The Organ Forum

Have you ever witnessed one or been involved in one yourself?

 Share your misfortunes with us!
 

Personally, I've probably done what virtually every organist has done...started music at the wrong time during service, played wrong hymn (not my fault on both occassions, blame my music list) etc.

It would be interesting to hear about concert/recital disasters by professional recitalists. Any big bloopers you've witnessed? They must make some big mistakes occasionally, after all they are only human like the rest of us.

 

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Currently own:
ALLEN TC-3S (#42904 - 3rd Feb 1971) with Sequential Capture System

Speakers:
x1 Model 100 Gyro Cabinet
x1 Model 105 Cabinet
x3 Model 108 Cabinet

I've performed many recitals on one particular organ (which shall remain nameless) that seems to be jinxed.  At five different recitals one of these things happened:

• Swell to Choir shorted out, and had to be permanently soldered "on" minutes before the recital.
• The arm that moved the Swell shutters became detached and was swinging wildly about the chamber; the temporary solution was to nail down the Swell shoe - of course I was performing romantic music.
• The ending of my recital was spoiled when I couldn't use the Chamade - the low D-flat was nowhere near the right pitch, and I couldn't avoid playing that note.  That was the only pipe that had a problem.
• Another recital was spoiled when I couldn't get the tutti button to engage; A major work was the sole feature of this recital, and at the very end (the "big finish") the 32' reed and chamade were to have come on.  I kept hitting the tutti during the last line of music - it would disengage every time I took my finger or toe off of the tutti button!    I finally got it to lock "on", but I was very distracted.
• The pedal light burned out during the service immediately prior to my recital, so I was obliged to guess where the toe pistons were.

There are other organs too, and some near-disasters (sorry if a bit O.T.):  I played a very British program (with Tubas blazing, etc...) on an organ with a lovely Tuba Mirabilis.  When I arrived for my first practice session I was told "Oh, our Solo division is being repaired - no Tuba." 

At yet another venue I had prepared a recital that contained an transcription of a symphony movement - lots of registration changes.  When I arrived at the venue the combination action was explained to me:  There were over 2,000 memory settings; you set each registration change as you go.  "Very good", I thought...

The problem was that it was a blind system that didn't move any stops.    The other problem was that it could only go forwards, so if you hit a button too soon, you were out of luck!  It was also very tricky to move it to any given registration as it was sequential, and slow.

The deal-breaker was that as long as the combination system was engaged, manual registering was disabled.  "Forget that!" I said!

We did the recital with two registrants.  They were very busy. 

At my own church I did an all-Vierne program.  We had spent a couple days tuning the organ to a state of near perfection - it sounded absolutely magnificent!  The day of the recital we had a huge heat wave.  Unfortunately, the boiler was programmed to come on and nobody could find the fellow who knew how to pull the plug properly.  It was probably near 100 degrees in the room, and the organ sounded like a sad accordion. 

We were able to re-tune the reeds in a huge hurry, but I was wiped out mentally/emotionally - and I was wiped out physically from another full day of tuning - and the heat.

I have a recording of that recital - the organ didn't sound quite so bad; only one Trompette pipe flew off pitch.  I know just how it felt.

More later...

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Soubasse32

Two items offhand:

I was turning pages for an organist -who shall remain nameless- playing the Bach P&F in D.  (Yes, that one.)  The last note he played at the end of the fugue was a loud, booming C.  (Then followed by a whispered expletive.)

At a recent sub gig I was playing an electronic with one of those "handy" transposition knobs.  Shortly before the service the soloist asked if I might take her solo down a whole step.  Well we get to the solo and I totally spaced it.  I begin in the original key, she starts singing, I come to a prompt halt, we begin again.  Rather awkward, but she otherwise might have shot me.

She said to take her down a step, not a peg! 

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Soubasse32

Latest gaffe in a wedding Recessional:

In the opening bar of Karg-Elert's "Nun Danket" I managed to play it in the minor key - The bride burst out laughing and thought I was expressing a little piquant humour.

Often times it is not the disaster that is memorable, but the performer's handling of the situation. 

I remember an incredible performance of Sowerby's Pageant - an extremely large organ in a very prominent church.  It was a capacity audience.

The performer (who shall remain nameless) dove into the piece with abandon, only to realize the "big reed" was on.  Within a few measures she stopped, whirled around the bench and stood up!

She said "I would be remiss to play this piece, without sharing a little story"...

The story was anything but little, and it had absolutely nothing to do with anything. 

During the course of the story, I happened to notice her hand went right to the offending drawknob, which she unobtrusively pushed in.

Then the story came to an abrupt end; she sat down and started the piece again.  Of course, it was without the big reed.

An example of a true professional. 

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Soubasse32

soubasse32:

I've performed many recitals on one particular organ (which shall remain nameless) that seems to be jinxed.  At five different recitals one of these things happened:

• Swell to Choir shorted out, and had to be permanently soldered "on" minutes before the recital.
• The arm that moved the Swell shutters became detached and was swinging wildly about the chamber; the temporary solution was to nail down the Swell shoe - of course I was performing romantic music.
• The ending of my recital was spoiled when I couldn't use the Chamade - the low D-flat was nowhere near the right pitch, and I couldn't avoid playing that note.  That was the only pipe that had a problem.
• Another recital was spoiled when I couldn't get the tutti button to engage; A major work was the sole feature of this recital, and at the very end (the "big finish") the 32' reed and chamade were to have come on.  I kept hitting the tutti during the last line of music - it would disengage every time I took my finger or toe off of the tutti button!    I finally got it to lock "on", but I was very distracted.
• The pedal light burned out during the service immediately prior to my recital, so I was obliged to guess where the toe pistons were.

There are other organs too, and some near-disasters (sorry if a bit O.T.):  I played a very British program (with Tubas blazing, etc...) on an organ with a lovely Tuba Mirabilis.  When I arrived for my first practice session I was told "Oh, our Solo division is being repaired - no Tuba." 

At yet another venue I had prepared a recital that contained an transcription of a symphony movement - lots of registration changes.  When I arrived at the venue the combination action was explained to me:  There were over 2,000 memory settings; you set each registration change as you go.  "Very good", I thought...

The problem was that it was a blind system that didn't move any stops.    The other problem was that it could only go forwards, so if you hit a button too soon, you were out of luck!  It was also very tricky to move it to any given registration as it was sequential, and slow.

The deal-breaker was that as long as the combination system was engaged, manual registering was disabled.  "Forget that!" I said!

We did the recital with two registrants.  They were very busy. 

At my own church I did an all-Vierne program.  We had spent a couple days tuning the organ to a state of near perfection - it sounded absolutely magnificent!  The day of the recital we had a huge heat wave.  Unfortunately, the boiler was programmed to come on and nobody could find the fellow who knew how to pull the plug properly.  It was probably near 100 degrees in the room, and the organ sounded like a sad accordion. 

We were able to re-tune the reeds in a huge hurry, but I was wiped out mentally/emotionally - and I was wiped out physically from another full day of tuning - and the heat.

I have a recording of that recital - the organ didn't sound quite so bad; only one Trompette pipe flew off pitch.  I know just how it felt.

More later...

 

Were these organs built by the famous firm of "Bodgeit & Sons"

My worst calamity wasn't playing for a recital but page turning for one.  When I was a teenager I was asked by my piano teacher's husband to turn the pages for his organ recital.  The digital organ was placed centrally in the chancel in full view of the audience.  Everything was going fine until we got to the Vierne.  He was using a very old dog-eared copy.  He had warned me to be careful when turning pages.  Well it got to the Intermezzo and it was very fast and I couldn't keep up reading it and had no idea where to turn,  Suddenly he said "turn" and I did, but a bit too forcefully and the whole lot came down off the stand on to the pedals as he was playing, to audible gasps in the audience. It didn't help that I swore.  But the organist kept going as I was retrieving the music whilst dodging his feet.  For the rest of the recital I hung my head in shame.

 

At a recent sub gig I was playing an electronic with one of those "handy" transposition knobs.

Been caught out a couple of times with that at weddings, transposing down two or three tones for a solo singer then not putting it back for the following hymn, wondering why the singing sounds totally turgid.

I had forgotten about this until I saw the postings.

I went to a Virgil Fox concert at the Fox Theater in Atlanta many, many years ago and as he began playing one of the pieces the organ sounded as if something had gone very wrong.

Mr Fox stopped playing, turned around and faced the audience and said "I think Bach would want me to start this over".

And he did! 

I only witnessed one but it wasn't organ. At the premiere of a new percussion piece, they started playing...after a few minutes one of the guys just stopped and stared n space.Then the other stopped, they started laughing and announced they would start over, this time with the gong in place.

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Expert in non-working solutions

In my senior recital I was in the midst of a Vierne toccata, playing on a 4 manual church organ, since the college organ wasn't that great, when I accidently hit a general piston (still not sure if it was a thumb or toe piston).  Fortunately the registration only changed from FFF to MF, so I just slowly added back stops by hand as I was able until I came to a cadence where the next piston change occured.  Those didn't know the piece didn't really think anything had happened, and those that did knew what I did and thought it was a pretty good recovery.  Of course, since it was the closing piece on the program, I was just mortified, but thankful I didn't have to play anymore.

 Now, this didn't happen to me but I have to share:

A collegue of mine plays a large pipe organ at a VERY largechurch.  Recently they interfaced a new digital console with sampled stops and stuff to the organ.  He says that one Sunday after the installation he was wailing away at a hymn and decided to modulate on the last verse.  Not sure how, but he accidently hit the play button on the MIDI recorder.  Of course some big "something or other" just started playing on top of the hymn!!!!  By the time the hymn was done, he'd figured out what was going on, and stopped the player.  Everyone was looking at him as that console is open and very much exposed to the congregation.  He jumped up, ran around to the back of the console, slapped the top, and shouted "BE HEALED!"  The congregation broke up!  Of course this was very much in character for him.  Wonder what mine would do if that happened to me???

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Holtkamp/Parkey pipe organ
Galanti Praeludium home instrument

I can only remember one performance disaster.  It happened at a church somewhere in north Mississippi back in the 70's....I can't remember the church or the artist but the first piece after the intermission started with the wrong piston pushed.  The artist held the big chord for a few seconds......stopped then started re-setting a bunch of registration before starting again.  I don't really know what happened.....organ malfunction or operator error.

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"The Organ is in truth the grandest, the most daring,
the most magnificent of all instruments invented by human genius."

There is a church near my town with a lovely two manual tracker organ. They have had that organ since about 2002, and have had a series of recitals throughout the year ever since.

One performer started a piece without obviously selecting the correct piston memory bank, so she started one piece, then had to come to a stop to change the piston memory entirely before blowing her nose then starting again.

And quite recently, someone was playing Vierne's Carillon de Westminster at the end of his recital, and went to put on the Cymbelstern. On this organ, the only way to turn it on is from a toe piston/lever which is right at the far end of the bass end of the pedalboard. Of course, next to the Cymbelstern lever is the general 6 lever, so instead of getting a very suitable Cymbelstern, the volume dropped - fortunately not too much...

Jezza

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"If you can't get the orchestra any louder, add the organ"

A Cymbelstern in Vierne?    I'm quite certain he never used one himself, and in such a loud piece I don't know how anyone would be able to hear it... 

I might call that a disaster in interpretation. 

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Soubasse32

Greetings all:

 I was witness to an occurance at a high Easter service. The organ had a cipher and it sounded like it was from one of pedal reeds. Everytime the organist shut it off  and the wind pressure would subside, it sounded like someone had a bad burrito !

 Try receiving communion at the rail with a straight face when the minister says "The Body of Christ" !

 

Amateur Jerry