ORGAN-ISM

Tuesday night Jimbob and I were asked to attend a pipe organ recital with a friend from church.We accepted the invitation thinking it would be really great. The woman who was playing is world acclaimed. She’s won numerous awards and been awarded several honorary doctorates at various universities.

When I think of pipe organ music, I envision thunder rolling across the stage, bands of angels coming to save the world, battle and glory in war. We were primed for am enjoyable evening of blow-out, larger-than-life, in-your-face organ music.

And were we ever disappointed! I’m sure the organist was very accomplished (just look at her credentials), but she was singing a tune to someone else. Instead, we got insipid pabulum, drizzle and drool. I’ve never heard a great pipe organ like that sound namby-pamby before.

Even Bach came off as an emaciated, vague imposter of BACH. I love Bach’s fugues played on the pipe organ, but last night they were unrecognizable. The only piece that was halfway decent was by Cesar Frank, and even that sounded pretty damn wishy-washy.

I thought it was just me, but Jimbob said the same thing when we got in the car to go home. Great, world renown organist or not, she wasn’t ringing my chimes.