I likes me some pipe organ music. There are plenty of good, classical-style pipe organ pieces out there, but I’m interested in tracking down more unconventional pipe organ music - pairing the organ with unusual accompanying instrumentation, and/or employing musical styles that classical composers would not approve of.
Over the years I’ve collected several albums from the Paul Winter Consort. My favorite is Canyon, which is book-ended by two pipe organ pieces, “Grand Canyon Sunrise” and “Grand Canyon Sunset”. They are the artists-in-residence at the Cathedral of St. John The Divine in New York; earlier this fall I finally had the chance to attend a Sunday-afternoon organ recital there, and it was breathtaking.
(Yes, I also have Whales Alive. It’s…OK. Not as good as Canyon, at least not to my ear.)
Another favorite comes from Mannheim Steamroller: G Major Toccata.
Hans Zimmer’s use of the pipe organ on the soundtrack for Interstellar was fantastic.
Hopefully the descriptions above give you some sense of the sort of thing I’m after.
All I can think of is the album I have of someone playing the Beatles catalog on a pipe organ, in the style of J.S. Bach. But I can’t remember the album’s/organist’s name, and I think it’s out of print (I copied a friend’s CD several years ago). I’ll check at home and get back to you.
In the meantime, you might appreciate a link that my father – who has been an organist for more than 50 years* – sent to me just the other day: all Christmas organ music, all the time.
*So I grew up hearing pipe organs, but sometime in my 30s I realized that I actually do like the sound. Hammonds, on the other hand, not so much.
Neil Young doing “Like a Hurricane” has him accompanying himself on the harmonica. Probably not what you’re looking for but this was a great excuse for me to post it.
Well, there’s Boellman’s Suite Gothique from 1895. That’s pretty cool.
I also love this organ version of Saint-Saens’s “Danse Macabre,” played by a kid who looks like he’s fourteen, on an old Baroque organ where he needs assistants to pull the stops for him.
Search out some Rick Wakeman stuff, either solo or with Yes. He was known to hammer on the pipes.
I saw Neil do this live in Las Vegas. It was one of the best concert experiences I’ve ever had. He finished, and it was quite as a church. The people were simply in awe.
In the original novel (1912) and in the Universal Lon Chaney picture (1925), the Phantom played an intricate organ piece of his own composition called “Don Juan Triumphant.” (It may have been the basis of an opera he was working on; in those days the pipe organ was considered the supreme instrument and would have been Erik’s choice for composing.)
Post-Chaney Phantoms are all over the place in terms of plot and character, and I don’t think “Don Juan Triumphant” ever reappeared.
