The organ

[whipped guy]

He certainly was ubiquitous and synonymous with organ music.

 

Btw, maybe you should consider turning off your autocorrect. I'm so much happier now that I have. I make more typos, but the tablet doesn't turn words and names I type correctly but which it doesn't recognize into gibberish.

What's worse is that I have autocorrect in two languages. At times they fight with each other! As in:

 

There forse your adduce is definitelo something to considera. Tali about giubbe risa!

Therefore your advice is definitely something to consider. Talk about gibberish!

[+ quoththeraven]

What's worse is that I have autocorrect in two languages. At times they fight with each other! As in:

 

There forse your adduce is definitelo something to considera. Tali about giubbe risa!

Therefore your advice is definitely something to consider. Talk about gibberish!

 

Eek!

[mike carey]

I'm somewhat relieved that I don't have any autocorrect in any language. As people have no doubt noticed!

[whipped guy]

Since I mentioned the dreaded Fox word above note the following NYT piece from 1974:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/29/archives/who-is-the-worlds-best-organist-ask-virgil-fox-who-is-the-worlds.html?_r=0

 

I think that he would have even more to say about today's HIP (Historically Informed Performance) movement and especially regarding the Baroque!

[AdamSmith]

Biggs' version sounds like a merry-go-round calliope.

Schroeder illustrates.

 

[AdamSmith]

Since I mentioned the dreaded Fox word above note the following NYT piece from 1974:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/1974/09/29/archives/who-is-the-worlds-best-organist-ask-virgil-fox-who-is-the-worlds.html?_r=0

 

I think that he would have even more to say about today's HIP (Historically Informed Performance) movement and especially regarding the Baroque!

Wonderful article!

 

I don't dismiss Fox out of hand, but rather with great intentionality. I've listened I think to about everything he's ever recorded, repeatedly. I get some enjoyment from it, in more or less the same way it was enjoyable to go see the Monkees perform at the 1970 North Carolina State Fair.

 

I think it gives both men their due to say that Fox was the Liberace of the organ.

[whipped guy]

Wonderful article!

 

I don't dismiss Fox out of hand, but rather with great intentionality. I've listened I think to about everything he's ever recorded, repeatedly. I get some enjoyment from it, in more or less the same way it was enjoyable to go see the Monkees perform at the 1970 North Carolina State Fair.

 

I think it gives both men their due to say that Fox was the Liberace of the organ.

 

LOL!

[AdamSmith]

Once again you have spurred me to listen to new things. I found this piece with Olivier Messaien " improvising" on the Great Cavaillé-Coll organ at Sainte Trinité in Paris ( they also have a Chancery organ). Messaien was the organist at Sainte Trinité from 1931 until his death in 1992. I was spellbound listening to this. I have heard some of Messaien's orchestral and chamber music, and got to hear his great opera Saint François d'Assise in Paris a decade ago I have never heard him play the organ. This is a rather long clip, but I think it is rewarding to listen to the whole piece.

Thank you for this!

 

Messiaen's great 'Dieu parmi Nous', performed by Oliver Latry.

 

[AdamSmith]

Here's a Biggs production that's almost worthy of Virgil Fox.

 

 

 

 

[AdamSmith]

Jehan Alain's intense 'Litanies.'

 

 

(Try to ignore this performer's physical mannerisms. I remarked before how Chapuis brings pieces to highest life in performance while himself physically showing no affect at all, instead just looking quietly at the score, and occasionally [very unfashionably btw!] looking down at his feet to be sure they are positioned correctly on these very old, flat , odd, certainly non-American-Guild-of-Organists-certified-dimensions-conforming pedalboards.)

 

The performance above is not the best; I will seek for better. But by contrast, Google up the one by Jehan's younger sister, the renowned (only because she was an infinitely better self-PR agent than organist) performer Marie-Claire Alain, which is promiscuously available on YouTube.

 

(Should suspicion arise that I constructed this entire post just to insult her, that would be only 1/3 correct. )

[AdamSmith]

Litanies performance by Oliver Latry gets more of the passion of the piece, but loses much of the articulation of the details, whose preservation is what I liked in the above-posted performance. This is the devil about performing Alain.

 

[hedonist4now]

I was a grad student at the University of Oregon School of Music when I first met Madame Alain. She performed an indifferent recital on the remarkable Ahrend organ. She appended the Litanies as an obligatory encore. As a righteous, and free, arts supporter I took her to the airport the next day. I met her at John Hamilton's office (then on sabbatical). She was preparing an orchestration of Litanies. Has it ever been performed?

 

On a fun note, I went to the after party of Madame Alains recital which was on Halloween. She dutifully, no graciously got on the floor to carve a pumpkin with glee!

[AdamSmith]

On a fun note, I went to the after party of Madame Alains recital which was on Halloween. She dutifully, no graciously got on the floor to carve a pumpkin with glee!

That is a marvelous story. My snotty insults about her were low. She was a great proponent of the instrument and its literature. And from all reports -- such as yours! -- a warm wonderful person.

[AdamSmith]

What's worse is that I have autocorrect in two languages. At times they fight with each other! As in:

 

There forse your adduce is definitelo something to considera. Tali about giubbe risa!

Therefore your advice is definitely something to consider. Talk about gibberish!

lasciate ogni speranza

[+ quoththeraven]

lasciate ogni speranza

 

 

I had to Google this to check if my assumption as to what it meant (and where it came from) was correct.

 

I sorta vaguely remembered what "speranza" means, mainly because I know its Spanish cognate "esperanza."

[body2body]

Here is Vincent Warnier playing Duruflé's Prelude and Fugue on ALAIN from a concert at St. Sulpice. The piece was written in memory of Jehan Alain. The Concert was given in honor of Marie-Claire Alain. Vincent Warnier is Duruflé's successor at St. Etienne du Mont.

[whipped guy]

lasciate ogni speranza

 

 

Corrected to:

 

Fasciate oh I spear a !!!!

 

Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate il mondo del correttore ortografico!

(Abandon all hope ye who enter the world of spell-checker!)

[+ quoththeraven]

Corrected to:

 

Fasciate oh I spear a !!!!

 

Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate il mondo del correttore ortografico!

(Abandon all hope ye who enter the world of spell-checker!)

 

So was that a product of your Italian autocorrect, English autocorrect, or a bastard combination of the two?

 

I prefer the pithiness of a t-shirt I saw a hot young Asian guy in NYC wearing: "Fuck autocorrect."

[whipped guy]

So was that a product of your Italian autocorrect, English autocorrect, or a bastard combination of the two?

 

I prefer the pithiness of a t-shirt I saw a hot young Asian guy in NYC wearing: "Fuck autocorrect."

It was English autocorrect correcting the Italian! I set it that way on purpose for illustrative purposes! However, at times my fat fingers turn on the Italian keyboard inadvertently and everything that I have typed in English turns into mumbo-jumbo! It screws things up in the reverse manner as well!

[AdamSmith]

When I was a kid everything organ was E. Power Biggs.... Changed to Buggs but I caught it... Hey with a Big and Powerful name how could it be otherwise? Plus, how many other organists have a star on Hollywood Blvd?!?! None of which I am aware... Not even Virgil Fox...

A certainty that the given name Edward P. Biggs would have been not quite the same box-office draw.

[AdamSmith]

It was English autocorrect correcting the Italian! I set it that way on purpose for illustrative purposes! However, at times my fat fingers turn on the Italian keyboard inadvertently and everything that I have typed in English turns into mumbo-jumbo! It screws things up in the reverse manner as well!

One can imagine the day when spell checkers can no longer be turned off...

 

PER ME SI VA

 

[+ quoththeraven]

One can imagine the day when spell checkers can no longer be turned off...

 

PER ME SI VA

 

 

That will be the day when our creations will be in control, not us. It could happen, but not with my acquiescence. In the meantime, for the sake of my peace of mind, I prefer not to imagine it.

[AdamSmith]

That will be the day when our creations will be in control, not us. It could happen, but not with my acquiescence. In the meantime, for the sake of my peace of mind, I prefer not to imagine it.

Well, it is coming, like it or not -- the evolution of 'smart products' and 'smart connected products' is now all the rage in engineering design, across many different industries. Already the typical car contains about 100 million lines of software code (compared with about 10 million in a typical passenger aircraft).

 

And the arguments pro and con cut both ways. Professionally I happen to know personally Chris Urmson and Sebastian Thrun, two of the leading developers of automonous-vehicle technology. Both are fixated on safety as their first through fifth priorities. I trust their judgments about how a vehicle should operate almost infinitely more than I trust the judgment, and reflexes, of Joe Average Driver. Slashing casualties from road accidents is the prime, I think very sound, argument for self-driving cars.

 

Of course there are right and wrong ways to do it. The recent crash of a Tesla in self-driving mode happened very precisely because Tesla, to save on costs, chose to omit one essential type of sensor: a LIDAR, or 3D laser scanner (specifically from this company, the industry standard: http://www.velodynelidar.com/). That device would have detected that white truck up ahead, which Tesla's radar and camera-based stereovision failed to see.

[whipped guy]

One can imagine the day when spell checkers can no longer be turned off...

 

PER ME SI VA

 

 

Per me si va ne la città dolente,


per me si va ne l’etterno dolore,


per me si va tra la perduta gente.

 

Referencing the gates of hell:

 

Through me one goes to the city of grief,

through me one goes to eternal pain,

through me one goes among the lost people.

 

Eventually we come to the infamous line... Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate.

 

Note: English spellcheck wants to chance Lasciate to Lactate!

 

Well, it is coming, like it or not -- the evolution of 'smart products' and 'smart connected products' is now all the rage in engineering design, across many different industries. Already the typical car contains about 100 million lines of software code (compared with about 10 million in a typical passenger aircraft).

 

And the arguments pro and con cut both ways. Professionally I happen to know personally Chris Urmson and Sebastian Thrun, two of the leading developers of automonous-vehicle technology. Both are fixated on safety as their first through fifth priorities. I trust their judgments about how a vehicle should operate almost infinitely more than I trust the judgment, and reflexes, of Joe Average Driver. Slashing casualties from road accidents is the prime, I think very sound, argument for self-driving cars.

 

Of course there are right and wrong ways to do it. The recent crash of a Tesla in self-driving mode happened very precisely because Tesla, to save on costs, chose to omit one essential type of sensor: a LIDAR, or 3D laser scanner (specifically from this company, the industry standard: http://www.velodynelidar.com/). That device would have detected that white truck up ahead, which Tesla's radar and camera-based stereovision failed to see.

 

Siamo perduti! We're screwed! Or rather "lost" as Dante probably would have said it!

[mike carey]

Note: English spellcheck wants to chance Lasciate to Lactate!

I can tell that you are trying to milk this autocorrect for all the humour that you can!