This is a recurring event: View all events in the series “Summer Sounds”
Composer John Henry Forster presents his series of beautiful multichannel works, which magnify the myriad pitched tones and mechanical noises of the pipe organ, placing the listener right inside the sound of the instrument.
Please note, this event is free to attend, but seats are limited. Please sign up to attend, via the 'register now' button above.
Programme
- Passacaglia One
- Passacaglia Two
- Passacaglia Three
How do concepts of noise and space relate to the acoustic pipe organ, and the manner in which the intentionally pitched, unintentionally pitched, and non-pitched sounds that they produce interact with one another?
In order to reach the listener, the intentionally pitched sound produced in the internal space of an organ pipe must travel outwards through the intermedial space of the organ case and into the external space of the building in which the instrument is situated. During this journey, the intentionally pitched sound, which may be thought of as the message signal, accrues ‘noise’ in the form of unintentionally pitched and non-pitched sound from the pipe organ’s mechanism.
Each passacaglia utilises different sound sources integral to an acoustic pipe organ’s functioning, but whose perceptibility tends to be minimised, both physically by organ builders and (sub)consciously in the mind of the listener. The recurring theme that connects each passacaglia is the B–A–C–H motif: sometimes played on the pipes, sometimes sounded using different means.
Passacaglias One and Three were recorded on a small 1889 organ by Wilkinson of Kendal, but one that has since been converted to electric action. Passacaglia Two was recorded on a similar 1881 organ in a chapel nearby to the first and also by Wilkinson of Kendal, this one having been renovated by Henry Willis & Sons and still retaining its original mechanical action.
About John Henry Forster
John is currently studying for a PhD in Composition at City, University of London, supervised by Newton Armstrong. The focus of his research is on how elements from late Renaissance and Baroque pipe organ music can be used as critical and narrative devices in contemporary sound works to explore the formation and perception of canon and instrument. John has had a lifelong interest in the pipe organ, and after starting lessons as a chorister, spent a couple of summers as a teenager working as an organ builder. While studying for a Music degree at the University of Oxford, he was organ scholar at Brasenose College and St. Giles’ Parish Church. John has given papers on his work in the UK and abroad, and is organising a conference at City in September on the pipe organ as a site for musical and technological innovation.
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