Interstellar for Grand Pipe Organ. Music by Hans Zimmer (written originally for the soundtrack of the motion picture Interstellar) arranged by Antonino Buschiazzo. Performed by Antonino on July 27, 2021 at the organ of St. Paul’s church in Strasbourg, France. Video shot by Mathilde Burille and Michael Bártek; sound by and Valérie Bajcsa and Ivan Bajcsa. Produced by Michael Bártek. Performance can be viewed on YouTube on PC in 2K resolution—screenshots below are 2K. These pictures are pretty enough. But the full impact of the video can only be seen on a 4K TV display connected to the Internet. Performance lasts 26 minutes. Grade A+
Let’s look at some screen shots first. Then I’ll explain why I’m posting this story on our website.
First we see Antonino heading to the church:
Below are two views of the organ:
Of course there are many images of Antonino at the organ console. This is his own arrangement. He plays from memory:
Most organ videos are limited to simple shots of the various stops, keyboards. and pedals:
But Bártek has the right cameras and post-production gear to present some interesting split-screen views:
In the next shot below we see 4 different views merged with “trick photography”:
This view of the planet is probably a stock item—we don’t think it comes from the movie:
After the performance, Antonino enjoys this beautiful view of Strasbourg while showing off his NASA shirt:
As I did a bit of research, I kept mixing up Antonino and Michael. They almost look like brothers. In the following photo Antonino is on your left:
This performance can be viewed on your PC at 2K resolution. If you want to see this on your Internet-connected TV in 4K, go to YouTube and try a search for “Interstellar + great pipe organ.” There are several YT videos of organ music from Interstellar, so you may have to poke around a bit.
More wonderful classical musicians perform now than ever before. Still, it seems the musicians lack leverage with the record companies to demand truly high-quality recordings. The cost of technology generally is coming down. So here we have, I think, an example of classical musicians bypassing the the suits and T-shirts to make a recording themselves.
Home brew in music is not new. It’s been happening for years in popular music. In the classical field we have hundreds of early music videos from Voices of Music in 2K and 4K. Interstellar, while only 26 minutes long, is the most competitive home-brew recording of modern music that I’ve encountered.
Is Interstellar classical music? We generally don’t cover movie music. But Zimmer’s Interstellar as arranged here is at the level of quality we expect from our classical music composers and performers. Check out this Interstellar and help Antonino and Michael go viral.
PS: If you like organ music, see the amazing organ titles we have from Priory, the British recording publisher that specializes in church music. The preceding link takes you to a list of all the Priory titles in Blu-ray (have to scroll). Click on the links in the list to go to our stories. Or go to our Alphalist and put “Priory” in your find tool. Each title has (1) a delightful recital of shorter works, (2) a charming history of the area where the organ is located, and (3) other bonus extras of special interest to organ fans.