Organist Paul Jacobs creates sonic miracles at Nashville’s First Baptist Church
It didn’t take long on Sunday afternoon for organist Paul Jacobs to bond with his audience. As soon as he finished playing Edward Elgar’s mighty Sonata in G major, Op. 28, the crowd at First Baptist Church gave him a rousing ovation. Jacobs quickly returned the affection.
“Everyone was so quiet and attentive during the slow movement that you could hear a pin drop,” Jacobs said. “I knew at that moment that I was playing for a very sophisticated audience.”
Jacobs’ program probably did attract a few connoisseurs. But the pews on Sunday were also likely filled with the merely curious, who came simply to see and hear this remarkably prodigious artist. Those listeners were in on a little secret – Jacobs is endowed with one of the most stupendous brains in the music business.
He first made music history at age 23, when he performed all of Johann Sebastian Bach’s organ music in a single 18-hour marathon concert. Two years later, he performed French composer Olivier Messiaen’s complete organ music in a series of concerts throughout the United States.
Among his other Guinness World Record-type accomplishments, Jacobs was appointed chairman of the organ department at the Juilliard School at age 27. Earlier this year, at the ripe old age of 33, he became the first organist in history to win a Grammy Award for best instrumental solo, for his terrific recording of Messiaen’s Livre du Saint-Sacrement on the Franklin-based Naxos label.
On Sunday in downtown Nashville, Jacobs proved that his fingers and feet were equal to his intellect. His recital included not only the complete Elgar sonata but also American composer Florence Beatrice Price’s Suite for Organ along with three substantial Bach works. Jacobs dashed off all of this music from memory, and he played every note with feeling and technical perfection.
He opened with an intensely colorful rendition of Elgar’s four-movement sonata. Elgar wrote few performance instructions in the score, other than indicating where the organist should play loud or soft. So when it came to picking organ stops, Jacobs let his imagination run wild. He picked a wide array of colors – from string, reed and brass sounds to full-blown throbbing organ – to make the sonata sound like a symphony. Jacobs played this music with an unusual mixture of grace and athleticism. He was especially impressive in the Andante Espressivo, which he played with the affecting lyricism of a singer.
Price’s Suite for Organ was this recital’s great discovery. Price (1887-1953) was the first African-American woman to achieve recognition as a major symphonic composer – the Chicago Symphony Orchestra premiered her Symphony in E minor in 1933. Antonin Dvorak would have loved her, because she wrote expertly crafted classical pieces that were always rooted in folk music – in her case African-American spirituals and dance.
Her Organ Suite opens with a Fantasia that’s filled with imaginative chromatic harmonies that likely owe a debt to César Franck. The suite’s Aria is a deeply felt spiritual, and the Toccata is a brilliant showpiece, which ends with the sort of virtuoso romp that would have been worthy of George Gershwin. Jacobs played the outer movements with the spontaneity of improvisations, and he played the Aria with sincere emotion.
Jacobs is one of the great Bach organists of our day, and his performances of this composer’s music did not disappoint. Bach composed his six Trio Sonatas for Organ for his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. These works are so difficult to play that it’s been speculated that Bach must have really hated his son. More likely, he just wanted to give young Willy a thorough grounding. Certainly, Jacobs proved to be equal to the challenges of the Trio Sonata in E minor, which he played with complete clarity and finger independence.
Jacobs performed the Arioso from Bach’s Cantata No. 156 with urgency and emotion – not surprising, since the words to this famous piece are “I stand with one foot in the grave.” He played the finger-twisting counterpoint of Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A minor in heroic style, with sweep and drama.
For an encore, Jacobs played a memorable and virtuosic transcription of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1. It was a thrill to hear the organ played on such a world-class level. Let’s hope Jacobs returns soon, perhaps next time to play his Grammy Award-winning Messiaen on the Schermerhorn Symphony Center’s great Martin Foundation Organ.
*Top & Middle Photos: by Stefan Cohen
