Bass Pig's Rendition of Danse Macabre for Organ (old vers)

This is the original low quality YouTube version. A new, high quality version with stereo sound was uploaded at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F9r9G0CS0BM

My interpretation of the Lemare Transcript of Camille Saint-saëns' "Danse Macabre". Normally heard as a symphonic performance, this piece is unusual as an organ concerto.
I took liberal license in my interpretation of this transcript, and as such, the performance you are about to hear is uniquely my "vision" of how this piece should sound.
I performed it on a Kurzweil K2600RS, loaded with samples of the great Bavo Organ (Post Organ Toolkit), located at the St. Bavokerk Church in Haarlem, The Netherlands. The Christian Muller Organ is the focal point of St. Bavo. It's 30 meters high and has 5068 pipes. Constructed by Amsterdam organ builder Christian Muller between 1735 and 1738, Handel and Mozart both have played it.
I did considerable tweaking and editing to these samples, as, although very good in their raw state, were in need of certain adjustments to improve the realism of their performance, and to bring the various samples in tune with all of the rest.
The video contains a compilation of photos of the exterior and interior of the Church of Saint Bavokerk, the organ being the central focus. Later in the video, I reveal, photographically, the truth of what you are really hearing. Talk about fantastic revelation!

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Bavokerk
• Bavo
• Organ
• Haarlem
• Netherlands
• Basspig
• bass
• subwoofer
• woofer
• Camille
• Saint-saëns
• Danse
• Macabre

[geschiedschrijver]

another fine rendition of Saint Saens'  symph.#3 is on the organ at St Ouen in Rouen

France (here on you tube) talking about impressive organs....

[basspig]

@geschiedschrijver I have a recording of Pierre Labric performing Saint-saëns' Preludes on this organ. Its construction was begun in 1888 and it is one of the finest Cavaillé-Coll organs in existence.

[peteacher52]

Thanks for that, B-P. Your electronic realisation of this famous organ is pretty good. If you have, like me, all of Piet Kee's CD's and many of his vinyl LP's as well, recorded on this organ, you will have a good idea short of actually being in the church, of how it sounds in all of its fabulous splendor. If you wish to hear it as it was before the Marcussen rebuild of 1960, listen to Piet Kee's prize winning performance of 1953 Google ncrv >Piet Kee>1953

[basspig]

@peteacher52 Thank you for that reference. It should be fascinating to hear an actual performance on the original instrument.

Actually, my recording uses samples from both the Bavo and the Concertgebouw organs, as was the case in this reading.

There is an updated version of this on Youtube, BTW. This old version predates Youtubes CODEC improvements and has very poor, almost unlistenable audio due to severe compression.

[Dreddloxx]

I really love this piece...as sad as it might sound, I first heard it on a British detective-type programme...I was totally unaware of Camille Saint-Saén until then! The man was brilliant!

[basspig]

I highly recommend Saint-saens' "Organ Symphony". I just found a remastered edition of the 1959 performance with Berj Zamkochian with the BSO, conducted by Charles Munch to replace my aging half-speed mastered RCA vinyl. It was wonderful!

[flabbybabby]

I love this piece, it reminds me of Nightmare Before Christmas with that kind of twisted view. I'm learning a simplified version on piano but it sounds even more haunting on organ. Saint-Saëns was a genius :P

[evilblades]

damn, parts of it just wanna make me laugh manicly O_o

[FieldHockey007]

Jonathan Creek. :D

[Dreddloxx]

Thanks for that,basspig,I'll go and have a look round for it...again,many thanks!

[giulian95]

VERY GOOD! IT'S WONDERFULL!

[basspig]

See the new version mentioned at the top of this page. YouTube's old encoder destroyed the sound quality. The new version is at least tolerable.