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Peter Dickinson born (1934)

Blue Rose Variations (1985)

FIRST PERFORMANCE AT THE PROMS

1. Theme 2. Variation 1
3. Variation 2
4. Variation 3
5. Variation 4
6. Variation 5
7. Variation 6

If musicians were asked to vote for the least likely jazz instruments, chances are the classical organ would end up at – or at least near – the top of the list. Melodic style in jazz, and particularly in the blues, is highly vocal in style, while the organ remains intransigently un-vocal in expression – or, as Stravinsky once put it, ‘the monster never breathes’. Then there’s the question of ‘tone’ in the broader sense: for most of us, an instrument such as the Royal Albert Hall’s organ has strong associations with religious music, despite its secular setting. Peter Dickinson tells us that the climactic Variation 6 of his Blue Rose Variations has been described as ‘an orgy of secularity invading the once sacred organ loft’.

However, the organ has deeper, more formative connections with jazz than one might expect. Several of the greatest early jazz pianists were church organists in their youth, and some stayed loyal to the instrument: Fats Waller, for example, made recordings of his improvisations at the organ, and these can be strangely touching, as though Waller was able to show his refined and tender side more easily in the privacy of the organ loft. And something of the familiar side of Waller – playful, at times Rabelaisian, but always musical – shines through in Dickinson’s Blue Rose Variations

Dickinson wrote his Blue Rose Variations in 1985 for the organist Jennifer Bate, 14 years after his last major work for the instrument, the Organ Concerto (1971). In the meantime he’d become more deeply engaged with jazz, particularly early blues and ragtime. During this period of discovery he’d made arrangements of Edward MacDowell’s piano miniature ‘To a Wild Rose’ in blues and classical ragtime styles. Then he had the idea of adapting them for the organ and making them the basis of a virtuoso showpiece.

The result is an ingenious sequence of variations, beginning with a distinctly ‘blue’ version of MacDowell’s theme – imagine a delicate, willowy Victorian heroine transformed into a deliciously louche Harlem streetwalker and you’ll get the general idea. After this come six variations: the odd-numbered variations are built up from a lively, metrically complex pedal solo; the even-numbered ones are all in 2/2, but with syncopations and cross-rhythms tugging increasingly against the beat as the climax approaches. Still, at the very end the organ does manage a hint of a demure little smile.

Programme note © Stephen Johnson

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