A Personal Favorite of Mine

One of my favorite pieces for organ is Charles-Marie Widor's Toccata from Organ Symphony No. 5. It's an amazing piece that requires lots of skill and practice to perfect, but when you do, to me it's one of the most powerful, inspiring compositions I have ever heard. It is also one of the most famous pieces written for organ. I'm learning to play it, but I can only get through the first couple of lines without stopping, since it moves so fast and is so very complex.

Here's a recording I found on YouTube of this piece being played, and you'll see what I mean:



So, you can tell it's a pretty complex work. And awesome. It really lets you show off the power of an organ.

Recently, I stumbled upon another piece based on, and in fact accompanied by Widor's toccata, as performed by the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. It's called "Sing!" and it's a little different from what the Choir usually sings, but it's absolutely staggering. It's a choral and orchestral rendition of Widor's Toccata. Of course, the Toccata was written as part of a symphony and therefore may have originally been performed with an orchestra, they added some of the orchestration, as well as the choral singing to the piece. The video includes some great shots of organist Richard Elliott going to town on the LDS Conference Center's Schoenstein & Co. Organ. He is performing the Toccata verbatim as far as I can tell. Definitely a great Sunday afternoon watch!

Here's the video:

I hope you guys enjoyed this! Happy Sunday!