Easygoing. Tricksy. Whimsical. These adjectives do not exactly come to one's mind while thinking about the sound of the church organ in the Minster of Ulm. Except, Barbara Dennerlein plays her "Blues In The Pipeline" on that instrument. Her left hand pushes the piece forwards with funny comping, her right hand creates a melody that playfully peers around the corner, and the feet perform a solo of the soles.
Barbara Dennerlein's movements go from head to toe, and the listeners - more than 500 - can witness this also visually during this organ concert on a Sunday morning in the Minster, due to video transmission and movie screen. "In the best case the music goes to the legs, and not only to mine", the 51-yeared organist from Munich had announced. She did not exaggerate.
Of course she is the jazz world star on the Hammond organ - but meanwhile she also deals with pipe organs since two decades. She has played in Moscow and Budapest, in the Arctic Sea Cathedral of Tromsø and in the Trinity Church in New Yorker. Now she did not "miss the great chance to play a concert with her own music on this unique venue" - Minster of Ulm. It was "a feeling of augustness to be the mistress over all these pipes."
With more than 100 stops she is spoilt for choice. But Barbara Dennerlein does not want to "stick to the conventional sounds of the organ", and thus she had rehearsed to get familiar with the specific characteristics of the Walcker organ and the echoing acoustic in the Minster. In her opinion, "each organ is a Queen with peculiarities on positive as well as negative sides," she explains.
In "Change Of Pace" she shows how much is possible. Originally composed for orchestra, this piece will challenge the audience, she says and asks "to engage with the organ's breathing, the living, human sound." Then she creates from a musical germ cell of eight notes is a complex play of colours and forms, founded on a stable tonal basis, here structured, there improvised, here with filigree softness, there packed to clusters. The musical tempo changes are increasing and swinging along until it sparkles and wooshes, buzzes and jangles. A very impressive piece.
The title tune of her programme "Spiritual Movements" is wonderful as well. It summarises everything that is important for Barbara Dennerlein. It is a moved and moving painting process with sound colours, a welfare flow of elements from church music, jazz, baroque, classic and minimal that over and over again commingle to delightful sounds, and: yes, this organ play is swinging. In her technical perfection Barbara Dennerlein avoids any trace of braggy virtuosity or furious fortissimo affectation.
The keys of the five manuals are black and white, but the jazzer also finds blue notes. Neal Hefti's ballade "Li'l Darlin'" comes along charming and nostalgic - Dennerlein transmitted Count Basie's Big Band arrangement on the organ, and one really supposes to hear the brass section of a swing band. The final piece is "New York Impressions", dedicated to the melting pot of arts. A winning composition with an enthralling groove and a sudden greeting from Bach's Toccata in d minor: Barbara Dennerlein lets even Bach have the blues. If the Walcker organ could smile, it would have done during this extraordinary concert. Huge applause after the gorgeous final major key chord."
http://www.swp.de/ulm/lokales/ulm_neu_ulm/Das-Muenster-kriegt-den-Blues;art4329,3779527
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