Pietro Yon

Most of us know Pietro, the handorganist, but few have heard Pietro, the pipe-organist. Yet both are masters in their respective fields.

Pietro Alessandro Yon left a most enduring impression on a Manhattan audience last week, when he dedicated the beautiful new Speyer Organ at the Town Hall. He played Mendelssohn and Bach, and introduced his own Sonata Romantica, as well as Skilton's American Indian Fantasy. The barbaric clangor of this last composition made many of his hearers forget that Yon can, when he wants to, play with such solid gravity that he has been appointed honorary organist to St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, and that he holds his active post at New York's Church of St. Francis Xavier. He showed how even the deepest-throated diapasons and most wooden bourdons can be made to sparkle under a rhythmic, bouncing, lively touch. His name is Pietro, remember.