The art of musical improvisation is as old as music itself, and it makes the practice of reading from notated music—which in the West has happened for little more than a millennium—a relative newcomer to the repertoire of options available to the performing musician.

Despite the predominance of printed music, improvisation is all around us if we care to look; the organist playing before or after a church service and accompanying the psalm singing; the singer or instrumentalists ornamenting their lines in the repeated section of a baroque aria; the soloist playing a cadenza in the last movement of a concerto; the jazz band in a night club playing between their prepared numbers; the music students at school or college having an out of hours ‘jam session’.

We can only wonder at the sheer quantity of improvised music that has come and gone and is lost for ever, but equally we must marvel at the sheer inventiveness of human kind and take comfort in the amount of improvised music that is yet to come!

The invention of musical notation, codified by Guido d’Arezzo in the 11th century, was intended as an aide-mémoire to reduce the time it took boys and novice monks to learn the church’s enormous repertoire of plainchant. Notation meant that musical ideas could be worked out and captured for circulation; musical forms could now develop and the art of composition was born. Now, performers could submerse themselves in other musicians’ styles enabling their own musical development to be widened and accelerated. 

Similarly, the late nineteenth century invention of audio recording equipment meant that not only could performing musicians now hear a wider variety of performance styles—be it on wax cylinder or digital compact disc—but improvised performances need not always be lost for ever. The availability of recordings of past masters’ organ improvisations, including those of Charles Tournemire, Maurice Duruflé and Pierre Cochereau, has undoubtedly affected today’s younger generation of organist improvisers.

Clues about improvisatory styles from the last millennium are to be found in contemporary notated works. Heinrich Isaac (1450-1517) left a number of mass settings for alternatim choir and organ and similar traditions developed throughout Renaissance Europe, including England, where in some institutions the organ would improvise alternate verses of the office hymns. Many of these ‘improvised’ verses were captured and copied by enthusiasts such as the famous sixteenth century organist Thomas Mulliner.

With the formation of concert societies in the 18th century, improvisation found a new secular audience. Handel entertained the crowds during the interval of his oratorio premieres in the 1730s and 40s by improvising at the organ and this style is clearly seen in the notated organ concerti which he published in response to great demand from his public.

In classical France the organ masses by de Grigny and Couperin are rare instances of a written-down ‘improvised’ tradition. Musical notation apart, further evidence of the nature of the tradition is found in a liturgical document of 1662: the Cérémonial des évêques outlines the soloistic role of the organist in the mass at the following key points: Introit, Gradual, Offertory, Elevation, Communion, and Sortie. These improvisations would have been substantial, while shorter improvisations would alternate with the choir’s singing of the ordinary chant.

Whilst the written-down improvisations of earlier times provide us with a stylised snapshot of the creativity of the time, the ‘stylus phantasticus’ of the 17th and 18th century North Germans was improvisatory by its very nature. Virtually all of J. S. Bach’s preludes and fugues display improvisatory characteristics clearly informed by his elder, Dietrich Buxtehude, whom he admired greatly and travelled long distances to hear. The great G minor fugue BWV 524 is thought to be a written-down improvisation, since the theme was given to applicants for the post of Hamburg Cathedral organist in 1725. On another occasion, Bach apparently improvised for half an hour on An den Wasserflüssen Babylon when unsuccessfully applying for the organist post at St Jacob’s, Hamburg, in 1720. (The successful candidate was required to pay the church authorities a hefty bribe, which Bach was not prepared to do.)

Until the end of the 19th century the organ course at the Paris Conservatoire was centred around improvisation. Widor’s professorship (1890-1937) saw a shift away from this position, but important additions to the 20th century repertoire are nevertheless improvisation based: the five Tournemire improvisations transcribed by Duruflé (1936); Dupré’s Symphonie-Passion (1921); Messiaen’s Messe de la Pentecôte (1950); Bovet’s Trois Préludes Hambourgeois (1970-86); Rogg’s Partita sopra Nun freut euch (1976-95); and of course the improvisations of Cochereau transcribed by David Briggs, François Lombard and others. The art continues to flourish on the continent in the hands of such luminaries as Guy Bovet, Peter Planyavsky, Jos van der Kooy and Naji Hakim.

Why is it that the art of improvisation is seen as largely a continental skill with England being a poor relation? Whereas civic pride in Europe might manifest itself in the building of a splendid organ for the town hall or church, England’s musical heritage is vested in a choral tradition. The English choral tradition is, of course, second to none and must go a long way to explaining the English organ’s strong accompaniment qualities. The predominance of ‘repertoire’ training today means that most young English organists unwittingly turn their backs on what is after all the very life-blood of the repertoire. Perhaps the art has been marginalised by its inclusion in exams as a keyboard ‘test’ (along with harmonisation, transposition and score reading which are, of course, important skills). As a result, improvisation has been viewed, at best, as ‘polyfilla’ for a delayed liturgical procession or, at worst, an exam exercise. 

However, in recent times the English art of improvisation has undergone a much-needed recovery championed by David Briggs, Wayne Marshall, Nigel Allcoat and others. Disciplined improvisation with form and structure is increasingly seen as an essential part of the organist’s ‘tool kit’. It is now more common for organ recitals to include an improvised item as part of the programme and many of the historic recordings of Cochereau’s improvisations are again available on disc.

The past 1000 years have yielded an incredible legacy of notated music but, as we have become aware of other cultures’ improvised musical traditions, attitudes to notated music have shifted. Take the creative procedures of jazz musicians, rock bands or the aleatory movement of the late 20th century, for example. There will always be a place for written music, but we must not be prisoners to it.

Alexander Mason, Alistair Dixon, August 2000

Performer's Note

Seated at the console of the organ in Gloucester Cathedral one can gaze from the vast Norman columns of the nave on the left to the soaring perpendicular arches of the quire on the right. This juxtaposition of styles has always fascinated me and is something that has informed my music. 

I was a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral between 1982 and 1988 and I first became aware of the possibilities of improvisation listening to many Cochereau-inspired improvisations by Mark Blatchly. In common with many choristers I learned the organ as one of my instrumental studies and later, in 1996, I attended the Haarlem Summer Academy. A whole new world of improvisatory style was laid before me. The tutors were Jos van der Kooy (Holland), Peter Planyavsky (Austria) and Naji Hakim (France) and lessons were on the 1735 Christian Muler organ at St Bavo. With my background of French style harmony I found Naji Hakim’s fusion of the modern French tradition and eastern rhythms the most compelling. However, I was fascinated by the counterpoint of Jos van der Kooy and the motivic ideas of Peter Planyavsky. For me, the future lay here and I decided to spend the next two years studying with Jos van der Kooy, my aim being to make a style growing from the harmony of Cochereau and Messiaen and using the polyphonic methods of the modern Dutch school.

One of the reasons for choosing the Gloucester organ for this disc was because of the new pedal divide system. This enables the organist to split the pedal board at mid point and play a melody with the right foot and bass with the left. The illustration shows this technique—combining two pedal parts with left hand harmonisation, and the right hand playing two solo lines by ‘thumbing down’. The result (which can be heard on tracks 3, 12, 18 and 20) is five separate voices each with their own tone colour.

The disc was conceived as a collection of four large-scale pieces. Each piece is made up of a number of movements, designed to show off the Gloucester organ, and the variety of improvisatory techniques.

For each improvisation I would set up some general pistons for sounds that I might use—a crescendo for the mass Introit or contrasting sound blocks for the Minuet-Waltz. The variations follow the practice of Couperin and de Grigny where each movement demonstrates a particular colour, and polyphonic variations alternate with harmonic ones with changes of speed, dynamic and texture.

Throughout each improvisation I aim to give each new musical idea an identifiable sound of its own. For example, in the ‘B’ section of the March there are five ideas, each with a separate colour and rhythm: left foot, bass; right foot, percussion effects; left hand, West Positive mutations; right hand, dialogue between the Great foundations and the Choir cremona. The Suite is, in part, homage to Cochereau’s Suite des Danses; the Bolero is especially influenced by this work. The March is more reminiscent of Prokofiev with motivic polyphony, while the Sicilienne echoes that from Duruflé’s Suite. The Waltz and Gigue evoke a more secular ‘fairground’ style. Finally, the spirit of the Gigue is mixed with the Latin-American clavé rhythm.

The Mass in the usual five-movement format is an evocation of the historic French tradition. I created new rhythmic motifs from the plainsong thirty seconds before the red light went on. The Elevation is a lyrical Dutch-style fugue. The Fantaisie is based on a virelai by Guillaume de Machaut (1300-77) Je vivroie liement (I should lead a happy life). Near the end of the final session the producer said ‘I think we can finish this tonight—have you got anything else?’ This wide-ranging collage was the result. 

I am convinced that improvisation is an art that can be developed in many more organists. Just as one learns at an early age to construct sentences—the fluent improvisations we call speech and that we take for granted—so it follows that a musician who learns to construct phrases will in time be fluent in his or her own idiom.

Enjoy the disc and go try some new sounds for yourself. Remember the mantra ‘There are no mistakes in improvisation!’

Alexander Mason, August 2000

The genesis of this disc was at a North London party in January 1996. Towards the end of the evening a group of latecomers rang the doorbell and it wasn’t long before one of the group had sought out the electronic keyboard in the corner of the room and had started improvising. It was evident that in Alexander Mason there was a remarkable talent which was deserving of a wider audience. By capturing this new talent on disc we have added a further generation to the almost apostolic succession of recorded artists beginning with Tournemire and continuing in England with David Briggs.

We were delighted that Gloucester Cathedral was made available to us for the recording. Since David Briggs’s arrival in Gloucester as organist in 1994 the cathedral has become one of the great centres of the art of improvisation and it brings Alexander Mason full circle, back to his musical roots.

Producing a disc of improvisations is rather different from recording an organist playing composed music. Usually each piece would be recorded more than once and the takes edited to produce a perfect ‘spliced’ version with slips and errors eliminated. With improvisation there are no wrong notes and all tracks on this disc are therefore single takes; listeners are guaranteed a live performance.

In advance of the recording sessions I suggested taking the feast of Pentecost (Whit) as the inspiration for the chant-based pieces and I supplied Alex with a copy of the Roman chant from the mass and offices. Beyond this no further preparation took place until the recording.

The recordings were made in two three-hour evening sessions on 4th and 5th May 2000 between 7.00pm and 10.00pm. Most tracks were recorded once only. If inspiration ran dry a second or third take would result. Each take was completely different and in each case the last take was used.

At the end of the process we had, within a period of six hours, created and captured a little over an hour’s worth of completely original and spectacular invention. It was a remarkable experience.

Alistair Dixon, August 2000