Virgil Fox Remembered

Virgil Fox Remembered

Peter Richard Conte commemorates the centennial of Virgil Fox's birth in a live concert given on the Wanamaker Organ, playing works connected to Fox and from his repertoire on the 464-rank organ, the world's largest functioning pipe organ.<BR> Gabriel Fauré, arr. Robert Hebble: Nocturne from Shylock<BR> J. S. Bach: Toccata in F<BR> Robert Elmore: Night Song (dedicated to Virgil Fox)<BR> Henri Mulet: Tu es Petra<BR> Sir Arthur Sullivan, arr. Peter Richard Conte: The Lost Chord<BR> Robert Hebble: Homage to Fritz Kreisler (Londonderry Air)<BR> Julius Reubke: Sonata on the 94th Psalm<BR> J. S. Bach, arr. Fox: Come, Sweet Death, BWV 478<BR> Virgil Fox Remembered<BR> Famous for his prodigious musical gifts, Virgil Fox was an unprecedented 20th-century phenomenon. He possessed dual virtuosities as a musician and as a showman. Fox developed his musical skills with a technique that imaginatively used the full range of technical innovations in pipe organ building., including a new level of control over rapid changes in stops.. As a showman, he engaged a persona, programming acumen, and canny advisors who helped him woo the public. The combination brought the masses to mid-century pipe organ concerts in numbers that had not occurred for a decade or longer. He famously played the huge organ in John Wanamaker's Philadelphia Department Store for the national AGO convention in 1939, for which he famously arranged Bach's song, "Come Sweet Death," an experience recreated here by virtuoso Peter Richard Conte, also playing other Fox favorites. Stupendous sound!