Okay, I’m going to readily confess that I don’t play Italian organ music. In fact, I really wasn’t even planning to go on this Historic Organ Study Tour for that very reason—aside from a few small pieces by Girolamo Frescobaldi, I just don’t have any Italian pieces in my repertoire.  Oh, I have the sheet music by Frescobaldi, Gabrieli, Cavazzoni, Palestrina and Zipoli etc. in my organ library, but I never open the books! And the truth is. I’m sightreading all of the music I brought to play on this trip (in front of all these organists—gasp!)
Putting it another way, I feel like I’m wearing jeans to a prom, or wearing an evening gown to a picnic!

The big surprise is that I’m really loving listening to these historic instruments (and the contemporary organs built in historic Renaissance style). I’m finding that the organs are much more colorful and aggressive than I had imagined, and much louder than I had guessed they would be. Especially I’m really surprised at hearing the reeds—much more buzzy and honky than either French or German reeds.

That said, today our bus took us out into the Treviso countryside to the Montebelluma Chiesa di Santa Maria in Colle. The church sits high on the hill with the added clock tower, giving even more height. This example played by our tour leader, Roberto Antonello, will give you an idea of these gutsy-sounding organs.

The organ was built in 1806 by Gaetano Callido, and although it did not have a short octave like organs we have previously played on this trip, I found the action stiff and hard to play. Also new to me was the fact that the Great manual is on the top rather than on the bottom. 

We drove to the Chiesa di San Cassiano in Quinto di Treviso about half an hour away. This 1865 organ is most unusual in that it is only one of five organo fonocròmico still playing. Invented by Giovanni Battista De Lorenzi, it uses a kind of “double touch” to activate two pipes for every note for every stop. 

The whole reason for this is to imitate the more expressive qualities of the human voice — to have a “swell” on each note. In other words, each register consists of two ranks, and one can play either rank alone or the two together depending on how far the key is depressed. Pressing even harder opens the swell box. 

The kind of music that would suit this organ would be operatic arias, or circus music, none of which are in my repertoire! I settled on a chorale prelude by Helmut Walcha, which some one commented as “sounding oriental.”

When we arrived at the Chiesa di San Michele Arcangelo my heart sank. The 1999 Andrea Zeni organ was the first one on this trip that had two full manuals, and a full pedalboard, no short octaves! 

My heart sank, though, because today was the one day I had decided to leave my organ shoes at the hotel, and here was one organ where I could really have made use of them. The organ was built in French Romantic style to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the death of Cavaillé-Coll and unfortunately, I did not have a single piece of French music with me! No shoes and no music, groan!

I asked around the other tour participants and thankfully found Stephen Morris  willing to loan me some of his music. He had a copy of Flor Peeters, Aria, so that’s what I played. 

Like borrowing a dress and shoes to go to the prom! (I took off my athletic shoes and played in my socks.)