From when I started my professional studies —in 1977— I based my ideal of playing the organ on a passage from the first biography on Bach, written by Forkel in 1802, according to which Bach was able to achieve a huge expression with very small movements of hands and feet only. In 2006 I called this ideal "The Art of Doing Nothing", a multi-layered term which I later replaced by "The art of playing with relaxed precision".
In 2017 I abandoned this ideal, in particular because of three events:
- watching Werner Herzog's documentary The Cave of Forgotten Dreams, about the prehistoric cave of Chauvet in the south of France, in which an about 30.000 years old, bone flute was shown. This stimulated me to leave the notion of Western art music and take the perspective of a time traveller, visiting moments that inspire me, like the cave of Chauvet, de water organ in the Roman Empire, gregorian chant in the middle ages, the blind organist Francesco Landini and the Italian Ars Nova, Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, a Mohawk Indian in the 17th century, Bach himself of course, Olivier Messiaen and his first wife Claire Delbos, organist Feike Asma, pianist Cecil Taylor, hoboist Marcel Ponseele and bansuri player Hariprasad Chaurasia.
- the performance of my project Olivier Messiaen and the Cave of Forgotten Sounds in the St. Stephen's Church in Nijmegen, during which I felt a perfect harmony between the instrument, the sound and the space of the church.
- a meeting with my former (i.e. before 1977) organ teacher Rudi van Straten in the St. Walburga's Church in Zutphen, to play and discuss some choral preludes by Bach on the magnificent Henrick Bader organ.
My new ideal of playing the organ is based on playing strong beats with an upward feeling from the lower stomach. This automatically creates a "gut feeling" which balances the activity of the brain. Physically it results in:
- a dancelike movement while playing (also regarding the wrists, which due to my former ideal of playing are very relaxed and supple)
- an improved breathing
- a tendency to lean back instead of forward. I have been searching for this for many years, as I always found that a keyboard player's world becomes small when bowing towards the instrument.
My fysiotherapist says that these movements from the lower stomach will train the muscle that can prevent pain at the lower back. That would be a very positive side effect.
Mentally it results in feeling more harmony between the organ, the sound and the space of the church. I always say that the organist's ears have to be where the audience is; leaning back with a gut feeling and good breathing makes this much easier. You feel more like being at the heart of the event and its meaning.
Rudi van Straten's advice in the St. Walburga's Church was simple and efficient: play Bach like you played Olivier Messiaen and the Cave of Forgotten Sounds in Nijmegen and unite instrument, sound and space. This is an example of how I played my own music:
Regarding Bach I intend to combine my new ideal of playing with emotional freedom, through three states of mind which are at the basis of human life: rage, joy and suffering. I consider rage as a source of wild energy, necessary for the performance of many of Bach's organ toccatas, preludes, fantasies and fugues (which in Bach's days may well have been associated with the Holy Spirit).
Joy is represented by, for instance, the elegance of the trio sonatas:
Suffering serves the performance of profound chorale preludes:
The above examples are played at my study organ at home. A next step in my research will be to realize my new way of playing Bach on some of the most beautiful historical organs in Europe. Practising at home with the highy realistic digitalized sound of ancient instruments helps me to be well prepared for this step. The perspective of a time traveller also; these historical instruments are like huge personalities that you can meet already spiritually, so to speak, thanks to imagination and digital technology.
As a teacher at Codarts, University of the Arts, Rotterdam, I pass on this new expertise through the minor Soulful Grooves in the 21st Century. I am also preparing two new courses: J.S. Bach - analysis, interpretation and physicality and Romantic music- analysis, interpretation and physicality (possibly but not necessarily for Codarts).
In a way this research implies going beyond professionalism and re-discovering a lost naivity, which in its turn is another layer of The Art of Doing Nothing.
Dancing Bach on the organ is dedicated to the memory of Claire Delbos, Messiaen's first wife, who spent the last fifteen years of her life in a psychiatric institute.
