Maurice Duruflé: Suite pour Orgue Op. 5 - Toccata

Prof. Nathan Laube is playing the Hauptwerk organ of Joerg Glebe in a home recital using the sample set of the Cavaillé-Coll organ in Caen/F.

[@marcroussin4656]

Exceptionnel... Mille mercis!

[@stevecarry6016]

Words escape me. Absolutely incredible!!

[@georgefelty6357]

Mr. Laube has great control and command of the instrument and wonderful finger dexterity!

[@Eleuthero5]

This guy is insanely talented. His style is fast yet so unerringly coordinated. The feet and hands aren't a 64th note out of sync. Truly an American style of playing but so tight that it's awesomely satisfying.

[@johnbowen1859]

I went looking for a recording of this piece because it was sometimes played as a voluntary at the end of services in a Cambridge chapel when I sang there. It evokes such memories, the momentary silence at the end of a big service, followed by this monster. It was always incredibly exciting - every great organ voluntary had its own flavour, and this a very particular one, slightly vertiginous with all the scurrying in the hands, and Frankenstein in the pedals. And this is a terrific performance, beautifully paced and as good to watch as to hear.

[@Alleghenymike]

Funny you should describe it in this way. When I was learning it in undergrad school I had written on the manuscript “The monster and the rabbit” - the scurrying about is often lost in the sonic wash of many instruments/halls

[@johnperry9628]

Durufle's total body of published work is small. However, this movement of this one piece is known to be a "workhorse" of the modern organ repertoire. It is obviously an extraordinary piece and this rendition of it is nothing less than sensational. I never tire of it after dozens of hearings.

[@Highinsight7]

YES! most of Durufle's music could easily be listed on one piece of paper... and just one side... BUT... such GREAT music... up there with the BEST of the BEST! Nathan COMPLETELY does this work justice!

[@monoamiga]

I have NEVER heard such precision in this masterpiece!!! WELL DONE! Amazing!

[@alainmeyet699]

Ce que vous déclarez semble tout simplement venir du fait que jamais un organiste n'a joué de cette manière, ne croyez-vous pas ? Avec Nathan Laube, nous entendons des oeuvres pour la première fois, même si nous pensions bien les connaître. Nous nous trouvons embarqués avec lui dans un vaisseau musical spatial d'un genre nouveau, sans espoir d'un retour dont nous ne voulons plus désormais... Pour lui, l'orgue est-il vraiment un instrument de musique ? N'est-il pas un moyen d'accéder à l'art sublime et total, et carrément à une autre dimension ?... Sur cette vidéo qui date de 2013, Nathan Laube n'a que 24 ans ! Prochainement, le 11 juillet 2017, il se produira pour la première fois aux grandes orgues de Notre-Dame de Paris ; et il y interprétera, entre autres oeuvres, cette "Suite" de Maurice Duruflé. Espérons que les auditeurs présents (dont de nombreux touristes de passage à Paris) sauront apprécier et goûter ces moments uniques... Alain Meyet (Paris)

[@Alleghenymike]

Nice performance - the registration and acoustics permitted the intricacies of this challenging piece of organ literature to come through.

[@PalmSpringsPatriot]

This is a digital instrument and a good one. Everything you hear including the acoustics is digital.

[@ruthpeck3441]

This was awesome. I can't even imagine where the 34 people who put thumbs down are coming from!

[@gemmacoebergh8062]

Never heard it better! Amazing technique, but also a marvellous tribute to one of the greatest composers for organ!

[@ColinHarvey78]

Wow! Possibly the cleanest and most detailed performance of this formidable piece published. Incredible playing. I only wish it were performed on a real organ. But 11/10 for playing all the same!

[@jimsaenger7316]

George Markey did a great job at Wuerzburg and that has some very interesting colors.

[@jimsaenger7316]

That was a Psallite issue, possibly available from Klais.

[@ModernPilgrimArt]

Best organ video I have seen! Nathan, you are a machine! Incredible!! This organ sounds Awesome!!!

[@thetenor1000]

Like no other player I've ever heard. Amazing; stunning in every respect.

[@PaulaPughRomanaux]

Bravo, Nathan. Beautiful, lyrical, dramatic and such ease. I am privileged to have watched you from Curtis till now. All best.

[@musicalhotcha]

For those who are curious and have been asking, Nathan has been named to the organ faculty at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester. Congratulations, Nathan!

[@denekaraus8592]

He left 2 years ago, but now he's coming back!

[@amusicscore]

Supremo!

[@emilelaroche]

This is simply amazing! The very clean recording lets you hear every single note, and the performance is astounding!

[@chen0466]

That is not just the quality of the recording - which is excellent, but also the brilliant technical ability of Nathan Laube.

[@neilhunter6096]

Stunning rendition. Amazing speed and accuracy throughout the whole Toccata. Beautiful.

[@franckranaivo666]

🥰💞🌻🌼⛑🇻🇦✝️🇲🇬⛑🌼🌻💞🥰🌼🦁🌼💐💒💐🌸🏵🌸🌿🌻🌿💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🇻🇦💞🌼💐🌿🌸💞🏵🙋‍♂️

[@charlesdavis7087]

OMG. Nathan. Speechless.

[@sfopera]

This is the clearest and most articulated performance of this great work I've ever heard!!!

[@tubosyaire1999]

Espectacular!!👏👏👏

[@wolf-dietermatern8388]

Champions League!! - Makellose Technik. Ganz große Klasse. Weltklasse. Besten Dank, Mister Nathan Laube. Es ist ein einzigartiges Vergnügen, in diesem Video Ihr Spiel zu erleben. It's an unique pleasure to experience your game in this video. Thank You so very much.

[@suzukimusicdallastvsmidtv3494]

Terrific performance - maybe the best I've ever heard.

[@danvoight9393]

I have to come back and watch this over and over again! Bravo!

[@PBHWK]

This music and the precision...the attention to detail is phenomenal. Well done you...

[@lucponet538]

Fantastic: the performance as well as the sound!

[@dennisferrara6940]

Stunning as always by this brilliant concert organist! Thank you Nathan!

[@thurmsthor]

Una toccata tra le più difficili in assoluto mai scritte per organo. Splendida esecuzione

[@charlesdavis7087]

There is a God!

[@dossy12]

Absolutely outstanding!

[@matthewscott7198]

Astounding and seemingly-effortless performance on a masterpiece of digital technology. The lack of actual acoustic allows more of Duruflé's ideas to read through - there are subtleties in this recording that I've never been able to hear properly before. Interesting to note that the general appearance of the console (including the flat pedal-board) appears to be modeled on Cavaillé-Coll's magnum opus at Saint-Sulpice, thankfully with modern swell-box pedals instead of foot-levers. Again, a marvelous performance, rock-solid and well-chosen tempos, and, of course, note-perfect!

[@JohnBoyDeere]

Breath taking performance! I forgot what blue looked like in the mirror! Bravo Nathan!!

[@abqcleve]

Terrific performance on an incredible instrument, in someone's home, no less!! Thanks!

[@dossy12]

All that is missing is rapturous applause at the end!

[@tshreenan]

Nathan Laube is one of America's most gifted young organists and this series of videos on this marvelous Hauptwerk organ is proof. Bravo, Nathan!

[@PBHWK]

Oh...One more thing...I love the little pedal view.

[@strongercoffee]

What an amazing performance. Thanks for posting.

[@tcdpenn2]

Delightful, thank you!

[@OrbiliusMagister]

What a wonderful video work: this camera angle gives a great insight of Mr Laube's approach: bravura without showmanship, which is a hard compromise, appropriate only to a very limited number of virtuosos. This video shows us the terrific pianistic technique required by the piece.

[@juliapago1901]

genial - die beste Aufnahme dieses Stückes, die ich je gehört habe ! Phänomenal!

[@Tierheiler]

Sauber und präzise ausgeführt und dabei hochmusikalisch geblieben... Respekt :-)

[@oliviermonnet3592]

Magnifique interprétation! et très bonne vidéo. Merci!

[@tropicjam7343]

This guy has an incredible sense of metric.he s a melodist,harmonist and percutionnist.great articulation.

[@cochetisabelle75]

Magnifique. Très belle version de cette oeuvre que je découvre grâce à vous. Félicitations

[@daveflanagan5723]

Superb!

[@dietmerplendt6850]

wonderful recording !!!

[@Doug19752533]

this must be one of Durufle's later editions of the Toccata, ive only heard the original version, and this one has some very interesting alterations, esp the ending which is completely different. a masterful performance!

[@JMcdon1627]

I like your energetic pedal technique. Excellent.

[@danvoight9393]

fantastic!

[@alanwerner8563]

I don’t know how this translates into French or Breton but here in California we would just say, “ D U D E “ I mean, “Duuuude” You ROCK THE PIPES (and the pedals too).

[@jsbe1429]

Woow!!!!! Superb!

[@scottcoffinhotmail]

Wow. Awesome.

[@denekaraus8592]

Durufle hated this movement of this piece, but only because he never heard Nathan play it!

[@robosoftknk]

Bravo pour cette remarquable performance.

[@philipjakob9040]

You should also hear the wonderful performance by Stephen Hicks on a private recording from St George's College Weybridge decades ago. He still has it on his website so you can still listen to it.

[@ulrichsteiger757]

👍👍👍👍👍SUPER👏👏👏👏👏

[@WilliamFord972]

I like the dual camera!

[@StepUpYourSTR]

Super!

[@Rheinlander95]

Love all the feet in the background pointing to the organ and organist.

[@robris72]

Beautiful! So simple and natural!!

[@estellegerthoffert572]

c'est à s'y méprendre effectivement il y a même un rouleau de crescendo tout ça chez dans son salon? il existe tout de même des lieux plus porteurs...?

[@robertosolito1276]

nel suono sembra complicato nelle mani e piedi sembra semplice

[@TomPauls007]

Who's console is that? A Johannus adapted to MIDI (mine is)? Huge for someone's house. I'm using a humble Jo. Opus 37...

[@franzkrenn6987]

Segr Schön gespielt !

[@JohnProthero]

Questions on this particular instrument: is the bottom manual the great? It seems voiced differently than a choir division. 2nd, he continually depresses the same toe stud, but the results vary, rather than just one specific registration. Is there a means of programming a single toe stud with varying registrations? And if so, how does it work? Is it sequential?

[@westminster6199]

The manuals are following the usual French order of Grande Orgue, Positif, Récit, although the Hauptwerk software allows you to set the arrangement differently if you so choose. (There is no fourth manual on the Caen organ). Prof. Laube is utilizing the registration stepper often found in modern switching systems, here a function of the Hauptwerk software rather than the sample set. This provides a sequence of up to 1000 stages (general combinations). There are often multiple controls to activate. He is usually using a particular toe stud, but occasionally a manual piston to perform the "next" function.

[@JohnProthero]

I see. So he can "reset" the toe-stud for a preset registration by using a thumb-piston, sort of like a toggle switch.

[@TomPauls007]

Stepper stud - programmed sequence.

[@williamfritz6870]

Not sure, but probably the manuals are in "continental" style - bottom manual is the Great. The toe stud could be a "next" button - means that it goes to the next general memory bank. Eg, you're on general memory #1, press the next button, and get general #2. I've played on a few instruments like that. It's a handy feature (so you don't have to figure out where the next piston is!!!)

[@BurkhardTerhart]

You find a good explanation in Wiki searching for combination action. You´re right. The toestud is a kind of "forward switch" to choose the next combination.

[@ljmiddaugh]

An ad was thrown right the middle of this... grrr

[@ugocasiglia9536]

spettacolare !!!

[@josephf151]

I know nearly nothing of pipe organs, but based on the description, this is a organ keyboard with all the controls in his house, and he is then using sound samples from a real organ and playing it back? I did not know you could even do such a thing but it makes sense as otherwise an organ could never be in ones home.

[@johnrobinson1132]

How do you feel, Nathan, in the moment after you press the General Cancel button when you have performed like this?

[@loremipsum7471]

Nathan is the Glenn Gould of the organ?

[@Turri17]

como raya

[@frsimonlumby5078]

Superb playing!

[@nessunoanomino4506]

darrei la vità, per improvisare- compore- suonare, come lei!?

[@davidjack1975]

Non sta improvvisando e non sta componendo

[@HERIBERTO37ify]

Merevilleux ouvré!!

[@Joeperscc]

Jeschbac, Durufle played an electropneumatic action organ at St-Étienne-du-Mont, Paris, where he was titulaire ~ what his opinion of current digitally sampled instruments might be is anyone's guess, including yours, given that he ceased performing in public in 1975 after the tragic auto accident, and died in 1986 before the advent of current generation sampling such as done for Hauptwerk. Now, having said that, I would ask just where you find "grand pauses" in Prof. Laube's performance? [Assistant Prof. of Organ at Eastman School of Music, arguably USA's premier conservatory] ~ as to tempo, if anything I would suggest Laube takes a bit too much liberty with tempo: controlled, yes, but not rigid; conservative, no. I find, strictly my opinion, the sound of the Hauptwerk unsatisfactory in this video, but I suspect the recording "engineering" is to blame. There is gross distortion of sound from minute 7 onward. With Hauptwerk or any other organ-type musical appliance, while the samples & electronic processors may be of supreme caliber, if the amps & speakers are not, the sound will be inferior, and I do not hear quality sound in one moment of this video from that instrument ~ again, it may be faulty recording, and I might have an entirely different impression hearing it live. The faux - reverberation is laughable, utterly gimmicky. I've heard Prof. Laube perform "live" many times and would gladly travel great distance and pay a hefty sum to hear him many times more. But I do not care to hear this video again even once, even with so masterful an artist as Laube performing. FYI, I am an organist of over 50 years at the console, all kinds, inc. electronic / digital. And I would not even attempt the Durufle Toccata! so bravo from me to those who do! Vale.

[@lewwilliams9617]

Hey, D Joe and Jess -- Shall we just agree to say that Nathan is a masterful musician and performer. Whatever the sum and substance of the instrument played here, not everyone can have a monstrous and wonderful Cavaillé-Coll in their music room. And not everyone possesses your own respective credentials as performers and scholars, so they might perhaps settle for less than the real thing. I myself make do with a modest 2-manual Rodgers in my own home, having no room for anything larger. If the instrument in question here was a small and wheezy Mutin instrument, would it receive a greater approval rating, being "authentic?"

[@lewwilliams9617]

Alors, Jeschbac, vous est trop dur et difficile. L'orgue sonne bien, et Nathan est plein de talent et musicalité.

[@JohnSheales-ek8sv]

Z

[@johnrobinson9465]

If you look closely in between the upright pieces to the left of the picture, you can see clearly that a second organist is playing a second set of keyboards behind the music rack. Professor Laube is just finger-synching! JUST KIDDING. IT'S A JOKE!

[@josephR1938]

+John Robinson Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!!!

[@Jeschbac]

Mais ce n'est pas ca la musique de Maurice Durufle ! Durufle n'admettait JAMAIS les trucs electriques. Tempo conservateur et tres controle. En plus, les grandes pauses ici et la sont inadmissibles. Le grand Cavaille a Caen ne sonne pas comme ca, c'est sur ! Il est professeur OU ?

[@skriabinlover]

Superb!