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Born: March 29, 1906 - Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, England
Died: March 10, 1977 - Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA |
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British-born American concert organist and recording artist, Edward George Power Biggs, was born in Westcliff-on-Sea, Essex, England; a year later, the family moved to the Isle of Wight. He was trained in London at the Royal Academy of Music, where he studied with G. D. Cunningham. He immigrated to the USA in 1930. In 1932, he was appointed to a post at Christ Church in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he resided for the rest of his life.
E. Power Biggs did much to bring the classical pipe organ back to prominence, and was in the forefront of the mid-20th-century resurgence of interest in the organ music of pre-Romantic composers. On his first concert tour of Europe, in 1954, he performed and recorded works of J.S. Bach, Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck, Dietrich Buxtehude, and Johann Pachelbel on historic organs associated with those composers. Thereafter, he believed that such music should ideally be performed on instruments representative of that period and that organ music of that epoch should be played by using (as closely as possible) the styles and registrations of that era. Thus, he gave significant impetus to the American revival of organ building in the style of European Baroque instruments, seen especially in the increasing popularity of tracker organs - analogous to Europe's Orgelbewegung.
Among other instruments, E. Power Biggs championed G. Donald Harrison's Baroque-style unenclosed, unencased instrument with 24 stops and electric action (produced by Aeolian-Skinner in 1937 and installed in Harvard's Busch-Reisinger Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts) and the three-manual Flentrop tracker organ subsequently installed there in 1958. Many of his CBS radio broadcasts and Columbia recordings were made in the museum. Another remarkable instrument used by E. Power Biggs was a pedal harpsichord by John Challis; E. Power Biggs made recordings of the music of J.S. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi, and even went as far afield as Scott Joplin and Tchaikovsky on this instrument.
E. Power Biggs recorded extensively for the Columbia Masterworks Records and RCA Victor labels for more than three decades. Between 1942 and 1958, he also hosted a weekly radio program of organ music (carried throughout the USA on the CBS Radio Network) that introduced audiences to the pipe organ and its literature. He was represented by Mercury Music in the 1950's.
E. Power Biggs ' critics of the time included rival concert organist Virgil Fox, who was known for a more flamboyant and colorful style of performance. Fox decried Biggs' insistence on historical accuracy, claiming that it was "relegating the organ to a museum piece". Artistic rivalries aside, many observers agree that Biggs "should be given great credit for his innovative ideas as far as the musical material he recorded, and for making the organs he recorded even more famous." Despite different approaches, both artists enjoyed hugely successful careers and E. Power Biggs rose to the top of his profession. In addition to concerts and recording, he taught at the Longy School of Music in Cambridge, Massachusetts, at various times in his career and edited a large body of organ music.
E. Power Biggs was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1950. For his contribution to the recording industry, he has a star on California's Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6522 Hollywood Boulevard. He was one of the artists honored to celebrate the New York Philharmonic Orchestra's 125th birthday celebrations in December 1967. |
