It’s not particularly fashionable to like the pipe organ. Quite a few musicians have been lukewarm over the years – Stravinsky famously described it ‘the monster that never breathes’. Well, Stravinsky (on this occasion) was wrong.

I always wanted to learn the organ, I’m not sure why. I took about 3 or 4 lessons when I was 18 before lack of money, time and going to university put a stop to it. Just over a year ago I finally started to play again. I’m making slow and tortuous progress but I love the challenge and love the instrument even more. Here are eight reasons why the pipe organ is great:



It’s ridiculously hard

The Irish claim it takes 21 years to master the Uilleien pipes – seven years learning, seven years practising, and seven years playing. I don’t doubt the challenge but I can’t believe it’s harder than the organ, because organists have to use their feet.

It’s hard to convey quite how tricky this is. If you’ve ever tried playing piano and found it hard to concentrate on your left and right hand doing different things, imagine adding two feet into the mix – especially as you’re not allowed to look down at the pedals to see what you’re doing. As you start to learn you discover a strange physiological quality of the human body – your left hand and left foot like to copy each other. It’s an unsettling experience when you first start getting your brain to separate the two . The practice does pay off – it’s miraculous what skilled organists do with their feet. An accomplished organist needs the physical coordination of a drummer with the dexterity and musicality of a concert pianist. Take a look at this short tongue-in-cheek clip of Richard Elliott, organist of the Mormon Tabernacle, showing off his chops.

As if this wasn’t hard enough you then have to learn all about the different organ stops (sounds), how to combine them correctly and how to play a piece at the same time as changing the stops (and turning the page of the music, and watching a conductor in a mirror etc).

This all requires lots of practice but here’s the final catch – you can’t carry the organ around with you or practice at home. Organists usually have to find a church organ to practice on, get permission to practice, book times to use it, and then struggle through their practice in a freezing church, at night, or worse, when other people are wandering round the church chatting away.

Bach liked it

I sometimes think Bach can’t be real. How did one human produce music of such quality in such quantity? His music is both beautiful and a technical marvel and he, of course, was a virtuoso organist. He also studied the art of organ building – clambering inside organs and learning how they worked when he was still a child – and as a young man he walked 100s of miles to watch the great organists of the day.

This love of the organ is reflected in his collected organ works – the musical equivalent of the complete works of Shakespeare. Purchasing the complete organ works of Bach gets you about 16 hours of music. To put that in context, the total recorded output of the Beatles clocks in at about 8 or 9 hours. 16 hours of brilliance, wit, invention and beauty.

If the organ was good enough for Bach it should be good enough everyone else too.

Messiaen liked it:

It’s not just Bach. Mozart famously called the organ the king of instruments, Handel, Buxtehude, Mendelssohn, Lizst and Franck all played and wrote for the instrument. Into the 20th century the great French organ virtuosos, Vierne and Widor, wrote vast organ symphonies, and another towering genius, Olivier Messiaen, played the Organ at La Trinite in Paris for 61 years. Messiaen’s organ works are among the best music ever written – for any instrument. It can be awkward, terrifying and sublime, sometimes all in one piece. It’s also fantastically difficult to play. Messaien is known for his synesthesia (sensing colours in response to music), to me his music evokes light – warm light, bright light and shards of light. I’m not religious but the sound of Messaien’s organ music echoing across the acoustics of a giant cathedral is a religious experience.

Free recitals

When Daniel Barebohm plays the Beethoven piano sonatas tickets cost a fortune. Why waste your money, most days of the week you can go and see an organ recital for free. Every Sunday, the big cathedrals in London feature some of the leading players in the world playing great music for no cost. I can’t think of another field of music (except maybe Choral Evensong) where you get to watch top professionals display their skills for free. Of course, some concerts do have a cost, but even then they’re much cheaper – (often £10 for a ticket). Take a look here to see what’s on sometime.

No two performances are the same – or even sound the same

Sorry to bang on about Barenbohm (he is obviously a brilliant musician) but for most people the experience of hearing Barenhbohm play Beethoven will be quite similar to hearing another top professional play. Of course their interpretations will be different – changes in tempo, different expression or phrasing, but for a lay listener like most of us we don’t notice a massive difference. Most concerts are played on pianos made by the same company and which all sound the same. Not so with the organ. Every instrument is different – in sound, size, range of stops and the acoustic they’re set in. If you saw two identical recitals of Bach organ music on two different organs you’d hear completely different performances. None of them are wrong, there is just much greater scope for different interpretations.

Organists improvise

Improvisation is common in jazz. Rock musicians do it a bit, maybe in a guitar solo here and there – but among classical musicians organists are alone in being expected to improvise on a regular basis. I was lucky enough to see Olivier Latry, Organist of Notre Dame de Paris, improvise at the Royal Festival Hall last year. He’d been given a melody just before the start of the concert – he played it through once and then launched into a series of variations on the tune, on the spot. It was completely spellbinding to hear him mix 20th Century dissonance alongside baroque fugal patterns. He is a particular genius at them, but many organists improvise brilliantly. Even in small parish churches the local organist is often expected to fill gaps in the service with short improvisations. You can see Latry doing a particularly bonkers improvisation at Notre Dame de Paris here, or for something more peaceful watch this great clip of British Organist David Briggs improvising a remarkable fugue at St Sulpice (watched by the equally brilliant Daniel Roth, no mean improviser himself). Finally, there is actually some film of Messiaen himself improvising at La Trinite near the end of his life. You can watch it here.

They’re a technical wonder

It is said that pipe organs were the most complex machines ever created by humans until the invention of the telephone exchange. Despite being based on a very simple and ancient principle the development of the organ, particularly from the 17th Century is a story of human invention and technical advances. By the 19th Century the likes of Cavaille-Coll in France, and Henry Willis in England were building vast instruments, with a massive array of sounds and tones using huge wind pressures and increasingly advanced mechanics. When Willis was asked to revamp the organ in St Paul’s cathedral he chopped the existing organ in half, stuck each bit on either side of the choir and moved the console (the bit with the keyboards) to another bit of the church (creating a victorian version of surround sound) and revolutionised the organ in the process. By 1929 the Boardwalk Hall Auditorium Organ in Atlantic City had more than 33,000 pipes including one stop that was as loud as “a pure trumpet note of ear-splitting volume, more than six times the volume of the loudest locomotive whistle”. It was not only the largest organ in the world it was the biggest musical instrument ever constructed.

These days organs have computer sequencing, USB sticks and all the mod cons. Organ builders today need to be artists, engineers, electricians, carpenters, metal workers , computer programmers and builders. Every single organ, from tiny village churches to grand concert halls is a technical wonder.

And just to remind you – Bach liked it

I know I’ve already said this but if you’re on the wrong side of a musical argument with Bach you’ve already lost the argument.

Why not have a listen…

Here’s a short playlist of some (mostly) well known organ music to enjoy:

https://open.spotify.com/user/1138475865/playlist/4p12o8LkfUKOanNTrdE3ml