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Pasini: Cantabile no. 2

Inspired by Rien Schalkwijk’s 2026-08-01 recording of Pasini’s Cantabile No. 30, I went and looked for some Pasini scores. No. 2 “For you”, referenced in that recording’s description, is definitely an earworm: sentimental, nostalgic, melancholic.

One of the things I noticed about Rien’s recording was the beautiful legatissimo articulation; by contrast, my conception of the melody, somewhat influenced by Evan Hopkin’s suggesting lyrics to set this tune to, was more vocal: I feel the melody line really needs room to breath, with the ends of phrases punctuated in particular by those moments of chord change.

A number of recordings on 2026-08-26 show some pedal stutter with the pedal’s lower Bb and Ab notes, and to some extent the Db above middle C. I wonder if the recent cooling of the weather has affected some solder joints or something. Further investigation needed; the Ab pedal adjacent was having similar problems as well the other day but that seems to have resolved itself, though I have no idea how. Since this Viscount Jubileum 232 is from around 1995 it can be no surprise that little things are starting to work their way loose.

This is what led me to do so many takes — the intermittent stuttering ruined a number of recordings. Take 54 (a counter that includes takes with mistakes) completely by chance has the stutters occur at rather musical moments, and there are only 2 obvious stutters.

The organ showed no signs of stutter on the evening 2026-09-09 and so take 58, done late that night, was taken as the final.

Registration

Sampleset: Piotr Grabowski’s Friesach.

There are some slight pauses in the flow of the piece due to my having to change registration manually: a 3-manual organ could make this much easier. This is particularly noticeable in bar 17. Yet sometimes the slight pauses for registration change can add a wonderfully organic feel to a recording: a reminder that this is a human at the console.

Version 1

(Up to and including take 18.)

I really wanted to use this piece to highlight the beautiful Solowerk stops on this organ. I did the first take with the English Horn 8’ to some success, but did find it a tad on the domineering, edgy side even against the strong Gambe 8’ of the Hauptwerk in the echo parts. The Jubalflöte is much sweeter with its teardrop-shaped sound and I think the combination of this with a little bit of keenness from the Viola 8’ may be the Goldilocks registration.

The choice of Holzflöte and Gambe for the echo is simply because the Friesach organ doesn’t have a krummhorn stop. The Gambe is slightly higher pressure in character than I would ideally have: no soft edges here, this is an incisive voice with an almost clarinet-like clarity. It would have been nice to contrast the Schwellwerk Oboe 8’ with the Solowerk Jubalflöte 8’, but on my 2-manual console that would have necessitated coupling Solowerk to Hauptwerk (III/I) and playing the sustained chords on some Hauptwerk stop — yet there is no soft Hauptwerk stop on this organ.

Version 2

Perhaps a slightly gentler voicing. (I can’t remember what stop I used for the echo registration.)

Version 3

The chosen version. Pretty much the score’s suggested registration (at least, the score I found), except with the addition of Viola 8’ in the swell (which was implied by the instruction to use Voix céleste).