SOP Podcast 126: James Spanner On The Importance Of Revealing The Meaning Of The Text

Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast #126! Today is Christmas Eve! Merry Christmas, Blessed Season Greetings to our every listener and subscriber! I'm so happy that we've been doing for a while these podcasts and we're continuing our Secrets of Organ Playing journey for 6 years now and Ausra and I hope to help you grow as an organist for many years to come. And today a special guest is visiting Vilnius University St John's church. This is an English organist James Spanner. James recently contacted me ahead of time that he and his wife will be visiting our country and enjoying pre-Christmas season and I let him play the largest pipe organ in Lithuania. Our conversation was recorded just minutes after Jame's practice on this organ. He played a few pieces and finished with BWV 566. This is Bach's E major Toccata transposed down to C major and it sounds very sweet on this organ because of Kirnberger III temperament. In this conversation James is sharing his organ playing experiences. At the end he emphasized the need for the organist to reveal the meaning of the text to the listener, among many other things. I hope you'll be inspired by James thoughts. And don't forget to help spread the word about the SOP Podcast by sharing it with your organist friends.