It's a GOArt World

French Symphonic Masterpieces
Hans Davidsson, organ
The 1998 Verschueren GOArt organ, Goteborg, Sweden
Loft Recordings LRCD 1054

• Guilmant: First Sonata (Symphony,) Op. 42
• Franck: Priere, Op. 20
• Widor: 2 movements from Symphony No. 6, Op. 42
• Alain: Intermezzo
• Duruflé: Suite, Op. 5

***

It is, apparently. My rapture with the recently-reviewed Volume 2 of Hans Davidsson's Buxtehude cycle recorded on GOArt's recent period recreation of a North German organ has led, naturally enough, to the acquisition of Volume 1 as well. I'll have two cents' about that shortly.

In the process of learning more about GOArt (the Goteborg Organ Art Center), I found that this North German organ was not the end of their surprises. Turns out that they are in the process of building a trio of period-faithful organs from distinct lineages. From these resources students learn hands-on about the mechanisms and sounds which played so large a part in the compositional schools in which we are still immersed today. I just can't overstate my fascination with this process, and with every detail of what has resulted from it.

The North German organ reviewed below is understandably their centerpiece, as the large and elaborate instrument was exhaustively researched and then designed and constructed in the school's own shops--an awesome accomplishment by every standard. But the North German organ was not the first instrument in the project. GOArt began with a similarly exhaustively-researched recreation of an instrument in the style of the French master, Aristide Cavaillé-Coll. Readers of these pages will recall that the Massachusetts firm of C. B. Fisk undertook quite a similar project at Oberlin College in Ohio in 2002; I've reviewed three... different... recordings... on this Fisk instrument, and have debated how close the firm came to hitting their mark. That another firm, this time with a university research staff in tow, would undertake the same project seems like lightning striking twice (in a good way). Then to find a recording of that instrument--one with Duruflé's Op. 5 Suite pour orgue particularly--was like a small lottery win for me.

This first GOArt organ was not built in the university's shops, but was entrusted to the Dutch firm Verschueren Orgelbouw BV from Heythuysen. After acknowledging that no existing firm was doing what Cavaillé-Coll used to do, an extensive search was undertaken and Verschueren emerged at the far end of that search. The chosen firm would obviously need to be one which was enthusiastically on board with building someone else's instrument, and with an extensive and diverse advisory board plus a university research team meddling in its operations, and the resulting collaboration bore fruit in 1998. As with the Fisk organ at Oberlin, the GOArt group researched every detail of Cavaillé-Coll's methods for constructing pipes and organ mechanisms, and the GOArt people then went to some pains to duplicate even the exact voicings of the various ranks by doing close A/B comparisons of their new pipes with the existing C-C pipework.

I think the Fisk organ at Oberlin College is a really fabulous and beautiful instrument, the outcome of a wonderful and exciting process; its a magnificent organ in its own right. But I don't really think of Cavaillé-Coll when I hear it. It's clearly French in general character, but it lacks some thing, some fingerprint that's found on all C-C's. I've speculated that the extreme lack of resonance in Finney Chapel put the Fisk people at a bit of a disadvantage, as none of C-C's famous instruments are found in such dead acoustics. I just can't help thinking that the profound intimacy of the acoustic has caused the Fisk people to voice the rough edges off the organ, edges which might have been beneficial--and certainly distinctive--in a larger acoustic. At the very least, the acoustic makes it difficult to assess how close the Fisk firm got to C-C's ideas. (The supplemental disc included with that first release addresses the question on everyone's mind: but what would it sound like in Notre Dame or St. Sulpice? But the inclusion of that disc, whereby the original recording is subjected to a computer alteration to place the organ in the acoustic of Chartres Cathedral, seems an admission of defeat. The oddity of Finney Chapel's sonic setting compared to any place we're used to hearing C-C's work is inescapable).

The space into which GOArt put their Verschueren organ was only a little more resonant than Finney Chapel, but GOArt specifically stipulated a minimum resonance they would accept and then took pains to accommodate that acoustic. This included researching what Cavaillé-Coll had to say about less resonant rooms. Turns out that C-C built quite a number of organs for private residences, which would naturally not have cathedral acoustics at their disposal, and the master had some distinct ideas about how to cope with this. Thus, GOArt's room was constructed specifically to order, including details like having the hardwood floor floating on sand, and having an insulating rubber layer between the inner and outer sections of the walls. The room is 59' X 35' X 35', so not large by cathedral standards. But it seems quite a sympathetic space for organ music, with enough resonance to help the organ blend.



Whatever the contribution of individual elements, all the research has paid off big: with this GOArt instrument, the Cavaillé-Coll illusion is very convincing indeed, quite thrillingly so. Though the instrument is relatively small--only 43 stops on three manuals, compared to 58 stops on the Oberlin Fisk--the stoplist and the voicing are spot-on. I would not be able to tell on sound alone whether this was a C-C or not (something I think I'd have little trouble doing with the Oberlin organ). GOArt's fidelity to C-Cs design is so comprehensive as to include a pneumatic-assist Barker Lever (on an instrument surely not large enough to require one, but the touch will be quite different from either electric or mechanical action) and to use mechanical combination pedals instead of the now-standard electronic pushbuttons. An electronic combination system was included, but only after the designers determined it could be added on without altering the period function or console aesthetic of the standard system in any way. Fanatical indeed. But the proof is in the pudding. I honestly can't think of what seminal thing an organ student would miss out on by playing this GOArt instrument over the actual Cavaillé-Coll. (True, they'd get Paris in the bargain, but only for a lesson or two.) The organ facade is configured in a shallow U shape, with the console in the middle and facing out into the hall, looking like a downsized version of the great organ at St. Sulpice without the statuary (and with simply-ornamented casework in sympathy with the concert hall's architecture).



As with the Buxtehude releases, Professor Hans Davidsson mans the Verschueren console for this release. Like his brilliant countryman Hans Fagius, Dr. Davidson demonstrates that he can play very convincingly in several styles and from very different periods. He brings the same deliberation to these works as to his Buxtehude, but he knows how to sound the organ to excellent effect, and he is well up for the dramatic moments. Cesar Franck's long-line Priere, which sounds almost like a 10 minute continuous melody, seems especially convincing. Likewise, in the denouement of the opening movement of Duruflé's Suite he lingers deliciously at the dissonant chords as the hands and feet move contrariwise, followed by three of the most beautiful minutes in all of music to close out the movement.

This is all a fantastic undertaking. Like the aircraft simulators I must work with in my job, I love that students at Goteborg are able to immerse themselves so effectively and completely in these worlds while never leaving the campus in Sweden. The pedagogical advantages seem palpable to me, though I think it's a really cool exercise even without the overt educational mandate. But even without a love of the process that brought us the instrument, this is a great recording of organ music. The recording itself is quiet and clean, and the performances are excellent. And the organ itself? It rocks.