Swiss organist Yves Rechsteiner brings previously unheard sounds to the Grosse Tonhalle with his trio RCM.
Yves Rechsteiner, you will be organising the final concert of this year's Organ Days. What can we expect?
In a nutshell: We from the RCM trio will be playing pieces by great rock groups from the 1970s, which we have adapted for our instruments, i.e. for organ, guitar and drums.
Why exactly this music?
The genre is called "progressive rock" and is also known as "symphonic rock". This term refers to two characteristics of this music. On the one hand, the works are much longer than standard rock pieces - sometimes up to 20 minutes. This means that a song can contain numerous exciting themes. On the other hand, this music has an incredible variety of sounds. That's what we particularly like and are interested in. We utilise the possibilities of the organ, the drums and, of course, the guitar. The whole thing has something kaleidoscopic about it.
How did you come to play progressive rock together?
It really had to do with the randomness of life. I started performing with Henri-Charles Caget more than 15 years ago. At the time, I was making organ transcriptions and thought it would be nice to have a percussion accompaniment to Jean-Philippe Rameau's operas to give the dances more rhythm. The organ is a very rhythm-poor instrument, it lacks a bit of a touch. That's why I thought additional percussion was great. It worked so well that we started playing together regularly. But at first it was purely baroque repertoire, later we also added works by Mozart and Haydn. In 2012, I got to know the music of Frank Zappa - that was a great discovery for me. Of course, I then wanted to realise a project for organ and percussion, which we did. By chance, we gave a concert in 2014 and realised that the Toulouse orchestra was also playing Zappa that same year. The guitarist Fred Maurin was invited for this programme. We didn't know him, but we contacted him and asked if he would be interested in travelling with the orchestra the day before the concert and performing with us. We were all so taken with this combination that we decided to work together regularly, and so we became a trio.
How do you write the arrangements for this unusual line-up?
We have a very personal process. First I work on an organ version. Then, in a second phase, the percussionist creates his own part, but with my version in mind. So he adds a new layer of sounds based on the organ sound. The guitar has two different functions: Either it plays the melody and thus has a lyrical task, or it is responsible for the bass line. The percussion forms the rhythmic part of the music - which is quite natural - but sometimes it also takes on melodic elements.
The organ is known as "the" instrument for improvisation. Will we get to hear any of this in the Tonhalle?
There are always parts in progressive rock where improvisation is used, just like in jazz. As Maurin is a jazz musician, he has really internalised this culture and can do it incredibly well on the guitar. In the concert at the Organ Days, there will be at least two or three moments in which he improvises freely for several minutes. Henri-Charles Caget also has solo percussion parts in every performance, where the audience always jumps up enthusiastically. I'm not a great improviser myself. But of course I will do that.
You are extremely versatile as an organist: you are a lecturer in Lyon, a member of the Ensemble Alpbarock and thus a promoter of early Swiss music. Your recordings include works by Liszt and Rameau, for example. How do you reconcile this? Do you flick a switch to play rock?
Mmh, that's an interesting question. At the moment I mainly perform as a soloist and usually interpret my own arrangements of Bach, Rameau, symphonic music or even rock pieces. I also often perform with the RCM trio or as a duo with percussion. Each genre requires special playing styles, which I respect. I have learnt a lot about the rock style in recent years. I have studied this music like a beginner. Most of all, I had to learn the culture of rhythm. Rock has a strong, controlled rhythm that we don't learn in classical music education. Certain pieces by Frank Zappa are very complex and resemble contemporary music. That's what makes this project so exciting. We don't play typical rock in duple time. They are really sophisticated pieces - rhythmically, melodically and harmonically.
Do your programmes catch your ear?
For about 20 years, I've had the reputation of being the "bad boy" of the organ world. Unfortunately, I have to say: not without pain. Around ten years ago, when I started to include more and more such programmes outside the classical framework in the "Toulouse les Orgues" festival, which I run, it became complicated for me in the organ scene. People asked themselves: "Who is this Rechsteiner who brings such strange things to this big festival?" Now it's easier and I meet with more understanding. People realise that my aim is to open up the organ to other styles. Not just for rock, but also for experimental music. Of course, I have brought a new audience to the organ concerts. That's one of the purposes of our concert at the Organ Days in Zurich: we want to attract a diverse audience - with this rock energy, which in turn surprises the organ fans. It creates a completely different atmosphere in the hall.
Organ concerts often take place in churches. Are the pieces you play with your band taboo there?
The first difficulty we had to face actually concerned churches. We once had a problem with a priest because of Mike Oldfield's piece "Tubular Bells", which was used in the film "The Exorcist". He was very much against it because he felt that those sounds didn't belong in a house of God. We replied: "It's purely instrumental music, there are no lyrics." But it was still difficult. We sometimes have problems like that in churches. Some people regard rock as "dirty" music that is not allowed to be played there. But there is even Catholic rock. But of course this aesthetic question is complex.
Now you're playing these progressive rock pieces in the Grosse Tonhalle, a historic hall dating back to 1895. Do you think that's a good fit?
In concert halls, we have fewer of the problems I just mentioned. We often play in symphonic halls, for example in Quebec, Philadelphia, Budapest or Lyon. These days, there are also non-classical programmes there anyway - just like in the Tonhalle. Nevertheless, I am aware of the history of the hall. I have to admit that I am very proud to be giving a concert there for the first time in my life.
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