Joan Dixon

THE ORGAN FROM SPILLVILLE TO NEW ORLEANS

Truly imaginative programming has always been a treat for me, and the October 19 recital at Santa Rosa’s Resurrection Parish featured a unique list of organ works, played splendidly by guest artist Joan DeVee Dixon. Although the program was not especially intended as one of recent music, the oldest music dated from 1878, and much of the rest was less than twenty years old.

The occasion for the concert was the celebration of the 2008-2009 International Year of the Organ, as designated by the American Guild of Organists. On October 19, hundreds of organ recitals were presented around the world, with the goal of entertaining, informing, and engaging new audiences for organ music, while giving seasoned listeners a fresh perspective on the organ’s expansive repertoire. For the event, two new works were commissioned, and these two were duly featured early in the Santa Rosa recital. Any new organ deserves to be put through its paces, and the Allen Quantum three-manual instrument at Resurrection was installed hardly more than a year ago, and its scores of voices/stops cry out for imaginative registrations. Dixon certainly realized this need and met it with a continual array of coloristic effects.

Dixon, Professor of Music at Frostburg State University in Maryland, opened her program with remarks about her love of all things Czech, and in particular, of the music of Antonín Dvoøák. Because Dvoøák was known to have played a particular Czech hymn tune during his sojourn in America, Dr. Dixon asked the audience to open the event with the singing of the hymn before settling down to the meat of her program. The first piece was a charming set of variations on “Three Blind Mice” by John Thompson, which appropriately employed the chimes of the organ for the chiming of the clock between the variations. This was followed by Emma Lou Diemer’s “Fantasy and Faith at Oxford”, interweaving themes from Parry’s “Jerusalem” and the Harry Potter film music. This was the most demanding music on the program, both technically and in terms of listener’s needs. Dixon is a protégé and frequent collaborator of Diemer, and has premiered many of Diemer’s works.

The two commissioned works were next, and Dixon was joined by oboist Daniel Celidore for Bernard Sanders’ serene “Ornament of Grace”. Fingers and feet certainly did have to stay true to the title of the Stephen Paulus piece, “Blithely Breezing Along”, which alternated furious toccata figuration with staccato chords in the manuals, while the pedals carried the angular melody.

Dixon next told of her annual tours to the Czech Republic, and she introduced three Czech works. Ilja Havlièek’s “Preludio Cromatico” (1995) started life as a dazzling accordion solo, and it continued to dazzle in Dixon’s organ transcription. Bedøich Wiedermann’s “Nocturne” (1942) was by turns dark, anxious, and airily rapturous. For me the whole recital’s point of repose was here at its midpoint, in the Nocturne’s middle section where distant, light flutes high on the keyboard were the most beautiful and uplifting moments of the day. Next, Jiøí Strejc’s “Concert Etude” revealed an overwhelming toccata, with pedal melody, and was described by Dixon as the Czech answer to the ubiquitous Widor “Toccata”. By the sound of it, it’s a good deal more difficult to play than the Widor

Audience participation is a good thing for raising enthusiasm, and before intermission we all got to our feet to stamp or clap out the regular beats for Scott Joplin’s “Stoptime Rag”, and then we opened the second half of the program by singing a polka-like “Congregational Psalm” from Dixon’s own “Mass for Spillville”. Spillville! Some of us had heard the name of this little Czech community in northeastern Iowa, but we were quickly reminded that this was where Antonín Dvoøák had come with his family to live in 1893, and it was from his American experiences that he drew inspiration for his “American” String Quartet in F, and his “From the New World” Symphony. We heard Dixon’s transcriptions of five Dvoøák works, including the Largo from the Symphony and the jolly Slavonic Dance No. 1. With her kaleidoscopic organ registrations through these pieces, the audience heard remarkable combinations of organ sounds, including more percussion voices.

A common criticism of organ music is that it lacks sufficient rhythmic drive. How many times have I heard intelligent listeners complain that organ playing has no rhythm! This judgment was far from the truth in the program’s final pieces, one of which was inspired by the memory of a jazzman’s funeral in New Orleans. Dixon composed sets of virtuosic organ variations on some of the melodies she heard played by the Dixieland bands, and were some of the most convincing jazz settings I have heard for the organ. “Down By the Riverside” and “I’ve Got Shoes” led to an astonishing pedal solo on “Over in the Glory Land”, and then more jazzy variations on “Just a Closer Walk With Thee” and finally “When the Saints Go Marching In”, where the tune was combined with quotations from Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”. It was a suite of spirituals that were astonishing, invigorating, and certainly rhythmic.

Dixon played an extraordinary recital on an international day for the organ, and more of her art can be seen at http://www.joandeveedixon.com.