only a sample!!!