Michael Plagerman's lecture-recital at 8pm on 11/25 in Sage Chapel will explore ideologies of performance practice and attitudes toward music of the past. Plagerman writes:
The process of adaptation to non-period instruments is central to the art of organ playing. Because organs vary from instrument to instrument it is necessary to alter characteristics of a performance to best utilize the organ at hand in service to the spirit of the music. This most commonly takes the form of sonic reconstruction. Organists seek to imitate the sound of the organ most closely situated to the origin of the music. When sounds are adjusted to account for organs of different provenance, the result is often thought of as a compromise; a lesser result.
Plagerman will explore this idea through an examination of works by three of the greatest late nineteenth-century American organist-composers: Dudley Buck, Eugene Thayer, and George Whiting, along with compositions by Arthur Foote and Horatio Parker. Using Cornell’s 1940 Aeolian-Skinner organ as model of translation from one instrument to another, Plagerman will detail a means of performance practice based not solely on the sonic product, but on the process itself; a process which allows for historically informed performances of this repertoire, regardless of the organ.
