GAIL ARCHER Concert Organist ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Biography “...A powerful rendering of ‘Les Corps Glorieux’ ... she played with an agility that met the music’s coloristic and rhythmic demands.” - The New York Times Gail Archer is an international concert organist, lecturer, and recording artist whose solo debut CD, The Orpheus of Amsterdam: Sweelinck and his Pupils (CACD 88043), recorded on the Fisk organ at Wellesley College, was recently released by London ’s Cala Records. A live concert recording made at the Organalia Festival in Turin, Italy was also released in 2005. Her modern edition and translation of Cantate, ariete a una, due, et tre voci Op. 3 by the seventeenth century Venetian composer Barbara Strozzi has been published in A-R Editions Recent Researches series; a CD of the edition has been released on the Dorian label. Throughout the 2005-06 season, Ms. Archer will be touring North America in support of her Cala recording. In February 2006, Ms. Archer will be directing an international exchange program sponsored by The Polish Cultural Institute and Harriman Institute of Columbia University, featuring Polish organists performing in New York City. Among the areas of expertise upon which Ms. Archer is frequently invited to lecture and perform are early fingering and organ registration in the Dutch and North German School, from Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and his circle to Dieterich Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach; the Leipzig “Great Eighteen” chorale preludes and Clavierubung III; and mixed programs drawn from the full spectrum of the principal composers: Sweelinck, Scheidemann, Strunck, Scheidt, Böhm, Buxtehude and Bach. Her interest also extends to the Italian and Spanish schools of the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries, especially Frescobaldi. Her complementary interest is the music of Olivier Messiaen; she frequently performs Le Banquet celeste, Apparition de L’Église Éternelle, L’Ascension, La Nativité du Seigneur, Messe de la Pentecôte, and Les Corps Glorieux. About her recent performance of the latter, the New York Times declared “...A powerful rendering of Les Corps Glorieux ...she played with an agility that met the music’s coloristic and rhythmic demands.” Ms. Archer holds a DMA in organ performance from the Manhattan School of Music, where she studied with McNeil Robinson; she also earned an artist diploma from the Boston Conservatory where she studied with James David Christie and Jon Gillock. An active recitalist in both Europe and the United States, she was featured on organ series in Budapest, Turin, Hamburg and the Hague in summer, 2004, and returned to Poland, Germany and Italy in summer, 2005. She presented an historic performance practice workshop, ‘Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and his Disciples: the Foundation of the North German Organ School’ at the national convention of the American Guild of Organists in Los Angeles, California, and was a featured recitalist at the Organ Historical Society national convention in Buffalo, New York in July 2004. She performs regularly at festivals worldwide, including the Spoleto Festival in South Carolina and the Bach Festival at Rollins College in Florida . Ms. Archer lives in New York City, where she serves as Chair of the Music Department at Barnard College, Columbia University; Director of the Young Artist Series at Central Synagogue; Artistic Director of the Lunchtime Organ Recitals at historic Central Synagogue; and most recently, she was appointed Professor of Organ at Manhattan School of Music. www.GailArcher.com www.GailArcher.com GAIL ARCHER Concert Organist ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Performances and Lectures Ms. Archer is available for organ recitals and lectures on Baroque topics including early fingering and organ registration in the Dutch and North German School from Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and his circle, to Dieterich Buxtehude and Johann Sebastian Bach. Please email [email protected] or call +1 212-579-3462. PERFORMANCE CALENDAR 2005-2006 July 11, 2005 Lecture: The National Conference of Lutheran Church Musicians, New York, NY July 15, 2005 di Torino Organanlia Festival in Gagliano, Italy July 19, 2005 St. Jacobi Church, Hamburg, Germany July 20-31, 2005 Tour of Poland, sponsored in part by the United States Consulate August 2, 2005 Parish Church of Langenhorn, Germany August 16, 2005 King’s Chapel, Boston, MA September 15, 2005 R.C. Cathedral of St. Joseph, Fremont, CA September 17, 2005 Music at the Mission, San Jose, CA October 5, 2005 Musical Instrument Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY October 7, 2005 Pacific Lutheran University, Tacoma, WA October 14 & 15, 2005 Scarritt-Bennett Center, Nashville, TN October 23, 2005 Covenant Presbyterian Church, Huntsville, AL October 28 & 29, 2005 AGO/Trinity Episcopal Church, Reno, NV November 4, 2005 St. Helena Church, Beaufort, SC November 6, 2005 Emory University, Atlanta, GA December 1, 2005 Princeton University, Princeton, NJ December 9 & 10, 2005 Candlelight Concert, New York, NY December 13, 2005 Central Synagogue, New York, NY January 8, 2006 Arlington Street Church, Boston, MA January 22, 2006 St. Phillips Episcopal Cathedral, Atlanta, GA February 10, 2006 Trinity Episcopal Church, Reno, NV February 15, 2006 Holy Apostles Church, New York, NY March 18 & 19, 2006 Recital and Masterclass: St. Andrews, Madison, WI April 21, 2006 Spring Concert, Columbia University, New York, NY April 28, 2006 Church of St. Helena, Minneapolis, MN April 29, 2006 Lecture and Masterclass: St. Mary’s Chapel, St. Paul Seminary, Minneapolis, MN May 9, 2006 Bruton Parish Church, Colonial Williamsburg, VA May 24, 2006 St. John’s Episcopal Church, Jackson Hole, WY May 26, 2006 Trinity Episcopal Church, Reno, NV May 28, 2006 St. Mary R. C. Cathedral, San Francisco, CA Gail Archer, Artistic Director: The Polish Cultural Institute and Harriman Institute of Columbia University, co-sponsors. February 5, 2006 Witold Zalewski Holy Trinity Episcopal Church, New York, NY February 12, 2006 Marek Kudlicki St. Vincent Ferrer Church, New York, NY February 19, 2006 Robert Grudzien St. Paul’s Chapel, Columbia University, New York, NY February 26, 2006 Boguslaw Grabowski First Presbyterian Church, New York, NY www.GailArcher.com GAIL ARCHER Praise for The Orpheus of Amsterdam Concert Organist -Released 2005, Cala Records, London ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ms. Archer “reveals herself as an organist of Accolades exemplary taste by thoughtful phrasing and articulation and imaginative, March 1, 2005 resourceful registrations.” - American Record Guide Dear, dear Gail Archer! Ms. Archer “gives a brilliant performance So very impressed was I by your glorious performance on our Randall Dyer masterwork here in our beloved culminating in the astounding outburst at the end Rollins College chapel – and Oh! How informative was of the recital with Sweelinck’s Ricecar.” your wonderfully interesting talk the next day! – that I don’t - Music & Vision want the time to go by without expressing my gratitude in writing! Many, many thanks for honoring us here last month. April 1, 2005 Gratefully, sincerely, Dear Gail, John Oliver Rich Dean of Admissions Thank you for a marvelous concert tonight on the Flentrop! Winter Park, FL Your playing was so fresh and vital!!! I loved hearing new ways of interpreting O LAMM GOTTES of Bach beginning with a brighter sound and building in intensity---just exploding February 21, 2005 at the end!!!! Just wonderful!!! Dear Gail, Thanks too for playing Messiaen. I wish more organ concerts featured his music. Bach and Messiaen should be programmed Your lecture given for the Springfield American on EVERY organ recital if the instrument allows. I also admired Guild of Organists chapter was one of the most your wonderful enthusiasm and spoken program notes, most informative events I have attended in years. Your helpful indeed. You really offered the entire spectrum of presentation brought into focus an aspect of keyboard sounds and literature for the organ! Congratulations!!! literature which has been unclear to me – the flowering of the Baroque seen in relation to this magnificent Best wishes for continued inspired music making!! instruments and the cast of characters who spoke through it. I was also very interested to learn about the Scott Carpenter sociological implications surrounding the organ. You Winston-Salem, NC have truly inspired this pianist to learn more about our extended family of instruments. March 1, 2005 Because of your lecture, I think your recital had specific significance to me. I was completely fascinated by Dear Gail, the Buxtehude and Bach pieces which you played with such great attention to style and expression. After months of anticipation it was wonderful to meet you and What was perhaps most enjoyable was the variety of hear you play. Your concert was superb and was thoroughly musical styles presented on your program, as you also enjoyed by all who heard it. We have received so many glowing interpreted the music of Franck and Messiaen with comments on the program and its execution. We consider aplomb. This was an inspiring and thought-provoking ourselves very fortunate that you were willing to come to such a performance. small town and share your talents. Sincerely, With high regards, Peter Collins Sarah Lee Myracle Professor of Music First United Methodist Church Southwest Missouri State University Brevard, NC www.GailArcher.com GAIL ARCHER Concert Organist ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Recordings THE ORPHEUS OF AMSTERDAM Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and his Pupils GAIL ARCHER 2005 (CALA Records) Live in Concert SWEELINCK Toccata in C Mach 10, 2002 SCHEIDT Echo ad manuale duplex, forte & lene The College of the Holy Cross, Worchester, MA (Taylor & Boody) Echo ad manuale duplex, forte & lene Fantasia super Komm Heiliger Geist - JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH Echo alio modo…cantus variante Schücke dich, o liebe Seele - BACH SCHEIDEMANN Magnificat VII toni March 21, 2001 Versus 1 Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA (Fisk Organ) Versus 2 Magnificat VII. Toni - HEINRICH SCHEIDEMANN Versus auff 2 Clavier October 29, 2000 Versus pedaliter Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ (Paul Fritts Organ) SWEELINCK Malle Sijmen Ciacona in E Minor - DIETRICH BUXTEHUDE SCHEIDT Est-ce Mars June 3, 2004 Thema—Est-ce Mars L’Organo Piccolo Spoleto, St. Matthew Lutheran Church, Charleston, Variatio a 4 voci in cantu SC (Austin Organ) Variatio a 4 voci in cantu colorato Sonata VI - FELIX MENDELSSOHN Variatio bicinium in cantu Vater unser in Himmelreich: chorale variations, Chorale in a minor Variatio a 4 voci triplici contrapuncto - CESAR FRANCK Variatio a 4 voci in cantu colorato L’Ascension - II. Alleluias sereins d’une ami qui desire le ciel Variatio bicinium duplici contrapuncto - OLIVIER MESSAIEN Variatio a 3 voci in cantu colorato L’Ascension - III. Transports de joie d’une ame devant la gloire du Variatio a 3 voci in cantu colorato Christ Variatio a 3 voci in basso colorato - OLIVIER MESSAIEN Variatio a 4 voci in cantu colorato SWEELINCK Ricercar ORGANALIA Compilation Ms. Archer’s playing can also be heard on Organalia’s 2004 CD of live recordings. Ms. Archer performed at Organalia July 31, 2004 at Provincia di Torino in Brosso, Italy. A free copy of this compilation is availble from: http://www.provincia.torino.it/speciali/cd_organalia/index.htm GAIL ARCHER www.GailArcher.com Concert Organist For booking and promotional inquiries please contact ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ SOZO MEDIA (212) 579-3462 TEL Repertoire List (775) 637-4697 FAX [email protected] www.sozomedia.com Johann Sebastian Bach Maurice Durufle’ Leipzig Great Eighteen: complete Prelude et Fugue sur le nom d”Alain Clavierubung: complete Trio Sonatas BWV 525-530 Giovanni de Macque Concertos after Vivaldi: BWV 593, 594, 596 Capriccio sopra re, mi, fa, sol Fantasia et Fuga in c BWV 537 Durezze et Ligature Fantasia et Fuga in g BWV 542 Praeludium et Fuga in c BWV 546 Cesar Franck Praeludium et Fuga in h BWV 544 Chorale No. 1 in E Major Praeludium et Fuga in a BWV 543 Chorale No. 2 in B minor Praeludium et Fuga in e BWV 548 Chorale No. 3 in a minor Toccata et Fuga in d BWV 538 Prelude, Fugue et Variation Op. 18 Sei gegrusset, Jesu gutig BWV 768 Fantasie in A major O Gott, du frommer Gott BWV 767 Piece Heroique Wachet auf, ruf uns sie Stimme BWV 645 Passacaglia et Fuga in c minor BWV 582 Girolamo Frescobaldi Vom Himmel hoch da komm ich her BWV 769 Capriccio sopra il cucho Georg Bohm Paul Hindemith Praeludium in C Sonata I/II/III Praeludium in d Wer nur den lieben Gott lasst walten Jean Langlais Suite Medievale Johannes Brahms Eleven Chorale Preludes Vincent Lubeck Praeludium in d minor Nicolaus Bruhns Praeludium in e minor Felix Mendelssohn Praeludium in G major Complete works Dieterich Buxtehude Olivier Messiaen Complete works Complete works Antonio da Cabezon Vincent Persichetti Diferencias sobre el canto llano del Cabballero Sonata for Organ Motet glosado: Ave Maria de Josquin des Prez Pavana Italiana Heinrich Scheidemann Magnificat VII. Toni Spanish 17th Century (anonymous) Tiento lleno, primero tono from Huerto ameno de varias Samuel Scheidt flores de musica Variations on Est-ce Mars Echo ad manuale duplex/Echo alio modo Girolamo Cavazzoni Magnificat Quarti Toni Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck Ricercar (1540) Complete works Francois Couperin Mass for the Convents www.GailArcher.com GAIL ARCHER Concert Organist ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Reviews September/October 2005 SWEELINCK: Toccata in C; Malle Sijmen; Ricercar with SCHEIDT: 2 Echoes; Est-ce Mars SCHEIDERMANN: Magnificat VII toni Gail Archer, org – Cala 88043 – 51 minutes Dr. Archer, director of the music program at Bernard College of Columbia University, also teaches historic performance practice at Manhattan School of Music. She plays the Fisk organ at Wellesley College in this recording, called “The Orpheus of Amsterdam: Sweelinck and his Pupils.” With her ascetic program, mannered style (intended to seem free), widely spaced block chords, and one registration through the opening quite substantial Toccata by Sweelinck, she places herself squarely among the period performance practice organists. But as her program continues, she reveals herself as an organist of exemplary taste by thoughtful phrasing and articulation and imaginative, resourceful registrations. After the big Toccata by Sweelinck, two echo pieces by Samuel Scheidt, one of his great German pupils, follow. These are not an unqualified success because, though the regis- tration is pleasing, the dry acoustics of the room make the echo effects pretty stale. One of Scheidemann’s lengthy Magnificats takes more than 12 minutes. It seems like 20, since Ms. Archer’s playing is so prosaic. Moreover, not one of these first four pieces will ever qualify for the hit parade – not even organists’ hit parade. Things brighten up with two secular pieces, Sweelinck’s ‘Malle Sijmen’ (Silly Simon) and Scheidt’s variations on Est-ce Mars, where her adroit registrations combine with real charm for an evanescent result. With the last variation, we are pleasantly surprised by the tinkling of Zimbelstern. At last, the performer seems excited about the music in Sweelinck’s grand 11-minute Ricercar. Here she generates more than a few sparks. She also introduces a good deal of color and contrast to help make this spacious fresco coherent for the listener. In sum, the admirable outweighs the negatives. The CD’s slender content counts among these. There is so much appealing repertoire by these composers and their school that surely more of their music could and should have been included. MULBURY August 28, 2005 Breathtaking brevity Music by Sweelinckand his pupils reviewed by GEORGE BALCOMBE ’... a brilliant performance ...’ This package of disc and programme notes might well be called duration for this is one minute thirty nine seconds. Wedged between ‘Sweelinck for Beginners’. The music is played by Gail Archer, an the master’s three bites at the sandwich are two ‘echo’ pieces by American organist and musicologist who also wrote the words. pupil Scheidt [listen -- track 3, 0:00-0:33] and a theme with ten Sweelinck was a teenage prodigy within an Amsterdam dynasty variations, Est-ce Mars, lasting just over ten minutes. There is also and he irreversibly influenced the evolution of music in northern some Magnificat-based music by another pupil, Scheidemann, which Europe including England. He taught many pupils composition and come in at slightly over twelve minutes. The brevity of all these keyboard performance and himself composed for organ and/or pieces is breathtaking, indeed shocking, for they fire the listener like harpsichord. When Sweelinck’s students left Amsterdam for their a space rocket into the early twentieth century. There is, after all, home countries they took with them manuscript copies of the great nothing new about Webern. Unlike Webern, however, Sweelinck man’s organ works with the result that over seventy pieces survive and his pupils may have improvised on these short pieces to show today. off their acknowledged brilliance at the art of improvisation Organist Gail Archer identifies three strands in Sweelinck’s Since the music around 1600 owed its existence to counterpoint, keyboard works; a) toccatas, fantasias, and ‘distinctive echo fantasies quite appropriately, the recording technique of this disc is to suitable for harpsichord or organ’; b) idiomatic settings of chorale make the composers’ contrapuntal ingenuity loud and clear. But melodies linked to a prelude, and c) secular songs and dances this has been done at the expense of an aural sensation of three- designed as themes with variations. dimensional space. Reverberation is doubtless the enemy of contrapuntal clarity. An organ is not only the instrument itself but Sweelinck’s innovations are now accepted as normal but the famous also the acoustics of the architecture around it. virtuoso invented, for example, the method of beginning an Surely Sweelinck and his pupils, who went from him organ fugue with one subject only and then piling up texture and to play fine organs in beautiful churches across the whole of complexity until they soar to a climax of resolved harmonies. He northern Germany and beyond, during the metamorphosis of excelled the skills even of Frescobaldi in the manipulation of fugal Renaissance music into the Baroque, would have been among devices such as countersubject, stretto and sustained pedalpoint. the first to agree that the magnificence of the organ derives from He was also the first to give an independent contrapuntal line to the its own sound heard in the context of the built space around it. pedals. These inventions awaited that other great dynastic prodigy, J Deprived of that space the music sounds sparse. However, Gail S Bach after his birth in 1685 more than sixty years after Sweelinck Archer, with this method of recording, is consistent in the emphasis died. on the counterpoint. She gives a brilliant performance culminating in the astounding outburst at the end of the recital with Sweelinck’s The organ works chosen for this disc are arranged in a sort of Ricecar [listen -- track 20, 10:30-11:33]. two-tier sandwich. Sweelinck’s four-minute Toccata in C comes first [listen -- track 1, 0:00-1:00] with his eleven-minute Ricecar [listen -- track 20, 0:00-1:00] last and, in the middle, his arrangement of Copyright © 2005 George Balcombe, London UK the dance tune Malle Sijmen (Simple Simon). Simple Sweelinck’s October 13, 2005 Classical GAIL ARCHER Sweelinck and his Pupils (Cala) (three out of 4 stars) Travel back a century from Domenico Scarlatti’s day and up toward the Low Countries, and you’ll find one of the great masters of early organ music, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck (1562-1621). He liter- ally inherited the organist’s post at the Oude Kirk in Amsterdam, but extended his reach well beyond through his compositions and exceptional students. On this disc, veteran American organist and scholar Gail Archer has assembled a nicely varied overview of works by Sweelinck as well as con- temporaries and students Samuel Scheidt and Heinrich Scheidemann. Archer’s work is beyond criti- cism, but the recording engineers have somehow managed to make the glorious Charles B. Fisk organ at Wellesley College sound tinny and dry, which is a shame. This organ is tuned using the mean-tone system, which makes some intervals sound out of tune to our ears. Toronto has it’s own mean-tone organ (built by Helmuth Wolff) at Knox College. - JT At the Organ, Shades of a Mystic in the Making By ALLAN KOZINN For concertgoers who are used to watching performers make music, organ recitals can be peculiar events. Typically, the player is hidden away in a church’s organ loft, unseen by the audience except for bows at the start and the finish. Perhaps t-hat is as it should be: the audience, bathed in a grand, variegated sound, can focus on the music or its spiritual associations, without the distraction of a performer. Riverside Church lets listeners have it both ways in its annual summer series of Tuesday evening organ recitals. A video image of the organist is projected onto a screen at the front of the church, offering a static view (from above) of the player and the instruments. The screen is large enough to show the mechanics of the performance; but for listeners who prefer the organist’s traditional invisibility, it is small enough — in the context of this enormous church — to ignore. Gail Archer opened the series on Tuesday evening with a powerful rendering of “Les Corps Glorieux,” the 1939 work that Messiaen subtitled “seven short visions of the life everlasting.” The deeply personalized, mystical idiom that Messiaen created is not fully developed in this cycle. Yet, hearing the piece with the experience of his later scores, one can see that language clearly in formation. The opening movement, “Subtilité des Corps Glorieux,” evokes the resurrected bodies in the afterlife in a single, calmly winding line. From there, the imagery builds gradually, with heavenly fountains drawn in gently cloudy harmonies, smoking incense suggested in a poetically simple line in reedy coloration and, in the work’s central movement, the battle of life and death offered in bright, brash colors and dense chromaticism, all of which resolve into graceful serenity (by way of flute timbres) as life prevails. The bright-hued fifth and sixth movements celebrate the vitality inherent in salvation, and the finale, “Le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité,” is contemplative, but with an undercurrent of chromaticism that gives it texture and keeps it surprising. Ms. Archer offered a carefully considered tour of these painterly movements, and perhaps most important, she played with an agility that met the music’s coloristic and rhythmic demands without calling attention to itself.