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1. The new organ of Uranienborg church

It’s “Little Christmas Eve”, as December 23rd is known in Norway. Tomorrow is the great celebration. Our already sky high consumption will make another jump, as Norwegian families gather, eating tons of meat and drinking gallons of alcoholic substances. Many will make their annual pilgrimage to their parish church, to hear about the supposed reason for the celebration — the birth of Jesus Christ, some 2000 years ago. But is it really?

Jul, as “Christmas” known among Norwegians, has been celebrated since long before Christianity came to Norway. That it hasn’t even got a more Christian name (Kristmesse would have been a perfectly good Norwegian word) is indicative of how the old traditions have been kept to this day. There’s one big difference however; they’re fueled by fossils!

When I was a little boy (well, smaller than now) I was told that “eventyr”, a word covering fairy tales and adventures, always have a happy ending. The Norwegian “oil and gas adventure”, however, won’t have one. From 1990 to 2004, the oil industry, generally owned by the Norwegian State, increased its emissions of greenhouse gases by 77 per cent. The collected Norwegian emmissions increased by 11 per cent in the same period.

There were those who rightly thought that Norway got a very good deal in the Kyoto agreement, being allowed to increase its emissisons by 1 per cent from the 1990 level. But Norway, always eager to proclaim itself as a nation of peace and environmental consciousness, fails par excellence in meeting even this first tiny little step on the road.

For the record: The oil industry provides the Norwegian economy with some 300 billion NOK ($45 billion) every year, keeping the currency stable and effectively providing the highest standard of living in the world.

Every major political party in this country has as its main goal further growth. A tremendous pressure has been put on the authorities to open the Barents to the oil industry, and for the most part they seem happy to oblige. Sure, the oil is a necessity of Norwegian life.

I’d like to see the Norwegian family having North Sea oil for breakfast!

Now, if only there were some spiritual guide lights to follow in all this darkness. The Norwegian State Church! 85.3 per cent of the Norwegian population are members. It could be our way out of materialism, leading the quest for a spiritually rich society. Why does it fail?

Even though roughly half of the population believes in God, only 20 per cent hold “religion” as a vital part of their lives. 40 per cent never attend church, and that those who do, mostly come only for “family events” and Christmas Eve. A curious distiction between being “Christian” — a member of the church who doesn’t care much about it — and “personally Christian” — actually believing in the Gospel — has come about. The latter kind tends to avoid the State Church. Not all, but many find instead a home in a free congregation. That’s quite understandable, considering the political concensus that the Norwegian State Church should be an “open and inclusive church for the people”, not mentioning the “uncomfortable” parts of Christianity, so as to avoid excluding any Norwegian taxpayer. In return, the Church receives hundreds of millions of State funding every year.

No wonder two thirds of the population find this “open and inclusive” Church to be irrelevant to their lives. Yet it has the power of money and tradition to support its activities, leaving millions of people spiritually poorer than ever.

The Norwegian popular religion is not Christianity fueled by the Gospel. I don’t know if it ever was, but I think I know what the new religion is: Commerce and consumption fueled by North Sea fossils.

“Jul” is then a bastard of a pagan solstice party, materialism, and spiritual poverty. We may argue till death that it’s supposed to be something else, but making the transformation happen requires action. To paraphrase Albert Schweitzer: “The celebration of Jul is not the cause of the problem, merely a manifestation of it”. Can the problem be fixed? We’ll find out by trying.

Good luck, and happy holidays.

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This documentary follows Daniel Tammet, a man of almost unbelievable mental abilities in fields like mathematics and languages. A beautiful film about an extraordinary person.

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Photo: Orgelbau Kuhn

We have been experiencing something of a wave of new, sizeable pipe organs in Norway for the past decade, as several cathedrals and main churches have had their post-war instruments rebuilt or replaced. Not without reason: the 1940’s to 80’s are widely considered a low point of Norwegian organ building, even though there certainly are gems worthy of restoration and preservation from this period as well. This wave seems not to be affected by the economic crisis, probably because new instruments are subject to generous funding by Europe’s most affluent petroleum state.

For some time, comparatively little happened to the organ scene of Oslo, the capital city, but this is changing. Two years ago, Fagerborg parish church had its ailing Jørgensen organ completely rebuilt by Goll of Luzern, Switzerland. It is a large organ by Norwegian standards, with 54 stops – one more than the main organ of Oslo Cathedral – on five divisions, including high-pressure solo reeds almost unheard of in this country. This week, the neighboring parish of Uranienborg is celebrating the second major rebuild of what was originally a 1886 II/24 August Nielsen. In its present incarnation by another Swiss firm, Orgelbau Kuhn, the organ is the largest church organ in Oslo, with 56 stops, 14 of which date back to Nielsen’s instrument.

Uranienborg parish church is a neo-gothic structure typical of late 19th-century urban church buildings in western Europe. It is a beautiful space visually and acoustically, which has made it a popular concert venue. The organ is situated on the west gallery, except for the new Altarwerk which is placed directly behind the main altar at the other end of the church. The organ facade has been remained basically unaltered since 1886, except for an added ruckpositive in 1962 removed in the course of the last rebuild, and has been painted in blue-silvery colors somewhat reminescent of the famous “Porsche” organ of the Nikolaikirche, Leipzig.

The new organ was inaugurated last Sunday by the Bishop of Oslo, and presented for the first time in recital by Jon Laukvik later on the same day. Laukvik, who divides his time teaching at the conservatories of Stuttgart and Oslo, and acted as a consultant for this rebuild, performed the following program:

Jon Laukvik: Triptychon
Johann Sebastian Bach: Three chorales on “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland”, BWV 659-661
César Franck: Cantabile
Franz Liszt: Fantasy and Fugue on the chorale “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam”

Before disappearing to the organ loft, Laukvik presented us with a spoken introduction. This was very helpful for the appreciation of the opening work, which consists of three movements – Improvisation, Meditation, and Toccata. The first movement presents an African rythm that Laukvik “discovered in a book at the university library in the 70’s”, gradually building up to a fortissimo, somewhat like Guy Bovet’s Hamburger Totentanz. The Meditation is more in the manner of Messiaen, with lush strings and a soaring flute melody, whereas the finishing Toccata could be characterized as a “dance on three manuals” during which I found myself wanting to jump out of the benches to join in the party. Of course, everyone remained politely in their seats, but there was spontaneous applause afterwards, something not very common at organ recitals in this country.

I thought much of the spoken introduction was too technical. To an organist like myself it was quite interesting, but assuming that most of the audience instinctively knows what a “swell division” and a “flute eight foot” means is a bit over the top, I think. The church was packed, and there were several organists present, but most of those attending would have been ordinary parishioners. However, Laukvik did well to present some theological points for the Bach chorales on Nun komm. The fight of the two bass voices in the second chorale, for example, made sense in Laukvik’s interpretation as a struggle between Jesus and the Devil. (Personally, I think it makes even more sense as internal riots in Hell caused by the news of a coming Savior, but that is besides the main point: that without any extramusical interpretation at all, the piece is just plain weird.) The chorales were all neatly played, showcasing some beautiful solo stops and a plenum surprisingly German baroque-like in character. It might be that I just know these pieces too well, but I cannot help but think that there could have been something in the performance to catch me off guard, to present me with dimensions of the music that I did not know from before. But I was left with no particular feeling at all.

Something of the same could be said for the Franck. Again, Laukvik’s performance was clean as snow. The Swell Trompette harmonique and Oboe were presented as solo stops. I thought the Trompette was a bit quacky, but the Vox Humana (one of the original August Nielsen stops) heard in the final measures was nothing short of etheral. The fluework sounded a bit thin in places; whether this was a conscious choice by the performer or imposed by the instrument, I cannot say.

Jon Laukvik also inaugerated the Goll organ just up the road in Fagerborg two years ago, finishing off with Liszt’s great “Ad Nos”. I did not take notes from that performance, in fact I never do, but I was left with a sensation of flashback last Sunday. Laukvik’s playing is technically brilliant, his interpretations obviously carefully judged, as one would expect from one of Europe’s leading teachers and exponents of historically informed performance practice. Yet despite, or possibly because of this, I missed the almost super-human will to unleash the full power of the work, the desire to literally bring the house down, to leave the audience breathless. The building was left standing, the audience kept breathing through half an hour of beautiful music.

The instrument sounded good from my seat in the front of the nave, although the pedal stops came over as surprisingly gentle. Hopefully, the organ will not have been voiced for the rare occasions of a packed church, and there will be even better things to come. If the quality of the instruments is to be an indication, the pipe organ is facing a bright future in Norway. It is up to us as organists to make people realize this. In the case of Uranienborg, I am confident that parish organist Inger-Lise Ulsrud will do her part, as one of Norway’s most brilliant performers and improvisers.

Photo of Uranienborg Church by Bjørn Erik Pedersen via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

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1. Is learning the organ different from learning other things?
2. Recital at St Thomas, Norwich
3. Recital at Selwyn College Chapel

So you think that money is the root of all evil. Have you ever asked what is the root of all money?

I don’t tend to quote Ayn Rand very often, but in this case she had a point. Given how money influences practically every aspect of our lives, it’s astonishing that most people know next to nothing about how the monetary system works. Paul Grignon’s 47-minute animated presentation “Money as Debt” eloquently guides us through the historical roots of money as we know it. Unfortunately, even this film gets into some well-refuted conspiracy theories, as pointed out by the blog Sounds Familiar. Yet the presentation remains excellent, and the main part of the blogger’s critique — that alternative policies as suggested in the film would cause a steady state economy — is actually good news for those of us who believe that a system based on eternal exponential growth is unsustainable.

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Dear Lord and Father of Mankind

Before Jehova’s Awesome Throne

O God, Our Help in Ages Past

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Excellent BBC documentary on how to feed a world with diminishing supplies of fossil fuels, including a most intriguing introduction to forest gardening. Enjoy!

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We need to ask ourselves one very fundamental question: Is learning how to make music (in this case, organ music) different from learning other things?

The slum quarters of Brazil produces some of the best soccer players on earth. Before being picked up by professional clubs as teenagers, they’ve been playing in the streets with their home-made balls, every day, often for more than 10 years.

Norwegian kids are enrolled in clubs from 6 years of age, getting to play organized matches, guided by trained coaches. Relatively systematically, they’re taught the various kicks and tackles through excercises, being “awarded” with some free playing at the end of the session.

Every year, Norwegian and Brazilian 16-year olds meet during Norway Cup in Oslo. Every year, the Brazilians win hands-down.

Most people master their native language(s) far better than they’ll ever master any musical instrument. Language is probably the most advanced logical structure a human being ever learns. Still, this is difficult to realize before learning a foreign language.

One of my best friends fled together with his family from the civil war in Bosnia-Hercegovina, eventually settling in Norway when he was 10. After four months he spoke Norwegian fluently, and five years later it’s totally impossible to note a foreign accent. He learned Norwegian like he had learned his native tongue—by imitation and courage to speak, even if he didn’t know all the words yet.

I dropped out of school some years ago and have missed hundreds of English lessons. I haven’t done any homework since third grade. All that I know of the English language is what I’ve aquired by reading, writing, and speaking it.

It seems to me that most things can be learned trough imitating, doing, failing, and correcting—and that what ultimately counts is sheer quantity. When learning the organ, “quantity” would not be just time spent practising at the bench, but every organ-related brain process being executed—consciously or not.

Related posts:

1. It’s Little Christmas Eve
2. The new organ of Uranienborg church

• Charles Villiers Stanford: Fantasia and Toccata (op. 57)
• Alfred Hollins: Spring Song
• J.S. Bach: Trio Sonata in C (BWV 529)
• George Thalben-Ball: Variations on a Theme by Paganini for pedals alone
• Intermission with light refreshments
• César Franck: Pièce Héroïque
• Louis Vierne:
  • Andantino (op. 51/2)
  • Intermezzo (op. 51/4)
  • Final (from the 1st Symphony, op. 14)

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