Organ Revival

The first mechanical pipe organ, a water-driven monster called a hydraulus, so awed the ancients that they enshrined it in a temple of Venus. A 5th century organ at Jerusalem thundered forth such a gigantic noise that admirers listened from the Mount of Olives, nearly a mile away. The stir that the organ is creating today is almost as awe-inspiring.

The old pipe organ seemed to have played itself to a standstill when, about two years ago, it was suddenly discovered by high-fidelity fans and came back with a roar. With high fidelity's new recording techniques, hazy diapasons became vivid, and when the hi-fi crowd learned that the organ could play both lower and higher than any other instrument, it became their all-out favorite. The boom began with sub-middlebrow theater-organ concoctions, e.g., a series of LPs by Organist Reginald Foort, on the Cook label, continued with a series by George Wright, put out by newly formed High Fidelity Recordings, Inc. On the serious side there are Columbia's fast-selling church-organ recordings with E. Power Biggs, and Decca has completed a major release of Bach by German Organist Helmut Walcha. But one outfit, Westminster, which made its reputation with fine sound, did not release a pipe-organ disk until last week.

It was not for lack of an organist or a program; Westminster has an agreement with Princeton's Carl Weinrich, 51, a musician willing and able to undertake all the organ works of Bach. But Westminster's musical director, Vienna-born

Kurt List, had not found an organ that exactly met his sharp-eared requirements:

1) it must be a low-pressured, sweet-sounding baroque organ whose reedy stops and scintillant overtones would be similar to the sound of Bach's own playing;

2) the acoustics of the church must be sufficiently "sec" (dry) to let the organ sound clearly. Two years ago, a Swedish record fan sent Westminster a tape of an organ in Varfrukyrka (Our Lady's Church) in the small city of Skanninge, 180 miles south of Stockholm. The Westminster project was front-page news in Stockholm (13th CENTURY SWEDISH

CHURCH GIVES U.S.A. 3-D MUSIC, headlined Svenska Dagbladet). For six weeks last summer, the Skanninge Lutheran church became a studio with 20 microphones draped through holes in the ceiling. Traffic was diverted and the town hall's council chamber near by became the recording control room.

Organist Weinrich recorded 76 separate Bach pieces, or about one-fourth of all the master's organ music. Last week the first two LPs of the series were released, containing the 46 chorale preludes of Bach's Orgelbuechlein (Little Organ Book). Organist Weinrich's performance is as pure and concise as Bach is supposed to sound; the distinctness of his contrapuntal lines sets off the daring harmonic progressions that so dismayed Bach's congregation, as well as the surging emotion. The recorded sound is sweet and--being hi-fi--a little bit clearer than it would ever be in a church. Two years hence, if all goes well, Westminster's Complete Organ Works of Bach, an estimated 22 LPs, will give the organ-happy public a complete earful.

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