Sunday Pipes #17

Sunday Pipes on Saturday.

It was forty-one years ago today that Edward George Power Biggs died.

Arguably one of, if not THE  most accomplished organists of the 20th century, Biggs was a master of the King of Instruments.

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Back in the late 1980’s, I had the opportunity to visit his grave at Mt. Auburn Cemetery, with the funeral director that assisted with Bigg’s funeral.  I was told that on order of the (now late) Mrs. Biggs, not a note of music was played at his funeral.

Mt. Auburn, located in Cambridge, MA is the final resting place for many noteworthy individuals.

Long before cell phones,  this was taken with a real camera,  with real film . . . a  Cannon AE-1 Program.

Bigg’s music will live forever and he and Virgil are probably in heaven, still arguing who was better.

No question about my vote. . . Biggs.

This is from October 29, 2000, NYT article about Virgil Fox:

His greatest American rival then was E. Power Biggs, an English-born organist and another popularizer of Bach’s works, who in his followers’ eyes was the antithesis of everything Fox stood for. To ”purists” who looked to Biggs as their idol before he died in 1977, classical pipe organs with clear sound capable of articulating Bach’s contrapuntal music were the ideal, not vast, orchestral organs like Riverside’s that could blast you out of your seat. Electronic instruments were anathema.

E. Power Biggs performing Bach’s Fugue in G Major on Harvard University’s Flentrop Organ.