Music: Organ Revivalist

Hector Berlioz once remarked that the orchestra may be the king of music, but that the organ is the pope. In the past 200 years, since the death of Bach (1685-1750), the king has reigned supreme. During the whole romantic and impressionist era, only a handful of composers bothered to write for the organ, and what they wrote was largely insignificant. But in recent decades, the pope of the musical world has begun a major comeback. Modern U.S. composers * Walter Piston, Roger Sessions, Quincy Porter, Leo Sowerby-have written dozens of organ pieces, and U.S. audiences have found a new interest in long-lost chords. Leader of the organ revival is E. (for Edward) Power Biggs, 48, the U.S.’s most noted organist, who plays weekly (Sunday mornings) CBS radio programs. His Columbia LP recordings have sold more than 100,000 copies in the past five years. “It’s still less than half of what Liberace sells,” says a pressagent, “but that’s a lot of organ music of a fairly lofty nature.”

Against the Fashion. It is just possible that E. Power Biggs (“Biggsie” to his friends) has never even heard of Liberace. Born in Westcliff, near London (he is now a U.S. citizen), Biggs studied engineering, gave it up to take a scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music. After teaching organ at the academy, he toured England, then came to the U.S. and became organist of the Boston Symphony.

Biggs disapproves of the still prevalent nineteen century fashion, which called for ever bigger and boomier organs, trying to compete with the symphony orchestra. He is dedicated to the “baroque” style, which to organists means the simpler, purer style of Bach’s day. In his playing, Biggs rarely pulls all the stops. But despite his musical austerity, he can unbend. At an organists’ convention he helped organize a few years ago, high points were a jam session of four organs playing I’m

Looking Over a Four-Leaf Clover, and a skit spoofing Gilbert & Sullivan (and possibly E. Power Biggs) entitled The Organist Who Never, Never Lost a Chord.

Something for Everyone. Last week Biggs was back in England. Invited to play at Westminster Abbey, he had only a few hours of rehearsal with the huge organ. Because the Abbey’s acoustics are so troublesome that the organist has scarcely any idea what his playing sounds like, Mrs. Biggs was stationed far below in the choir stall as Biggsie tried the stops, calling up to him, “Too squeaky,” “Too harsh,” or “O.K.”

The recital itself, said Biggs, was “a sort of compromise program: Handel, because after all he’s buried here, Bach, then Daquin and Soler [both 18th century] for the traditionalists, Hindemith, Jehan Alain, a young French composer who was killed in World War II, finishing up with the Rondo from the Symphony in G by Leo Sowerby. Something for everyone, in fact.” But not everyone in his audience approved. Playing with precise tranquillity, Biggs went through the program without ever playing full organ. The British, despite their reputation for restraint, like their organ music romantic and thunderous; Biggsie’s classical auster-ty caused some shifting and dozing. And the Sowerby piece, full of modern dissonances, caused some grumbling. But the critics were respectful.

As for Biggs, he was satisfied, but wished he had had more time with the Westminster organ. Said he: “Every instrument you approach is different. A pianist can be reasonably satisfied that most pianos will be about the same. An organist has to climb up to his instrument; he’s got to make friends with it.”

Biggsie will be making a lot of friends. After England, he continues a rugged two-month tour of Europe for a series of 30-odd concerts.

-Surprisingly, a particularly great wave of enthusiasm comes from Texas, some of whose millionaires have taken to giving away organs in place of gyms or libraries.