The Organist Entertains

In September 1971 there was a rock concert at The Oval cricket ground in south London. Called "Goodbye Summer", the headlining act was The Who. During the hiatus while waiting for Daltrey et al to take to the stage, and staring into what was a starry evening sky, over the speakers came a sound I had never heard before, or rather never appreciated before.

What I heard was "By Your Grace". It came from an album named "Gandharva" by Paul Beaver and Bernard Krause. What was extraordinary about it, and what made me take notice for the first time, was the church organ; cathedral organ in fact. The album was partially recorded in Grace Cathedral in San Francisco. The track was essentially just the organ, complemented by a touch of guitar and a lament by the great American jazz saxophonist Gerry Mulligan.

When you're sixteen and rocking up for some rollicking rock 'n' roll courtesy of The Who, The Faces and Mott The Hoople, a bit of organ music isn't what you might expect. It took me aback because it was so ethereal and evocative. I stared into that starry sky and was taken to a place wholly different to Kennington.

Beaver and Krause were experimentalists. They were "new age" long before New Age became a music genre. They chose Grace Cathedral because of the acoustics; echo and delay hung on the organ timbres and Mulligan's mournful sax.

Organ music, prior to the epiphany of The Oval, had meant the Wurlitzer and Reginald Dixon at the Tower Ballroom in Blackpool that once used to assault your ears over the Light Programme. It was music designed to give you a sinking feeling, equivalent to the depths to which one plunged on hearing "Sing Something Simple" or Vince Hill and the BBC Light Orchestra murdering The Beatles.

Radio 2 has managed to cling to Reg's roots. Nigel Ogden's "The Organist Entertains" is an accurate programme title only in the sense that the Wurlitzer entertains because of its surreal swirling sound. It is a joke noise. It's only the fact that it is a leviathan of stops and pedals that distinguishes it from the kazoo. And it is an insult of cheesiness when compared with the church organ.

A series of organ recitals in a tourist resort doesn't grab you as being designed to have the hordes beating a path to the nearest parish church. One can't imagine a disgorging of visitors from the all-inclusives of Playa de Muro and Puerto Alcúdia and their heading to Sant Albert just by the Alcúdia boundary in Muro. But as from Friday, there will be a concert every week till the end of the month.

Mallorca takes its organ music seriously. The first two Fridays of the Muro series will feature Arnau Reynés and pieces by Bach and the Pollensa-born composer Miquel Capllonch. Reynés, a professor of music at the university in Palma, has played some of Spain's finest cathedrals. In the organ world, he is a bit of a name, but hardly anyone will know his name or be aware that he is performing at a small local parish church.

Sant Albert is not possessed of the type of acoustics that so inspired Beaver and Krause and that were captured on "Gandharva". It is not capable, because it is only small, of giving the impression of music being suspended in space, which was one of the achievements of the Grace Cathedral recording, but Mallorca does have some fine churches and some even finer organs. Reynés has played and has been a co-organiser of the annual international organ music week held at the Basilica of San Francisco (by coincidence with Grace Cathedral) in Palma. This is not the only organ festival; one is also held in October in Palma Cathedral.

And around Mallorca there are some astonishing organs. Arguably the finest is that of Sant Andreu church in Santanyi. It was built by one Jordi Bosch in the eighteenth century, who was responsible also for the organ in the Basilica. The Santanyi organ, restored in the final part of the last century, is not as big as it once was, but it lays claim to being the biggest in the world insofar as its mixture of pipes and ranks is the largest of any organ. The internationally acclaimed Czech organist, Michal Novenko, released some years ago a record of pieces he performed on the Santanyi organ as part of a series entitled "Great European Organs".

Church organ music clearly isn't everyone's cup of tea. The concerts in Sant Albert will attract only a smattering of tourists, if that, but what they represent, as do, for instance, the Novenko recordings in Santanyi, is a hidden musical secret of Mallorca as well as the huge regard in which the island's church organs are held, both in Spain and elsewhere.

I have remarked before that you don't have to be religious to be in awe of Mallorca's churches. Similarly, you don't need to have religion to be held in awe by the music of an organ. I wasn't religious in 1971 and still am not, but I was converted all those years ago, and suddenly The Who didn't sound so good.


Any comments to andrew@thealcudiaguide.com please.