On a day in 1960, Mary Curtis Zimbalist phoned Eugene Ormandy, music director of the Philadelphia Orchestra, with thrilling information. The rich patron and founding father of Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute of Music had determined to offer the Academy of Music, the orchestra’s dwelling on the time, with a pipe organ. Moreover, Zimbalist would fee Samuel Barber, the esteemed American composer who had enrolled in Curtis’ firstclass in 1924, to put in writing a bit for the dedication.
On the time of its completion, the instrument, made by the Aeolian-Skinner Firm of Boston, was the most important movable pipe organ on this planet. Constructed at a price of $150,000, it boasted 4,102 pipes, three manuals, and 73 stops. (Richard E. Rodda)
A single-movement showpiece, Barber’s Toccata Festiva, Op. 36 showcased the organ, whereas treating the instrumental voices of the orchestra as extra stops. The inaugural live performance on September 20, 1960 featured Paul Callaway, organist and choir director of Washington’s Nationwide Cathedral, with Ormandy (in his twenty fifth season as music director) and the Philadelphia Orchestra.
Toccata Festiva begins with a blazing flash of virtuosity and tonal coloration. Your complete work develops from a single motif, launched across the 46 second mark, which undergoes adventurous transformation because the piece unfolds. Within the center is an prolonged cadenza utilizing solely the organ pedals. In Barber’s palms, the organ is an unpredictable beast, shifting from quiet, trembling thriller to titanic energy. Within the last bars, its superior wall of sound achieves a celebratory flourish in A serious.
This efficiency, recorded in September of 2019, options Latvian organist Iveta Apkalna with Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Frankfurt Radio Symphony:
Recordings
- Barber: Toccata Festiva, Op. 36, Olivier Latry, Christoph Eschenbach, The Philadelphia Orchestra Amazon
Featured Picture: architectural particulars at Philadelphia’s Academy of Music