When we hear a musical ensemble playing with a lush sonority, exemplary balance and a pleasing tonal blend, a common comment is that it "sounds just like an organ."

The pipe organ, the "king of instruments," comprises literally thousands of pipes, chambers and flues, assembled so that the tones and pitches within a given set will match as perfectly as human craftsmanship can make them. After that, it's simply a matter of pressing the keys -- the right keys, that is, from up to six manual and pedal keyboards, augmented by a varied assortment of stops and couplers.

That organlike sonority can come from the king of instruments, played by one busy organist, or it can be played by a carefully rehearsed ensemble of skilled players. A great example is the British band tradition, and particularly the thousands of brass bands lovingly sponsored by companies, towns and institutions throughout Britain.

These bands are entirely made up of wind instruments, supplemented by a phalanx of percussion -- the noisy instruments of the orchestra. Rimsky-Korsakov's rule of thumb for orchestration was that two string instruments were roughly equivalent in weight to one woodwind instrument, two woodwinds to one French horn, and two horns to one of the other brass or percussion instruments. Restricting the instrumentation entirely to the latter category makes it easier to balance and blend the sonorities, and thus to sound, well, like an organ.

Ernst-Erich Stender

April 13 in Tokyo Geijutsu Gekijo -- Prelude and Fugue in C Minor BWV 546, Partita "O Gott, du frommer Gott" BWV 767, "Schmycke dich, O liebe Seele" BWV 654, Prelude and Fugue in E-flat Major BWV 552; Prelude and Fugue in C Major BWV 545, "Ich ruf zu dir" BWV 639, Passacaglia in C Minor BWV 582, "Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme" BWV 645, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor BWV 565 (Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750)

Ernst-Erich Stender's recital on the twin pipe organs of Tokyo Geijutsu Gekijo featured works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Stender, 56, is the organist of the Marienkirche in Leipzig, the university town where the greatest master of the German baroque composed, taught and performed during the final 27 years of his illustrious career, from age 38 to 65.

There is no denying the awesome grandeur of Bach's majestic music rising to fill the vaulted caverns of a great cathedral or concert hall. It is music to probe the heart, to inspire the mind, to lift the soul -- and there is more of it than you could possibly imagine. Organ programs can become a little specialized, especially one-composer programs, and many have trouble mustering the concentration required for so much of one type of entertainment.

That, of course, is the point: Bach intended this music to inspire, not to entertain.

Still, it came as a pleasant interlude when Stender was interviewed on stage after the interval. He offered personal insights into the role of the organ in the churches of Germany, where they are abundant. Japan being a nation of few churches and very few organs of substance, it takes a trip to Europe to really understand the central place which the institution and the instrument occupy in the culture.

Stender's program was firmly built on the sturdy foundation of five major compositions for organ, all many times recorded (and orchestrated, for that matter), interlaced with smaller works. As a working church organist, he may not have developed much of a sense of show business to spruce up his presentation, but he made up for that in his folksy German interview. It was an interesting program, and must have inspired several in the audience to consider a trip abroad to hear the real thing.

Grimethorpe Colliery Band

May 30, Garry Cutt conducting in Orchard Hall -- Lucerne Song (arranged by Howarth), "Force of Destiny" Overture (Giuseppe Verdi, 1813-1901; arranged by F. Wright), Variations on the "Carnival of Venice" (Del Steigers), "Tara's Theme" and "For the Love of a Princess" (John Towner Williams, born in New York in 1932; arranged by Catherall), "Nessun Dorma" (Giacomo Puccini, 1858-1924; arranged by Kerwin), "The Year of the Dragon" (Peter Sparke); "Jupiter" (Gustavus Theodore von Holst, 1874-1934; arranged by Roberts), "Death of Glory" (Robert Brown Hall, 1858-1907), "Pomp and Circumstance" No. 5 (Edward William Elgar, 1857-1934; arranged by J. Ord Hume), "Nimrod" (Elgar, arranged by D. Wright), "76 Trombones" (Robert Reiniger Meredith Willson, 1902-84; wildly arranged by Eric Creef), "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (arranged by G. Richards), "Bluebells of Scotland" (Anthony Prior, arranged by T. Dodd), "Pines of the Appian Way" (Ottorino Respighi, 1879-1936)

The 27-member Grimethorpe Colliery RJB Band under Garry Cutt presented seven performances during their second tour of Japan. Founded at RJB Mining's Grimethorpe colliery in 1917, the band holds many prizes from British brass band competitions, and recorded the sound track for the hit film "Brassed Off!" which enjoyed a lengthy run in Japan. When the audience at Orchard Hall was asked if anyone there had not seen the film, not a single hand was raised.

A brass band as fine as this one is also awesomely grand. I was backstage, in fact, when the group spun its way through "La Forza del Destino," and I can tell you that those hammer-stroke chords were immense, stunning.

Band programs can be a little folksy, strings of short pieces interspersed with folksy chatter to establish an extramusical connection from one selection to another. This program was no exception, with rounds for soloists on virtually every instrument and some staged high jinks obviously designed for school audiences. Unlike orchestra concerts, though, band programs are almost always intended as light entertainment.

This audience obviously comprised high school and former high school band musicians who had caught the movie and now wanted to see the band. No one was disappointed in the playing. They sailed through everything -- loud, soft, high, low, fast and slow -- like child's play.

Of course, almost every selection had been transcribed from another medium, and the skill of the arranger was a hidden factor in the success of the performance. Arrangers who bore in mind (as not all did) the weight of these massive instruments when they apportioned melody, countermelody, figurations, internal rhythms and the harmonic bass were rewarded with consummate playing.

It was a light-hearted, impressive program, and must have inspired several in the audience to contemplate taking the old instrument out of the closet again to see if the embouchure still works.