Ex Tempore The Art of Organ Improvisation in England
Ronny Krippner
Fugue State Films

Release date January 2012

‘England’ and ‘organ improvisation’ are words rarely encountered together. French and German organists improvise regularly in concerts and in liturgy, and have established a firm tradition of teaching improvisation in their respective countries; but on this side of the Channel improvisation has often been viewed as a convenient way of covering the gaps between liturgical actions, rather than a serious art form. Happily, that state of affairs has changed with the emergence of artists such as David Briggs; and organist and improvisation specialist Ronny Krippner demonstrates in this 80-minute documentary how surprisingly rich the tradition of improvisation has been in England from the time of Tallis to the present day. Bavarian-born Krippner, trained in both the German and British choral traditions, has studied historic treatises and documents to try to establish how organists of past centuries might have improvised. With brief spoken introductions outlining the main factors affecting each composer (such as limitations of the instruments available or the political situation) he shows how England’s most celebrated organists and composers for the organ, such as Byrd, Purcell, Handel, Stanford and Howells, may have improvised. It makes for a telescoped but fascinating journey, from the hand-driven bellows of the kind of organ known to Tallis, to the splendid 1988 Frobenius at Kingston Parish Church. Some plausible assumptions are aired; for example, the paucity of Handel’s organ compositions may well be due to the fact that he improvised all the time at Westminster Abbey. It is rewarding to see such a fine panoply of English organs in action, among them Bristol Cathedral’s 1907 Walker (used to demonstrate the Victorian Organ Sonata style) and, in its spectacular setting, Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral’s 1967 Walker, on which works in the style of Britten, Mathias and Leighton are played. The documentary is followed by a sequence of the improvisations without the introductions, and a CD version is included in the package. For any organ enthusiast interested in finding out more about improvisation in the context of the English organ tradition, this DVD will prove both enlightening and highly enjoyable.

Anne McAlister