My first organ teacher, Helen Roberts Scholl, taught an ultra-legato style of playing Bach. In the 1950's this was they way you did it. So that's what I did.
In 1950 I went to New York City to attend Columbia University and studied at first with the flamboyant Claire Coci. She was the female Virgil Fox of that era and played sensational recitals, in every respect.
Once when in mid recital she reached over to pull out a stop on the organ; it came off in her hand and she threw it over her shoulder without missing a beat and kept playing. She gave me my pedal technique. She also had me start Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue on the Voix Céleste. I thought it was swell.
I then studied with Vernon de Tar who never forgave me for studying with Claire and got rid of the Voix Céleste on the Passacaglia. Everything was still a dead legato.
Vernon became a life-long friend. I interviewed him for my book How to Make your Arm into a Wet Noodle, a study of the techniques of Théodor Leschetizky. (Available at my website. www.hburtis.com) He had studied with a student of the master, as had I.
About this time I did master classes with André Marchal and Finn Videro and began to learn there were other ways of playing Baroque music. I played a Suite of Clérambault for Videro, he praised my playing and then said, 'of course, the French play it differently', never explaining how differently.
Then I met Melville Smith and went to Europe on an organ tour with him and began to learn about notes inégals in French Baroque music. Melville won the Grand Prix du Disc for his recording that year of the organ music of de Grigny.
Then I studied harpsichord with the fabulous Gustav Leonhardt who really taught me what to do with French, Italian, Spanish, and German baroque music. It was a revelation. One of his reviewers called him the greatest keyboard artist of the time!
I also did a master class with André Isoir, the great French Baroque expert. He taught me how to use the 'Baroque' legato, which is much different from the ultra legato I had used.
For years I played German, Spanish, Italian, and French Baroque music on my recitals which took me throughout the USA, the West Indies, and Europe. I played Clérambault in Haderslev and Copenhagen, Denmark, Hamburg and Berlin, Germany, and Vienna Austria. I played Vierne at the Basilique du Sacré Coeur in Paris. Dear Daniel Roth pulled stops for me and at one point lifted my hands from one manuel to another in mid piece.We had very little time to practice on the organ and he said 'I'll take care of everthing'. He did- but it was quite a surprise to me!
In short my evolution as a performer of Baroque music evolved over a number a years.
In 1965 and 1966 I twice performed the complete organ works of Bach, first in my church in Red Bank, NJ and then 14 concerts in 15 weeks at St. Paul's Chapel, Columbia University, where I had been Associate University Organist and Choirmaster.
The recital I heard recently did none of the above things. Messy playing, too legato, odd hitches in rhythm- well- I remember why I have stopped going to organ recitals.
www.hburtis.com
