Edward Power Biggs
Biography
Edward “E.” Power Biggs, (1906—1977) was an English-born American organist who brought to many listeners their first acquaintance with the distinctive style of the Baroque organ and with the Baroque organ repertory.
Biggs, after training at the Royal Academy of Music in London, settled in the United States in 1930. Through appearances with major orchestras and weekly CBS radio broadcasts (1942–58), he established the organ as a concert instrument. Refusing to perform on electronic organs, he sought out and recorded on organs surviving from the era of Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel. He also commissioned organ works by Walter Piston, Roy Harris, and other 20th-century composers. After arthritis forced him to retire, he published editions of early organ music.
Current album
Edward Power Biggs plays Historic Organs of Europe
Artists Edward Power BiggsRelease Date: 01/26/2024
The legendary English organist E. Power Biggs became a household name when his Sunday morning CBS broadcasts introduced radio listeners all over North America to the sound of historic pipe organs and the classical organ repertoire from every period.
In a lifelong search for authenticity, the indefatigable Biggs visited places in Holland, North Germany, England, France, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland where some of the great organist-composers of the Renaissance and Baroque had lived and worked. Between 1961 and 1970, Columbia recorded him in a “Historic Organs of Europe” series, performing music by Bach, Buxtehude, Couperin, Dunstable, Frescobaldi, Andrea and Giovanni Gabrieli, Purcell, Soler, Sweelinck, Tallis and many others.
