# Obscure performers - curiosity in the lead



## Casebearer (Jan 19, 2016)

I don't know about you but when listening to old records (I retrieve them from thrift stores) I sometimes feel the urge to get more background information on the composer, piece or performer (or all of them). Especially when the records strikes me as obscure or 'marginal' (if that's English) in some way. Sort of a sociological-antropological-historical streak in me. Some records also make me wonder how they ever got to the town I bought them in in the first place.

Tonight I listened to Poulenc's Concerto in G Minor for Organ, Strings and Tympani for the first time in my life. Interesting in many respects. Unusual combinations of instruments. Keypiece in the life of Poulenc who composed it after turning religious and devout overnight when hearing the news of a good friend/collegue being decapitated in a car accident in 1936. And if that's not enough I find myself listening to it in the interpretation by Van Knauss, an organist with a Methodist and Seventh-Day Adventist background, who for instance performed on the international religious telecast "Faith for Today" for four years in the 1960's. So the interpreter probably has extramusical considerations for taking it on his repertoire. There is a separate subforum to discuss political and religious aspects so I won't go in to that further here. What interests me from a musical point of view is how his interpretation might have been influenced by his beliefs. But I don't know Poulenc's piece in other interpretations (yet) and there is hardly anything to be found about mr. Knauss on the internet or even on this forum. So there it ends for me for now.

So this is not meant to summon you all to investigate on mr. Knauss. Your and my time is spent much better differently. This thread is just about sharing where curiosity takes you....

What I did find is an interesting background article about Poulenc's concerto and 24 interpreters of Poulenc's concerto - Van Knauss not being one of them, ha ha - with just a few that seem to pass the test: http://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/poulencs-organ-concerto-which-recording-is-best


----------

