A brief introduction to the organ works of Klaus Huber

Nicholas Halbert

Nicholas Halbert is director of music at the Cathedral Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He holds degrees from the Eastman School of Music (Bachelor of Music), Southern Methodist University (Master of Music, PhD) and Arizona State University (Doctor of Musical Arts).

Hans Fährmann, Dresden’s organ composer

Hans Fährmann’s fourteen sonatas for the organ make up one of the most compelling bridges between organ music and the mainstream German Romantic musical world, and yet they remain largely forgotten. There has been a surge in interest over the last two decades, with several volumes of a complete cycle by Dietrich von Knebel and a recording of the Sonata No. 8 by David Fuller having been released. Several scholarly works have also appeared, most notably the summaries of Fährmann’s life, context, and work written by Stefan Reissig and Hans Böhm. James Garratt has recorded Sonata No. 12 and written about this and several miscellaneous works in connection with his study on organ music and World War I. Nevertheless, energy around Fährmann’s music remains stagnant, and his music is far from being heard live with any frequency.

How did it come to be that such a significant set of large-scale sonatas have been nearly entirely forgotten? Fährmann was certainly not unknown in his own time. As both the cantor of a large Dresden church and a lecturer, director, and professor of the Royal Conservatory of Dresden, he was well regarded in the Saxon capital. In his own time, he was referred to as the “Richard Strauss of the organ.”^{1, 2} An article in a British music journal of 1912–1913 about chorale-preludes mentions three such works in the genre by Fährmann immediately after discussing Max Reger and writes that these are well known in Germany.³ And yet, in the same year J. Hennings writes in his special printing for the readers of Die Harmonie that he has undertaken the essay on Fährmann because he remains relatively unknown and blames it on the composer’s modesty with the press.⁴ Fährmann was evidently pleased with Hennings’s pamphlet about his music, because he dedicated his Sonata No. 10 to him in 1913. While Hennings is probably right, Fährmann’s new works were at least well-advertised in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik.

Probably far more significant is Fährmann’s lack of a famous interpreter who was promoting his music. Unlike Reger, whose music was championed by the formidable Karl Straube, Fährmann promoted his own music. What Straube did for Reger solidified his reputation; not only did he edit Reger’s music and perform it frequently, he also included it in the repertoire of his students, cementing the legacy of the composer. Straube only performed Fährmann—the Introduzione e Fuga triomphale—once during his time at Saint Thomas Church in Leipzig (in the period of 1903–1918).⁵ Speculatively, Straube may not have had much interest in Fährmann’s thoroughly Romantic music; Reger’s music carries far more of Bach’s influence. Straube would eventually become an important proponent of Orgelbewegung ideals, a movement that would have further rejected the Dresden composer’s music. Fährmann’s disappearance from the musical landscape was all but guaranteed when the publishing house of Otto-Junne-Verlag in Leipzig was destroyed during the 1943 bombing and with it all the printing plates of his works, some of which appear to be permanently lost.⁶

These works are worthy of performance and study. They are of high craftsmanship and musical interest. More importantly, they contain compelling narrative arcs capable of creating real emotional response. And they offer the organist something that is missing from the canonic repertoire: organ music written in dialogue with the massive Austro-Germanic symphonic tradition at the turn of the century. The late German Romantic music currently considered canonic tends to be valued for its synthesis of conservative and progressive musical aesthetics; this is not the case with Fährmann. This is music unabashedly written in the style and form of Johannes Brahms, Richard Wagner, Richard Strauss, and Gustav Mahler. For so many musicians, it is exposure to the music of these composers in the symphony hall that sparks their deep love of the art. How wonderful it is then that we have these organ sonatas that take part in that genre and allow us to engage with it. This essay will lay out a basic image of Fährmann’s musical context and the organs he would have known, and will then discuss this in relation to his Sonata No. 1.

Böhm and Reissig have both written excellent, short biographical sketches of Hans Fährmann. He was born on December 17, 1860, in Beicha, Saxony.⁷ The composer told his student, Böhm, that he had not had a sunny childhood,⁸ and a contemporary musical chronicler, Franciscus Nagler, remembers the composer as a stubborn and determined young man, hardened by an overly strict household.⁹ Fährmann’s musical teachers at the Dresden-Friedrichstadt included pianist Hermann Scholtz, organist Carl August Fischer, and composer Jean Louis Nicodé.¹⁰ The latter, also largely forgotten today, was a first-rate composer and conductor in Dresden during the latter portion of the nineteenth century, whose magnum opus was a massive symphony lasting over two hours named Gloria! Ein Sturm- und Sonnenlied Symphonie in einem Satze für Grosses Orchester, Orgel und (Schluss-) Chor. This maximalist work demonstrates the influence of the New Weimar School in Dresden. Also living in Dresden at the time was Felix Draeseke, a Wagnerian who wrote four symphonies. These Dresden composers, fusing more structured forms with the freedom and expressivity of the Liszt/Wagner camps, had obvious influence on Fährmann.

In 1884 Fährmann went to Weimar and performed his own Piano Sonata, opus 7, for Franz Liszt, who encouraged him to continue his career in music.¹¹ Upon graduating he held the position of cantor at the Johanneskirche from 1890 to 1926. He began as a lecturer in organ at the conservatory in 1892 and would hold a number of positions there, retiring at the rank of professor in 1939.¹² During his time at the church he held an extremely successful recital series at which he would perform and lecture on music from all historical periods and national schools. This occurred over eight years, from 1892 to 1900 in thirty separate programs; Johann Sebastian Bach was the centerpiece of the series, including performances of all six trio sonatas.¹³

In 1900 Fährmann suffered an apparent nervous breakdown as a result of the demands of his heavy concert schedule and turned his focus to composition and teaching while maintaining his church position.¹⁴ On retirement from the Johanneskirche position in 1926, Fährmann moved to a house in a forested suburb of Dresden in order to focus on composition.¹⁵ It is noteworthy that two contemporaries, Rost¹⁶ and Hennings,¹⁷ both describe the composer as a deeply committed and passionate man who was immune to any vain desires for fame or popularity and instead remained thoroughly true to himself and his musical convictions. Fährmann was married twice and had five children.¹⁸ He died in Dresden on June 29, 1940.¹⁹

The German Romantic organ sonata and Hans Fährmann

As might be expected of a musical landscape dominated by the legacy of Ludwig van Beethoven, the sonata was of central importance to nineteenth-century German organists. The genre of the organ sonata began in the High Baroque, with the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and his son, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, generally constructed in the fast-slow-fast, three-movement layout. Felix Mendelssohn’s sonatas for organ are collections of voluntaries. The effect of Franz Liszt’s Fantasy and Fugue on the Chorale “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam,” S. 259, in 1850 was profound. This single-movement work in a modified monothematic sonata-allegro form became the inspiration for dozens of similar pieces, most famously Julius Reubke’s Sonata on the Ninety-Fourth Psalm and August Gottfried Ritter’s Sonata No. 3 in A Minor. From 1865 the organ sonata trended toward the classical three- or four-movement format.²⁰ Rudolf Kremer’s incredibly useful index of German organ sonatas counts a total of 158 sonatas by forty-six composers in the final three decades of the nineteenth century.²¹ This set the stage for music increasingly influenced by the post-Beethovenian conception of the sonata and symphony. Ironically, Fährmann’s organ sonatas bear much more formal similarity with the sonata-forms of Beethoven than of Liszt—even though the contemporaneous iteration of the genre developed thoroughly from the New Weimar School. This speaks to the influence of Brahms, Josef Rheinberger, and the generally conservative nature of the Dresden School.

Music written by nineteenth-century German composers often looks like a symphonic reduction on the page, with some virtuosic passagework borrowed from the piano. While music of the French School (as it always has been, from the French Classical period) is married to the timbres on which it is being played, German Romantic organ music is conceived usually for choruses, often with no more instruction than the desired dynamic level. Only occasionally are specific solos or combinations of color required. This is mirrored in the orchestrations of Beethoven, Robert Schumann, and Brahms in which the strings play most of the time and carry the bulk of the musical content, with the addition and subtraction of winds and brass for dynamic and color contrast.

This relationship between orchestration and organ registration is also true of the French; for instance, compare the music of César Franck, Louis Vierne, and Charles-Marie Widor with the work of Hector Berlioz, and then compare Olivier Messiaen’s organ music with his orchestral music. German organ music tends to be focused on thematic development, dense counterpoint and harmony, and the formal outline of a composition, often instead of writing idiomatic and virtuosic keyboard passagework.

Hans Fährmann’s organ music meets this description aptly and is even more symphonic in conception than other canonic organ repertoire of the time. Rheinberger’s sonatas, predecessors to Fährmann’s oeuvre, feature idiomatic keyboard writing similar to Liszt’s approach to the instrument with the presence of pianistic figurations borrowed from nineteenth-century practice. This is true of the many German Romantic organ sonata composers influenced by Liszt: Reubke, Ritter, Gustav Merkel, et al. Fährmann’s most famous direct contemporaries nearby in Leipzig both wrote extremely idiomatic keyboard music for the organ. Max Reger’s music, so marked by the legacy of Bach, is built of constant, dense, and intricate counterpoint that is nevertheless decidedly keyboard music. His virtuosic explosions of chaotic figurework contrasted with sudden, hushed stillness show the influence of the Baroque stylus fantasticus and of Liszt and other piano improvisers of the nineteenth century. Sigfrid Karg-Elert, influenced by the Impressionists, uses registration and figuration to develop colors and textures in kaleidoscopic progressions and contrasts. This is to say: these now-canonic German Romantic composers wrote organ music that was fundamentally keyboard music, not orchestral music as translated to the organ. Even as these composers’ music is “orchestral” in the sense of color, it is not in a formal or stylistic sense.

Fährmann is distinct from all of the afore-mentioned composers in that he generally eschews non-motivic passagework (with some key exceptions) and writes with consistently thick textures echoing the dense symphonic writing common throughout the nineteenth century seen most characteristically in Wagner and Anton Bruckner. In further contrast with contemporary German organ composers, Fährmann’s work is characterized by an endless stream of melodic content. His resourcefulness with and the constant presence of motivic material is clearly indebted to the Beethovenian/Wagnerian tradition. Even in his fugal writing his subjects are often marked by forgoing conventional sequences and figurations in favor of idiosyncratic intervals, contours, and rhythmic shapes, which then entirely shape the subsequent fugue.²² Where virtuosic figuration does occur, it is not in the style of keyboard music, where often it is used to expand the harmony and build a sonorous and energetic texture, but tends to look like the type of runs assigned to strings in symphonic movements. This is in no small part due to the way in which his fast figuration usually interrupts and contrasts with the normal texture of a section of music, and the intervallic shapes of that figuration, which take on motivic significance in themselves.²³ All of these traits place Fährmann’s music solidly in the late-Romantic symphonic school, and characteristics like this can be easily found in the music of Richard Strauss, Gustav Mahler, and Sergei Rachmaninoff.²⁴

Arguably, Fährmann was the German Romantic composer who most explored the possibility of the organ as a vehicle for symphonic writing. His harmonic and melodic language is heavily influenced by late-Wagnerian music, particularly the sound world of Parsifal and Die Meistersinger. Fährmann’s harmony is dominated by constant extensions and suspensions paired with the generous use of all common-practice chord types. This results in an extremely colorful style that seems to carry maximal tonal tension within every phrase. He frequently uses chromatic voice-leading to result in surprising modulations and extreme harmonic distances being contained within musical units. However, this rich harmonic language is always subverted to the melodic content, usually in the soprano voice. As a result, much like Wagner, he is able to make extreme harmonic motions sound logical. Of note in his melodic writing is the frequent appearance of appoggiaturas, grace notes, and turn figures (these especially point to Wagner), which are all borrowed from Romantic string writing.

A few specific musical examples will illuminate this connection between Fährmann and Wagner. Examples 1 and 2 are excerpts from the famous “Transfiguration Music” in Act One of Parsifal. These are ideal models because they contain several key characteristics of late-Wagnerian style in the space of a few bars. Example 1 shows chromatic voice leading in the inner voices, the use of melodic contour to set up frequent suspensions in the melodic parts, and the upbeat triplet figure which is so essential to Wagner’s melodic language. Notice how the chromatic voice leading and suspensions allow Wagner to naturally incorporate a wide variety of chord types in a small space. Now looking at Fährmann’s application of these musical ideas, Example 3 (see page 15) shows the cadence of the main theme of Sonata No. 1. Here he resolves the first suspension in the tenor with a chromatic descending line in an identical way to Wagner, and here too it creates rapidly changing colors of harmony. Note how the melodic contour of the soprano allows Fährmann to naturally approach an augmented harmony on the downbeat of the second bar where it will be perceived as a suspension over a dominant. The incorporation of augmented sonority into moving contrapuntal textures is a major color of late Wagnerian writing. Example 4 depicts the beginning of the secondary thematic area of Sonata No. 1 and shows Fährmann adapting the lyrical upbeat triplet figure.

One of the most innovative harmonic devices in late Wagnerian music is the combination of chromatic voice leading and suspension to evade functional harmonic resolutions. Example 2, the climax of the “Transfiguration music,” is an excellent example of this technique. The fortissimo is reached on a clear tonic C-sharp minor chord with root in the bass. Wagner shifts two voices down by half step and sustains the C-sharp to create a German augmented-sixth harmony, but, rather than moving to the dominant, he moves those top two voices down another half step to arrive at a half-diminished sonority over G-sharp in the bass. Another chromatic motion resolves this into a C-sharp-major seventh chord and thoroughly destabilizes the tonic announced just a bar earlier. Example 5, an excerpt from the development of Fährmann’s Sonata No. 7, uses a similar technique in combination with a rising sequence to create a progression full of rich, functional sonorities that evade their natural resolution. This passage is also melodically similar to how Wagner moves out of the Tristan chord at the beginning of the “Prelude.” The rising half steps are identical in contour and rhythm. The harmonies, however, do not match the Tristan chord. Example 6, the final cadence of his Sonata No. 10, shows an absolutely spectacular utilization of this method to create a prolongation of the tonic. It is worth noting that this passage almost looks like Impressionist chordal planing, but the careful use of suspended voices (even if re-attacked) keeps this solidly within the tradition of counterpoint and its rules. The effect of this technique, present in Wagner and Fährmann, of denying conventional harmonies their functional resolutions creates a dizzying web of harmonic tension that stretches the boundaries of tonality.

On the other hand, his approach to form is significantly more conservative. Here the influence of Brahms and the Dresden School, including Draeseke, Nicodé, and of course Strauss, should be noted. As a result, Fährmann’s music does not contain the type of free-flowing modulation from section to section that can be found in Wagner and Franck. Instead it is fundamentally governed by the motion from tonic to dominant and back again. Fährmann’s harmonic language is used to embellish and develop tension over the basic tonal plan. He tends to write in relatively Classical phrase models built symmetrically. In this way his music is quite similar to that of Strauss in the 1880s.³¹ Gotthold Frotscher remarked that Fährmman’s music is built from Liszt’s harmonies with the thematic development of Brahms.³²

Fährmman’s primary similarity to Reger is in his skill as a composer of counterpoint, which was celebrated by contemporary musicians. His student Richard Rost observed in a notice in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik honoring Fährmann’s seventy-fifth birthday that his polyphony is never abstract but always meant to convey an expressive meaning.³³ In his important survey of Fährmann’s musical work, J. Hennings also remarks that he is a contrapuntist of the highest level.³⁴ He adds that the comparison to Richard Strauss is undoubtedly true but that Fährmann’s musical sensibility is firmly rooted in the Classical style and that this was influenced by the modern Zeitgeist. Fährmann always remained true to himself, Hennings says, and this speaks to his individuality as an artist “favored by God.”³⁵ What makes Fährmann a compelling composer is that his music surpasses direct imitation of any of these influences and becomes a unique prism reflecting them into a novel musical language.

The German Romantic organ

The development of writing for the organ has always been paralleled by developments in the instrument, and the German Romantic period is no exception to this. The connection between the instruments of Cavaillé-Coll and the French symphonic school has been well documented, but the influence of modern instruments on the German Romantic school is no less profound. In fact, differences in their design led to profound differences in the respective utilizations of the instruments. The first German instruments to be considered modern Romantic installations were those of Friedrich Ladegast and Adolf Reubke built in the middle of the nineteenth century. Some of the later organs of the High Baroque built by Silbermann and his students already pointed in the direction of future instruments with their substantial increase in the number of 8′ ranks. Ladegast and Reubke expanded in this direction with more foundations available at 16′, 8′, and 4′ pitches that were voiced with full, warm timbres emphasizing the fundamental. The powerful mixtures and mutations of the Baroque are preserved in these organs, giving them an unusual blend of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century characteristics. Reeds remained in their position as color stops, never becoming the dominant chorus color as they were on contemporaneous French organs.

The second half of the nineteenth century saw builders developing from the aesthetic concept of Ladegast and Reubke: the blending of the Baroque plenum sound into a modern idiom of weighty foundations that emulate the orchestra. In the organs of Wilhelm Sauer and E. F. Walcker & Cie., the mixtures and mutations are folded into the foundations more convincingly, leading to an incredibly rich plenum that is built from nearly every rank on the instrument. These well-developed overtones made the German Romantic organ very capable of performing counterpoint. Its ability to perform in an orchestral style is enhanced by the wide variety of colors available in the foundations. Both tendencies make these instruments ideal vessels for the music written by German Romantic composers. Just as the nineteenth-century compositional school continually referenced the music of Bach, so the instruments constantly bear the signature of the Baroque plenum.

This was particularly true in the Saxon School of organbuilding that, surrounded by extant installations by Silbermann, tended to be more conservative than other regions of Germany. Jiri Jocourek, of the Eule Orgelbau, has written an excellent summary of the types of instruments that Hans Fährmann would have known during his musical development—these would have included the legendary Silbermanns of Dresden, a Hildebrandt and a Wagner organ, two mid-century Romantic organs by Friedrich Nicolaus Jahn, and then later in life some very large installations by the Jemlich firm.³⁶ But most significantly, Fährmann would have been influenced by the instrument over which he presided at the Johanneskirche in Germany.³⁷ This church stood in the Pirnaische Vorstadt, just east of Dresden’s Aldstadt, and was split off from the Kreuzkirchgemeinde, the main Lutheran church in the Saxon capital.³⁸ Built in a wealthy parish, it was one of the first neo-Gothic structures in the city. The building and instrument were destroyed by the fire bombing of Dresden in February 1945, and nothing of the church remains on the site.³⁹

The Eule organ at the Johanneskirche was unusual for the firm. Hermann Eule was a thoroughly Romantic organbuilder, using large numbers of ranks at the fundamental and rich voicing characteristic of the nineteenth century.⁴⁰ However, the disposition at the Johanneskirche is significantly more conservative and more influenced by the Saxon organ building tradition having fewer 8′ foundation ranks and substantially more upperwork than usual for the builder. This instrument had neither a swell enclosure nor playing aids.⁴¹ In 1893 after the Sonata No. 1 had already been published, Fährmann had a swell installed.⁴² In 1909 a large overhaul took place, which created a Romantic instrument of fifty stops spread over three manuals.⁴³ Jiri Kocourek points out the absence of a 16′ rank on the third manual and the unusual selection of 8′ and 4′ ranks in the Pedal.⁴⁴ The latter almost certainly informs us that the pedal couplers were used consistently with any larger choruses. There is no record of the playing aids available on the 1909 instrument, as the next available record dates from work undertaken by his successor, Gerhard Paulik, and this documented a reduction in the number of console aids. Kocourek lists the playing aids available on a similar instrument, the Bautzen Cathedral organ, which include a walze, fixed combinations for various dynamic levels, and three free combinations.⁴⁵ If the Johanneskirche organ indeed contained these mechanisms, it would have been a thoroughly modern instrument. It is important to note that Fährmann’s scores do not call for as dynamic a use of the walze as was present in music by Reger or Karg-Elert. This is in line with his more orchestral conception of the use of the pipe organ.

Organ Sonata No. 1 in G Minor

The Sonata No. 1 in G Minor, opus 5, demonstrates, as Hennings says, that Fährmann was “predestined to become an organ composer.”⁴⁶ The reviewer draws the listener to the “originality of thought,” “fine thematic work,” and “skilled polyphony” of the sonata, along with the cyclical structure in which the main theme of the first movement is connected to the second theme of the closing double fugue.⁴⁷ This work holds a relatively early opus number; it was published in 1891 when the composer was thirty-one years old and after his appearance before Liszt. Though it is his debut organ sonata, it really should be considered a mature work and an intentional debut of his compositional skill in the genre of the organ sonata. The sonata contains three movements: “Moderato maestoso,” “Andante religioso,” and a Doppelfuge.

The first movement is in a straightforward sonata form with an appended “Cadenza” making up a substantial coda section. The main theme is heard clearly at the beginning (in many of the later sonatas Fährmann would write a lengthy introduction), and from its outset the richness of harmonic color is evident. The secondary theme is in the relative major of B-flat and is marked by numerous appoggiaturas giving it a longing lyrical character and reflecting the Wagner/Strauss influence (Example 7). The development section manipulates only the primary theme; it is a standard Beethovenian development moving among many tonal areas. After a normative recapitulation, the cadenza is the most obviously Wagnerian section of the sonata, having violin-like figurations very similar to those at the climax of the Meistersinger “Prelude,” with the strings continually beginning downward scales and arpeggios on the upper neighbor of the correct harmonic pitch (Example 8). A profoundly dissonant harmony over a pedal trill leads into a final statement of the main theme on full organ.

The second movement is an Andante in ternary form quite similar in structure to the slow movements found in early Beethoven piano sonatas. It opens with a chorale-like theme in the soprano, which is repeated immediately with more elaborate counterpoint. From there a cadence is evaded, and free material is introduced that destabilizes the key over a prolonged dominant pedal point and leads to the conclusion of the first section with a final statement of the first melody. The second section is in C minor with a darker chromatic quality (in this one might hear shades of Mahler). Another pedal point returns to E-flat major, and the main theme returns with a new obbligato flute-like solo line over it. Fährmann writes a fairly extended canon based on free material emerging from this solo and points the performer’s attention to it with a footnote. The final statement of the theme concludes with an increasingly chromatically inflected progression oscillating around several harmonies containing C-flat (Example 9). In the penultimate measure the music seems to land securely on a minor subdominant chord preparing the cadence, but only arrives at the desired E-flat by moving through a German sixth chord—again, one may hear a shade of Mahler in this closure.

The final Doppelfuge begins in the pedal, and the four voices enter from bottom to top until a fifth voice is added in the alto during a pedal point. The first subject begins unusually with a grace note followed by an ascending minor sixth, the inversion of the opening descending major third interval of the first movement. It is an idiosyncratic subject, full of chromaticism and strange leaps and changes of direction (Example 10). This is the type of fugue subject that Fährmann favored throughout his compositional career; one in which the subject dictates the harmonic and melodic content of the form, unlike the subjects chosen by Reger or even Karg-Elert, which, though often characteristic in their own right, are tonally open enough to be manipulated in numerous ways throughout the course of a movement. After a complete exposition of the theme, the subject is heard thrice through⁴⁸ in inversion before the conclusion of the first thematic area of the fugue. It is worth noting Fährmann’s incredible skill at writing imitative counterpoint, which interweaves with the fugal content, creating a dense polyphonic texture insistent on its horizontality.

The second subject is more obviously a quotation of the first movement, containing the initial four pitches of the main theme at its head (Example 11). The second countersubject is a chromatic scale, which leads to extremely chromatic counterpoint throughout the entire section. The second subject also contains more eighth-note motion, building momentum toward the fortissimo return of the first subject. The combination of these two is paired with a crescendo that arrives at the climax of the fugue, a restatement of the two subjects together now accompanied by rapid triplets­—here counterpoint dissolves into virtuosity. Another pedal point builds to a triumphant G major, with the second subject now appearing transformed. Though it is still accompanied by the chromatic countersubject, Fährmann has reconfigured it into a chain of secondary dominants that solidify the arrival of the major mode. The music goes through free, ecstatic progressions with characteristic Wagnerian harmonies into one final pedal point, which brings the music to its conclusion with a truly glorious restatement of the main theme of the first movement in G major, completing the cyclical construction of the sonata.

This work demonstrates many of the compositional elements that Fährmann would use throughout his career, and as such, makes an ideal starting point for any student delving into his oeuvre. Many of the issues of performance practice are similar to those found in other Romantic works of the same period: Brahms, Schumann, Reger, Franck (before Marcel Dupré’s influence on the interpretation thereof), and the like. This includes issues of rubato, large-scale tempo relationships (of flexible pulse throughout the course of a movement), legato touch, the use of agogics, etc.

What should be discussed here specifically regarding Fährmann is registrational practice. Most of Fährmann’s directions are communicated with dynamic markings alone, but the second movement has specific stops listed. These are a hint to understanding the work because they line perfectly with the specification of the Johanneskirche organ in 1891.⁴⁹ In the second movement, he switches colors between each phrase (similar to how one might perform English organ music of the same time), telling us that the change of color was for him a way of further increasing variance between sections—this could be applied to other slow movements of his. But this hint is helpful in another way; it makes it clear that this score was in some way a performance copy for himself. His instrument in 1891 would not have had a swell box, so we can safely conclude that the marked crescendi and diminuendi are not manipulations of the expression shoe but the addition and subtraction of ranks. This conclusion is bolstered by the fact that there are nearly none of the hairpin markings associated with subtle manipulation of the boxes.⁵⁰ This instrument almost surely did not have any playing aids, so the changes must have been executed by assistants.

The exposition of the first movement shows how Fährmann combines clever manual terracing with the implied manual addition of stops one-by-one over extended crescendi to nearly replicate the walze mechanism with which he would have been familiar. Nevertheless, given the specification of his instrument at the Johanneskirche at the time, it is hard to imagine that these dynamic changes were convincingly seamless. There is no reason for the modern performer to not embrace the full possibilities offered by combining the walze⁵¹ with the expression box and generate the orchestral ideal present in the score. The performer should always seek to create as seamless and orchestral a crescendo as possible, but in the German way—through the addition of one rank at a time, one dynamic step after another.⁵²

Notice that nowhere in this score does Fährmann call for the type of dramatic dynamic contrast that was so common down the road in Leipzig. Consider how this might influence interpretive decisions about tempo development across extended dynamic build ups and tear downs. The organ student might consider listening to famed Austro-Germanic conductors of the older tradition like Wilhelm Furtwängler or Willem Mengelberg or the player-roll recordings of Reger and Straube to develop a sense of how pulse relationships operate over the course of entire movements in this style.

Conclusion

The Hans Fährmann repertoire is a rich landscape just waiting to be explored. Even as pioneering organists are beginning to dig into this music, it is beautiful to think that it will take a generation or two for this music and the interpretation of it to become canonized and thus crystallized. Every student should spend time working on non-canonic music to better develop their interpretive sense and their ability to think outside of the box and radically reconsider the handed-down interpretations of beloved works. It is important, of course, to study non-canonic music about which one is passionate, but also to find complementary works in each era and national school that can contextualize and shed light on the familiar. Furthermore, the scholarly study of non-canonic works always provides an opportunity to reconstruct the history of the literature. As the “story” of organ music settles in, it is easy to lose sight of all the many non-organ influences playing out in parallel and interacting with the organ literature in favor of studying the chain linking one organ work to another. It is unusual that Fährmann, a composer so influenced by the orchestral composers around him, wrote primarily for the organ, while for many of the composers heard more frequently today, the organ made up only a fragment of their total output.

This music is perfect for any student interested in organ music and the late Romantic symphony. Fährmann’s sonatas offer these musicians a synthesis of organ and orchestral style in a repertoire that has been neglected. As modern-day organists explore the sound world of turn-of-the-century Dresden, may they become the advocates that eluded Fährmann during his lifetime.

Notes

1. J. Hennings, Hans Fährmann: Eine Studie von J. Hennings (Hamburg: Hermann Kampen, 1912), page 8.

2. Fährmann’s Wikipedia page claims that the first appearance of this comparison was by Otto Schmidt in the Dresdner Journal in 1905. Unfortunately, the citation is no more detailed than this, and without complete searchability of the paper it is difficult to find the issue of the daily containing this. Interestingly, Reissig relies on Böhm for the citation of this quote, and Böhm leaves it uncited. However, in Hennings’s 1912 study, he says that it is “often said,” assuring us that the comparison was not original to him.

3. Charles MacPherson, “Chorale-Preludes: Ancient and Modern,” Proceedings of the Musical Association 39th Sess. (1912–1913), page 166. https://www.jstor.org/stable/765497.

4. Hennings, page 4.

5. Christopher Anderson, Max Reger and Karl Straube: Perspectives on an Organ Performing Tradition (New York: Routledge, 2016), page 331.

6. Hans Böhm, “Hans Fährmann, Organist at St. John’s Church: Organ Virtuoso–Composer–Teacher,” in Die Dresdner Kirchenmusik im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, ed. Matthias Herrmann (Dresden: Laaber-Verlag, 1998), page 323.

7. Böhm, page 323.

8. Böhm, page 323.

9. Franciscus Nagler, Das Kligende Land: Musikalische Wanderungen und Wallfahrten in Sachsen (Leipzig: J. Bohn & Sohn Verlag, 1936), page 238.

10. Böhm, page 324.

11. Böhm, page 324.

12. Böhm, pages 324–325.

13. Richard Rost, “Hans Fährmann. Ein Dresdner Jubilar. Zu Seinem 70 Geburtstag,” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Jg. 97 (1930), pages 1030–1032.

14. Rost, pages 1030–1032.

15. Rost, pages 1030–1032. Böhm writes that this move occurred in 1896, but this must be incorrect, as the move occurring in conjunction with his retirement is more logical.

16. Rost, pages 1030–1032.

17. Hennings, page 8.

18. Böhm, page 326.

19. Böhm, page 324.

20. Robert C. Mann, “The Development of Form in the German Organ Sonata from Mendelssohn to Rheinberger,” PhD diss. (University of North Texas, 1978), page 27.

21. Rudolph J. Kremer, “The Organ Sonata Since 1845,” unpublished doctoral dissertation (Washington University, Saint Louis, Missouri, 1963), page 7, quoted in Robert C. Mann, “The Development of Form in the German Organ Sonata from Mendelssohn to Rheinberger,” PhD diss. (University of North Texas, 1978), page 30.

22. Ibid.

23. A good example of this can be found in the main theme of the first movement of the Eighth Sonata. This can be found at the “Allegro risoluto.” The explosion of virtuosic writing in the sixth bar is juxtaposed with the harmonic and rhythmic stability of the first half of the theme, heard over a tonic pedal point. While it begins as a straightforward rising flourish, it takes on a turning shape marked by unusual intervals that give it a distinctive identity.

24. Even a quick comparison shows that Fährmann’s sonatas bear more resemblance in stylistic language and form to the Edward Elgar Organ Sonata, which is effectively an orchestral transcription, than to the chorale fantasies of Reger.

25. Richard Wagner, Parsifal, arr. Karl Klindworth (Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1902), page 63.

26. Wagner, page 63.

27. Hans Fährmann, Organ Sonata Number 1 (Leipzig: J. Rieter-Biedermann, 1891), page 2.

28. Fährmann, Organ Sonata Number 1, page 3.

29. Hans Fährmann, Seventh Sonata for Organ (Leipzig: Otto Junne, 1904), page 10.

30. Hans Fährmann, Tenth Sonata for Organ (Leipzig: Rob. Forberg, 1913), page 20.

31. For instance, the Piano Quartet, opus 13, or the Violin Sonata, opus 18.

32. Gotthold Frotscher, Gesichte des Orgelspiels und der Orgelkomposition (Berlin: Verlag Merseburger, 1959), Band 2, pages 1211, 1246, 1255.

33. Richard Rost, “Hans Fährmann zu Seinem 75 Geburtstage,” in Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Jg. 102 (1935): pages 1384–1385.

34. Hennings, page 8.

35. Hennings, page 8.

36. Jiri Kocourek, Hans Fährmanns Orgeln an der Johanniskirche Dresden, Eule Orgelbau, Bautzen, 2012, page 1.

37. Kocourek, page 1.

38. Joachim Winkler, “Die Johanneskirche,” in Verlorene Kirchen: Dresdens zerstörte Gotteshäuser. Eine Dokumentation seit 1938, ed. Stadt Dresden (Dresden: Stadt Dresden, 2018), page 27. http://www.dresden.de/media/pdf/denkmal/verlorene-kirchen-2018_web.pdf

39. Kocourek, page 5.

40. Kocourek, page 2.

41. Kocourek, pages 2–3.

42. Kocourek, page 3.

43. Kocourek, page 4.

44. Kocourek, page 3.

45. Kocourek, page 4.

46. Hennings, page 9.

47. Hennings, page 9.

48. The careful observer will note that the first appearance of the inverted subject in the soprano contains an E-flat where there should be a repeated D. It is impossible to know if this intentional, though the E-flat certainly enhances the harmonic drama of the following leap. I play it as printed.

49. The fact that the work clearly matches the Johanneskirche organ and that it was published in 1891 suggests that he may have written it in conjunction with his appointment to the church.

50. With one major exception—the conclusion of the slow movement. The hairpins here are surely included for instruments that do have expression, though they also serve plausibly as rubato markings in the absence of the mechanism.

51. Or the Sequencer set up with one stop added at a time.

52. As opposed to the English-American approach, involving careful addition of rank and manipulation of the swell boxes.

53. Fährmann, First Sonata, page 3.

54. Fährmann, First Sonata, page 8.

55. Fährmann, First Sonata, page 13.

56. Fährmann, First Sonata, page 14.

57. Fährmann, First Sonata, pages 15–16.

Bibliography

Anderson, Christopher. Max Reger and Karl Straube: Perspectives on an Organ Performing Tradition. New York: Routledge, 2013.

Böhm, Hans. “Hans Fährmann, Organist an der Johanneskirche: Orgelvirtuose—Komponist—Pädagoge.” In Die Dresdner Kirchenmusik im 19. und 20. Jahrhundert, edited by Matthias Herrmann, pages 323–331. Dresden: Laaber-Verlag, 1998.

Fährmann, Hans. “Op. 24 6. Sonata für die Orgel; Op. 25. 7. Sonate für die Orgel.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Jg. 71, 1904. Page 620.

Fährmann, Hans. “Op. 40, 6 Charakterstucke für Orgel; Op. 42 Fantasia e fuga tragica b moll für Orgel.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Jg. 77, 1910. Page 176.

Fährmann, Hans. Organ Sonata No. 1. Leipzig: J. Rieter-Biedermann, 1891.

Fährmann, Hans. Organ Sonata No. 7. Leipzig: Otto Junne, 1904.

Fährmann, Hans. Organ Sonata No. 10. Leipzig: Rob. Forberg, 1913.

Frotscher, Gotthold. Geschichte des Orgelspiels und der Orgelkomposition. Berlin: Verlag Merseburger, 1982.

Garratt, James. “‘Ein gute Wehr und Waffen’: Apocalyptic and redemptive narratives in organ music from the Great War.” In Music and War in Europe: from French Revolution to WWI, edited by Étienne Jardin, pages 379–411. Turnhout: Brepols, 2016.

Hennings, J. Hans Fährmann: Eine Studie von J. Hennings. Hamburg: Hermann Kampen, 1912.

Koldau, Linda Maria. “Fährmann, Hans.” MGG Online, edited by Laurenz Lütteken. RILM, Bärenreiter, Metzler, 2016. Accessed November 11, 2023. https://www-mgg-online-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/mgg/stable/13649.

Kocourek, Jiri. “Hans Fährmanns Orgeln an der Johanniskirche Dresden.” Eule Orgelbau Bautzen, 2012.

Kremer, Rudolph J. “The Organ Sonata Since 1845,” unpublished PhD dissertation, Washington University, Saint Louis, Missouri, 1963. Quoted in Mann, Robert C. “The Development of Form in the German Organ Sonata from Mendelssohn to Rheinberger.” PhD diss., University of North Texas, 1978.

MacPherson, Charles. “Chorale-Preludes: Ancient and Modern.” Proceedings of the Musical Association 39th Sess. (1912–1913): pages 153–182. https://www.jstor.org/stable/765497.

Mann, Robert C. “The Development of Form in the German Organ Sonata from Mendelssohn to Rheinberger.” PhD diss., University of North Texas, 1978.

Nagler, Franciscus. Das Kligende Land: Musikalische Wanderungen und Wallfahrten in Sachsen. Leipzig: J. Bohn & Sohn Verlag, 1936.

“Organ Music.” The Musical Times vol. 38, no. 657 (November 1, 1897): page 744.

“Organ Music.” The Musical Times vol. 38, no. 658 (December 1, 1897): page 815.

Reissig, Stefan. “Zur Orgelmusik Hans Fährmanns.” In Orgelbewegung Und Spätromantik: Orgelmusik Zwischen Den Weltkriegen in Deutschland, Österreich Und Der Schweiz, edited by Birger Petersen and Michael Heinemann, pages 83–89. Studien Zur Orgelmusik. Sankt Augustin: J. Butz, 2016.

Rost, Richard. “Hans Fährmann. Ein Dresdner Jubilar. Zu Seinem 70 Geburtstag.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Jg. 97, 1930. pages 1030–1032.

Rost, Richard. “Hans Fährmann zu Seinem 75 Geburtstage.” Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Jg. 102, 1935. Pages 1384–1385.

Wagner, Richard. Parsifal, arr. Karl Klindworth. Mainz: B. Schott’s Söhne, 1902.

Winkler, Joachim. “Die Johanneskirche.” Verlorene Kirchen: Dresdens zerstörte Gotteshäuser: Eine Dokumentation seit 1938. Ed. Stadt Dresden. Dresden: Stadt Dresden, 2018. http://www.dresden.de/media/pdf/denkmal/verlorene-kirchen-2018_web.pdf

 

Sample YouTube recordings of Fährmann works:

Sonata No.1 in G minor, op. 5

Sonata No. 12 (War Sonata), op. 65

Jonathan Bezdegian

Jonathan Bezdegian earned his Doctor of Musical Arts degree in organ performance from University of Washington, Seattle, in 2018. He is a lecturer in music and director of the organ scholar program at Assumption University, Worcester, Massachusetts. He also serves as director of liturgical music at Christ the King Parish in Worcester, Massachusetts, and is dean of the Worsceter Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

Louis Vierne’s “Carillon de Westminster” from the Troisième Suite, opus 54, of his 24 Pièces de Fantaisie is a favorite of organists and audiences alike. While many play this piece, how many take the time to study the unique harmonies in this music? Organists view Vierne’s compositional style as highly chromatic. Yes, this is certainly true. However, how does one analyze Vierne’s music? There are very few studies providing a detailed harmonic analysis of this nature.¹ Thus, the aim of this article is to foster interest in the analysis of Vierne’s organ music via the “Carillon de Westminster,” one of his most appreciated compositions. Before moving forward with analysis, learning the history and early reception of this piece is important. 

A seemingly obvious reason for the great popularity of this piece is due to the familiar “Big Ben” or “Grandfather Clock” theme.² Interestingly, according to the research of Rollin Smith, a scholar of Vierne’s life and works, Vierne encountered this theme for the first time via a clock in the office of a clock shop owner in Le Locle, Switzerland, in 1916, and then, later, while on tour in England in 1924.³ These thematic encounters reached compositional fruition in the summer of 1927 in Luchon, France. 

The initial reception of the “Carillon de Westminster” was positive. Soon after publication, Vierne publicly performed this piece three times, the first as a sortie at the closing of the Forty Hours Devotion at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame, Paris, on November 29, 1927. “Vierne’s student, Henri Doyen recalled that it was ‘one of the rare times when I saw the clergy and faithful not sortie . . . [they] waited quietly until the end, and a number of people improvised a little ovation for the maître when he came down from the tribune.’”⁴

On December 8, 1927, Vierne performed this work in concert for the dedication of “the restored organ in the Parisian church of Saint-Nicolaus-du-Chardonnet.”⁵ The reaction of those in attendance was favorable: “The work, which unmistakably bears the master’s signature, will undoubtedly become known to the whole musical world, just like the name of the composer . . . . The famous carillon joins together with a rhythmic figure that captivates the listener with its adamant periodical recurrence.”⁶

Lastly, Vierne played the “Carillon de Westminster” in concert on May 3, 1928, at the Trocadéro Palace. Remarks were supportive, stating that the “Carillon de Westminster is certainly destined to enjoy great popularity among all organists.”⁷ Even after these initial performances, Vierne “played it constantly, including in 1932 for the inauguration of the restored Notre-Dame organ.”⁸ Clearly, this piece had a warm welcome,⁹ and these recounts foreshadowed current feelings, particularly the remarks after the Trocadéro concert. Now that the history is established, the harmonic analysis becomes the next area of focus. 

While Vierne’s harmonic language was developing by the genesis of “Carillon de Westminster” in the summer of 1927, the tonalities created are approachable. There is extensive use of the Gregorian modes: Ionian starting on D and B-flat; Aeolian starting on D and B; and Mixolydian starting on B-flat, D, F-sharp, and G. Then, the addition of the codified modes of limited transposition: Mode 3 (T1 and T3) and Mode 1 (T1) that gives this piece (and many other works) Vierne’s signature sound.¹⁰ While the Gregorian modes offer listeners a familiar set of harmonies throughout the “Carillon de Westminster,” the harmonies encountered are not functional in the traditional sense. Thus, using a traditional, analytic approach will not yield a positive result.

Through research and analysis, one discovers that Vierne uses common tone modulations. It is the only practical procedure for finding similarities between each mode. There is evidence of tonic and dominant functions, but they are simple and mostly found at cadential points.¹¹ After studying the various modes used in “Carillon de Westminster,” one finds several common tones between them, thus allowing relatively free movement from one mode to another. This is not an unusual circumstance given Vierne’s approach to conventional composition practices (Vierne wrote about his early experiences at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles in his Mémoires): “After three years of instruction we wrote correctly, to be sure, but without the flexibility and freedom that make harmony an art. Later I had to work extremely hard to acquire a ‘pen’ in the modern sense of the word, and especially to enable me to teach in a really musical way.”¹² These feelings continued during his studies with Franck, Widor, and Guilmant at the Paris Conservatoire. Fruition was attained when Vierne was given the opportunity to teach Guilmant’s organ class while he was away on tour in America in 1897. Vierne was elated: “I was a little uneasy about such a responsibility but, at the same time, delighted to be able to express unrestrained my own ideas on free improvisation. We would ‘whoop it up’ with modern harmonies.”¹³

Thus, one concludes that Vierne uses a free form of modal writing in the context of the 24 Pièces de Fantaisie. In “Carillon de Westminster” (and in many other works from this collection), Vierne uses the Gregorian modes as a foundation for his writing. The modes of limited transposition, while in their infancy,¹⁴ serve as harmonic enrichment and color to the various themes Vierne creates and develops throughout the composition. One encounters all of these attributes within the first pages of “Carillon de Westminster.”¹⁵

In “Carillon de Westminster,” the sonorities created are from the D Ionian mode. Initial analysis of the opening theme reveals that it is indeed D Ionian (Example 1a). It begins in the tenor in measure 3 and extends to the downbeat of measure 32.

The accompanying figuration in the treble gives an aural image of ringing bells. It begins as alternating fifths and fourths, also in D Ionian. This figuration changes to fifths and thirds on the downbeat of measure 6 (Example 1b).

In measure 11, there is a shift to M3, T1. This continues through measure 12, adding harmonic enrichment (Example 1c). This abrupt change actually occurs quite naturally due to the common tones of D, E, and F-sharp heard in the theme in measure 10.

Also, in measure 11, the theme comes to a temporary hold on D—a common tone of M3, T1, allowing the two modes (D Ionian and Mode 3, T1) to blend seamlessly (Example 2).

D Ionian returns in the upper voices in measure 13 and continues until measure 20, where M3, T1 repeats in a similar fashion to the opening pages. The A non-scale tone is from the dominant of D Ionian (Example 3a).

In measure 24, there is a move to a different transposition level of Mode 3: T3, made possible by the common tones of F-sharp and A found in measure 23 (Example 3b):

M3, T3 continues until measure 33, when an arpeggio in fourths forms a half-diminished vii chord from D Ionian (Example 3c). 

In measure 35, the theme moves to the soprano, and the accompaniment comprising fourths and fifths resumes in the left hand. The interplay of the theme and accompaniment is similar to the material found in the opening measures (Example 3d). 

However, things change in measure 44. The C-natural in the accompaniment and the pedal hints to M3, T1, which serves as enrichment to D Ionian (Example 3e). 

The merger of D Ionian and Mode 3, T1 is traced in both the pedal and accompaniment until the downbeat of measure 60. Here, the D Ionian mode returns with a tonic chord and pedal point. The soprano register is filled with tonic arpeggios spanning two measures, before leading to a transitional section in measure 62 (Example 4).

This transitional section comprises a six-note group that alternates between the left and right hands. The move from D Ionian to D Aeolian is made by the change of one note: F-natural in place of F-sharp (modal mixture) displayed in Example 5. 

This marks the arrival of the B section, where the previously heard six-note patterns are used simultaneously in contrary motion in the manuals, now in B-flat Ionian, the flat-VI of D Aeolian. This new section in B-flat Ionian includes the original theme in the pedal, transposed to the new tonic (Example 6).

Everything seems to move along normally until measure 70, when an augmented V chord suddenly disrupts the melismatic passage, shown in Example 7. This augmented chord actually hints back to M3, T3. This is possible by the B-flat common tone heard in the soprano passage of measure 69 (Example 6).¹⁷ The thematic material continues in an identical fashion from measures 71 to 74.

In measures 75 and 76, an E-flat is added to the six-note pattern, replacing the D. This change is short lived—the D returns in measure 77. However, this time a I7 chord is reached in B-flat Ionian, instead of the augmented V, witnessed in measure 74. This is an important moment, as the primary theme (in the bass) has concluded, and the first portion of the B section draws to a close. The second part of the B section becomes rich in modal sonorities with the addition of pitches found in the Mixolydian mode, Mode 3, and Mode 1 (Example 8).

In measure 79, the six-note pattern remains, but begins a harmonic transformation with the addition of a flat-seven scale degree from B-flat Ionian (Example 8). This addition pulls the ear towards an implied F minor sonority—the minor dominant of B-flat Ionian. At this point, the listener is accustomed to hearing B-flat Ionian. Thus, it is shocking when the music suddenly shifts to B-flat Mixolydian in measure 82 (Example 8).

In measures 87 to 90, Vierne uses Mode 1, T1. This is possible by the addition of G-flat and E-natural to the six-note pattern. One gathers that Vierne used the common tones of M3, T1: C, B-flat, and A-flat (encountered previously in measure 85) in order to implement this change, which creates a harmonic “lean” to Mode 1. The second half of the B section draws to a close with the return of an implied ii7 chord from B-flat Ionian on measure 91, thus leading back to the tonic of B-flat Ionian on measure 93 and concluding in full on measure 94 (Example 9).

After the cascading downward scales in measure 95, a new theme arrives in measure 96, this time in M3, T3, found in the tenor (reached via the common tone of B-flat). This new 13-note theme soon changes from M3, T3 to B Aeolian in measure 103, reached via the F-sharp common tone in measure 99. The driving accompaniment figuration propels this theme forward and will gradually gain intensity. In measure 104, the theme moves from the tenor register to the alto, now recomposed in D Mixolydian via the same F-sharp common tone. The B theme is accompanied by M3, T1 in the left hand. In measure 106, the theme moves to the soprano and changes to F-sharp Mixolydian (via the F-sharp common tone) in measure 110 (Example 10).

This modal interplay creates a sense of anticipation as the theme rises in pitch, register, and dynamic level. In measure 104, the various restatements of the B theme are no longer separated by long notes. Instead, the theme becomes a continuous rising line, which gives way to a bridge in measure 114, gradually leading to the recapitulation of the primary theme. 

The bridge consists of arpeggios and scales from the G and B-flat Mixolydian modes. The primary sources of this modal shift are the common tones of D, E, and B in measure 113. In measure 114, the two inner notes of the chord in the left hand, D and F, serve as a “common tone anchor,” allowing a rocking movement from G to B-flat Mixolydian and back again. The two Mixolydian scales link together seamlessly. The interplay concludes via a final upward rising B-flat Mixolydian scale in measure 119, reaching the tonic of D Ionian by step and by chromatic descent in the pedal (Example 11). 

This active form of writing, combined with the increasing dynamic levels, results in perhaps the most powerful, seamless, and natural recapitulations in the entire set of 24 Pièces de Fantaisie. In the recapitulation, the primary theme is heard in the soprano, accompanied by a supportive pedal and repeated arpeggios in the inner voices. M3, T1 also emerges in measure 124 in the inner voices, adding support and color to the theme. Measure 126 contains a series of alternating tonic and dominant substitute chords over the B theme from measure 96 in the bass, now transposed to D Ionian (Example 12a). 

The thematic material repeats after this four-measure chordal alternation on measure 130. Again, M3, T1 returns with the chromatic descent of the bass line starting in measure 137. The D Ionian alternating chords return in measure 141, this time being interrupted by a stark arrival of a rapid flourish of thirds, fourths, and sixths in the soprano, accompanied by a chromatic, rising bass line in octaves. This flourish is clearly in M3, T1, and the left hand uses the anchor points of D and F-sharp. These anchor notes allow two measures of chromatic rising followed by two measures of chromatic falling before the returning alternating chords resume in measure 149—this time with the “bell-like” interjections used in the soprano heard in the opening measures (Example 12b).

The chromatic ascending and descending patterns from M3, T1 return in measure 153, but end abruptly as the music halts on an extremely dissonant chord formed from M3, T3 in measure 157. The F-sharp heard continuously throughout is locked in place in the soprano (a common tone), allowing the full use of chords from this mode. The chord in measure 159 seems to function as a form of altered dominant, but it is remarkably unstable due to the chromatically altered G in the bass, which is not found in M3, T3 (but is found in D Ionian). It is not easy to identify this chord using functional harmony due to the added notes. Perhaps one could argue that it is, indeed, a iv7 chord (from D Ionian) with an added ninth (the C-natural could be viewed as a displaced, chromatic tone from measure 158, which moves to D in measure 160). Either way, this chord leads back to the tonic (D Ionian) with the B theme in the bass, now in double time (Example 13a). This massive sonority brings “Carillon de Westminster” to a grand conclusion with three, long “hammer stroke” chords shown in Example 13b.

The conclusion of “Carillon de Westminster” (both aurally and analytically) leaves little doubt that Vierne possessed a creative, free-form approach to theoretical practices. The statements from Rollin Smith’s book document the success of this piece soon after its genesis, and the success continues today. With an understanding of some of the basic principles of common tone modulations, one can discern the construction of the Gregorian modes and the modes of limited transposition vital to decoding Vierne’s harmonic language. It is an important study that performers and scholars of Vierne’s music should consider. Not only does the study of music theory assist in the formation of a comprehension of the art of musical composition, it also enhances an appreciation of Vierne’s life and musical thought process. 

 

Notes

1. So far, there are only two recent publications on the harmonic analysis of Vierne’s music, particularly, the 24 Pièces de Fantaisie. One is part of a dissertation by Woosung Kang: “Louis Vierne’s Pièces De Fantaisie Pour Grand Orgue: Its Significance in The History of Organ Music,” DMA diss., Indiana University: Bloomington, Indiana, 2017. Retrieved from: https://scholarworks.iu.edu/dspace/bitstream/handle/2022/21344/Kang%2C%20Woosug%20%28DM%20Organ%29.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. Here, Kang briefly discusses the octatonic scale (Mode 2) used for Vierne’s “Clair de Lune:” “Vierne begins the melody . . . with [an] octatonic scale combined with chromaticism throughout,” 22. The other is the author’s dissertation: Jonathan Bezdegian, “Louis Vierne and the Evolution of His Modal Consciousness” (Ann Arbor, Michigan: ProQuest LLC, 2018).

2. The actual genesis of this theme is allegedly from “William Crotch’s variations on the fifth and sixth measures of Handel’s ‘I know that my Redeemer Liveth,’ from Messiah, and was played by the chimes of the new Cambridge University clock in Great Saint Mary’s Church. It was played by a mechanism installed 1793–1794 and thus known as Cambridge Quarters.” In 1859–1860 the actual theme was copied (for the second time) for a clock tower at the end of the House of Parliament for a new and larger set of carillon bells. The “Big Ben” nickname was actually the name of the 13.5-ton bell, which was used to strike the hour. There are four smaller bells that chime the actual theme known as the “Westminster Quarters.” We can also note that this particular theme was adapted to clocks in 1886. This was actually the first time tubular chimes were introduced into clocks, and since this revelation, this theme has become a staple in clock manufacturing worldwide. Rollin Smith, Louis Vierne: Organist of Notre-Dame Cathedral (New York: Pendragon Press, 1999), 555–557.

3. Ibid., 557–559. 

4. Ibid., 559.

5. Vierne, Louis. Pièces de Fantaisie en quartre suites, Livre IV, op. 55, edited by Helga Schauerte-Maubouet (Kassel: Bärenreiter-Verlag, 2008), XXIII.

6. Ibid.

7. Ibid., XXIV. 

8. Smith, Louis Vierne, 559.

9. Marcel Dupré, on the other hand, hated this composition (and was not fond of Vierne, either, due to irreconcilable differences). “There was an unspoken rule that students were not to bring Vierne’s music to [Dupré] for study.” If anyone was brave enough to, they were met with harshness. A student actually played the “Carillon” for Dupré at a lesson, the result was unpleasant: “he played the Carillon de Westminster of Vierne . . . When he finished, Dupré said only one word . . . , ‘Rubbish!’” Ibid., 343. 

10. See the Scale Chart for complete spellings.

11. This discovery is also relatable to the music of Olivier Messiaen. Robert Sherlaw Johnson mentions this in his book, Messiaen: “for most of the time constructional harmonic relationships play no part in Messiaen’s music, except at certain points in some works where simple dominant-tonic or subdominant-tonic relationships become evident.” Robert Sherlaw Johnson, Messiaen (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1975), 13.

12. Smith, Louis Vierne, 21.

13. Ibid., 125. 

14. The modes of limited transposition have a long history. We do not know where they all originated. However, we know that Olivier Messiaen is credited for codifying them. The first publication of the seven modes was in his La Nativité du Seigneur in 1936—one year prior to Vierne’s death in 1937. Also, in relation to the modes of limited transposition, music theorists currently use “T0” to indicate the first level of transposition (starting on C). However, Messiaen used “T1” or “first transposition” in his descriptions in La Nativité du Seigneur. So, to be consistent, I have retained Messiaen’s system. Thus, T1 indicates the first level. See Olivier Messiaen, La Nativité du Seigneur (Paris: Alphonse Leduc, 1936), “Note by the Composer.”

15. There were several accounts of this theme being written incorrectly by Vierne. The theme itself is quite long, since it comprises four quarters (one phrase for each quarter of the hour): one 2-bar phrase for the first 15 minutes of the hour, a second phrase of four measures for the 30-minute mark, a third phrase of six measures for 45 minutes, and the final phrase for the hour, comprising eight measures. It is the second quarter (copied in measure 2 of Example 1a) that was notated incorrectly by Vierne; why this occurred is not entirely known. However, due to Vierne’s musical ingenuity, it is not unwise to attribute this change to Vierne having “taken artistic license and altered the second quarter to suit his own purpose.” Smith, Louis Vierne, 559. 

16. All score excerpts are used with kind permission of Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel.

17. Notice that the notes of the augmented V chord are F, A, and C-sharp—all of these notes are common with M3, T3. Thus, the relationship between B-flat Ionian and M3, T3 is clear.

Photo caption: Example 1a (used with kind permission of Bärenreiter-Verlag, Kassel)

Colin MacKnight

Colin MacKnight is a C. V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at The Juilliard School, New York City, where he also received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He is in the studio of Paul Jacobs and is working on his dissertation entitled “Ex Uno Plures: A Proposed Completion of Bach’s Art of Fugue.” He currently serves as associate organist and choirmaster at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, Long Island.

A frequent competition prizewinner, MacKnight holds the Fellow and Choirmaster certificates from the American Guild of Organists (having won the prize for top score for the latter) and is a member of The Diapason’s “20 Under 30” Class of 2019. Upcoming performance highlights include recitals in Ingelheim, Germany; Kingston, Jamaica; and at Saint Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, DC. Colin MacKnight is represented in North America by Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc. For more information, media, and a calendar of performances, visit colinmacknight.com.

“Miss no opportunity to practice on the organ; there is no instrument that takes such immediate revenge on the impure and the careless, in composition as well as in the playing, as the organ.”¹ This description from Schumann was likely referring to the organ’s ability to execute—one might even say affinity for—complex counterpoint. It is only fitting then that his only organ work would be a set of six fugues on Johann Sebastian Bach’s surname, a homage to music’s greatest contrapuntist, one of Schumann’s principal influences, and the composer who dominates the organ repertoire to a degree that no other composer dominates any other repertoire. Schumann stated, “What art owes to Bach is to the musical world hardly less than what a religion owes to its founder.”² He also acknowledged the influence that Bach exerted on his own music; Schumann’s compositional style was unusually motivic, and he attributed his disdain for what he called “lyric simplicity” to his study of Bach and Beethoven.³

In German musical parlance, B is B-flat and H is B-natural, allowing one to turn Bach’s surname into the motive B-flat, A, C, B-natural. By composing a set of fugues based on the theme
B-A-C-H, Schumann was participating in a long tradition of composing pieces (particularly for the organ) that include the B-A-C-H motive.

This tradition began with Johann Sebastian Bach himself and continues to the present. Two notable examples of Bach encrypting his own name occur in the Toccata in F Major for organ, BWV 540i (in transposition), and Contrapuncti 8, 11, and 14 of Die Kunst der Fuga, BWV 1080. Felix Mendelssohn was the next composer of a substantial body of organ music to encrypt the B-A-C-H motive into one of his pieces. In measure 56 of the first movement of his Sonata IV in B-flat from the Six Organ Sonatas, op. 65, he prominently includes the B-A-C-H motive in the pedal, transposed down a whole-tone (Example 1).

Schumann was close friends with Mendelssohn and even wrote a glowing review of the organ sonatas in his journal, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, so Mendelssohn’s encryption may not have been unnoticed by him. Perhaps it is not coincidence that Schumann composed his set in 1845—the year in which Mendelssohn’s organ sonatas were published.⁴ In addition to Mendelssohn’s organ sonatas, Mendelssohn’s Six Preludes and Fugues for Piano, op. 35, and Three Preludes and Fugues for Organ, op. 37, were almost certainly strong influences on Schumann’s B-A-C-H fugues.⁵

Schumann was, however, the first composer to write a large work based on this theme. This proved to be influential; other composers who would later write substantial organ works based on B-A-C-H include Franz Liszt (Prelude and Fugue on the Name B-A-C-H, S. 260, versions of which exist for piano and organ), Sigfrid Karg-Elert (Passacaglia and Fugue on B-A-C-H, op.150), Max Reger (Fantasy and Fugue on the Name B-A-C-H, op. 46), Ernst Pepping (Three Fugues on B-A-C-H), etc. Schumann’s set is the longest of these works.

The year 1845 is often called Schumann’s contrapuntal year because of his and Clara Schumann’s intense study of counterpoint, resulting in such compositions as the Six Studies in Canonic Form, op. 56, and Four Sketches, op. 58, both for pedal-piano; Six Fugues on B-A-C-H for organ, op. 60; and Four Fugues for piano, op. 72.⁶ During this year of “Fugenpassion,”⁷ to use Schumann’s own term, they studied Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg’s Treatise on the Fugue and Luigi Cherubini’s A Course of Counterpoint and Fugue.⁸ Schumann also studied counterpoint intensely from 1831 to 1832 under Heinrich Dorn and from 1836 to 1838, a period which yielded more contrapuntally complex and rich works such as Kreisleriana.⁹

Schumann finished the first fugue on April 7 and the second on April 18.¹⁰ Soon after the second fugue was completed, a rented pedal-piano arrived at the Schumann house.¹¹ This would have been a useful tool for composing the Sketches, Canonic Studies, and Fugues, but, surprisingly, this is also around the time Schumann began to eschew the use of the piano as a compositional tool.¹² Perhaps, then, the pedal-piano was mainly used to assist in pedal-writing.

After the second fugue, progress on the set slowed for a variety of reasons including illness, work on the latter movements of the Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 54, and organization of an orchestral concert series in Dresden.¹³ By the end of September, Schumann had drafted the third, fourth, and fifth fugues¹⁴ and in late November, Schumann completed the set.¹⁵ The influence of the B-A-C-H project can also be seen on his next opus, Symphony No. 2 in C Major; the second trio of the scherzo uses a theme beginning with the B-A-C-H motive, and the adagio contains a fugato (Example 2).¹⁶

Schumann’s set of six fugues is in many ways similar to and likely inspired by Bach’s The Art of the Fugue since both are thorough explorations of the contrapuntal potential of one musical idea. Schumann was, however, somewhat disdainful of The Art of the Fugue for being excessively cerebral.¹⁷ Part of this is probably due to what Schumann may have perceived as a lack of variety in The Art of the Fugue. Since The Art of the Fugue is based on a single subject and the Schumann B-A-C-H fugues are only based on a motive, Schumann has considerably more flexibility in his thematic material. (Interestingly, this is not unlike Bach’s use of the B-A-C-H motive in The Art of the Fugue. In Contrapunctus 8, the motive is masked with repeated notes and inversion; in Contrapunctus 11, he un-inverts it but retains the repeated notes. It is not until Contrapunctus 14 that Bach plainly reveals the motive, a technique of which Schumann surely would have been proud.)

Schumann, like Bach, derives several distinct fugue subjects from the B-A-C-H motive. The first, third, and sixth fugues, for example, all plainly feature the motive as the main substance of the subject. The fifth fugue, however, treats it just as the starting point for further elaboration. The fourth fugue also uses the motive overtly but changes its contour by leaping down a sixth from A to C, instead of up a third. By modifying and developing the theme, Schumann reveals and incorporates one of his favorite compositional genres: the character piece. John Daverio describes this important difference between fugues and character pieces by saying, “If the essence of a fugue is a fixed subject, then that of the character piece is the transformation of an eloquent motive.”¹⁸ By combining elements of these two genres, Schumann is not just taking a neo-baroque diversion but is “updating” the fugal form to include the most modern musical trends.

Each of Schumann’s fugues also has specific tempo and dynamic indications to contrast the movements. The work is framed by two large accelerando, crescendo fugues; the second fugue is a virtuosic allegro; the third, serene and lyrical; the fourth, a more austere study; and the fifth, a charming scherzo. In this way, the work is not just a compilation of fugues but also a suite of complementary movements. Schumann also provides tonal variety by including G minor and F major movements into an overarching B-flat major—something The Art of the Fugue does not do despite its much greater length. Additionally, there is greater variety of texture in Schumann’s set than The Art of the Fugue. Schumann is not averse to devolving to homophony as he does in all but the third fugue. He also frequently composed in what looks like a “lazy” five-voice texture by writing five-voice expositions but not maintaining a strict five-voice texture (until the last fugue). This is, however, more likely another attempt at textural variety than contrapuntal ineptitude on Schumann’s part; by moving the bass line between the pedal and left hand, he is varying the sound and texture even while maintaining the same number of voices.

As previously stated, the first fugue is an accelerando, crescendo fugue. The quintessential example of this, and likely inspiration for Schumann, is the first movement of Mendelssohn’s Sonata No. 3 in A Major from his Six Organ Sonatas, op. 65. Schumann’s subject comprises two bars, the first of which is the B-A-C-H motive plainly stated, and the second of which includes the B-A-C-H motive in retrograde in its first, second, fifth, and sixth pitches (Example 3). At the point at which Schumann indicates to begin crescendoing and accelerating, he combines the B-A-C-H motive (or a variant thereof) in the pedal with a two-voice stretto of the diminished form of the subject in the manuals (Example 4).

The piece builds to a very exciting homophonic climax, particularly when the performer has accelerated enough (Simon Preston starts at 92 beats per minute and comes close to doubling the tempo, reaching 168 beats per minute at the fastest), with double-pedal before a five-bar coda that returns to a polyphonic texture, although without the B-A-C-H subject. Because of the lower register and reduction in texture, it is not uncommon to decrescendo through the coda, even though this is not indicated in the score.

The second fugue is the allegro movement and the most unabashedly virtuosic. It is also the only fugue in a triple meter, a trait of which Schumann takes full advantage through the use of hemiola. Its subject begins with a quick dotted B-A-C-H before beginning a sequence that is almost certainly taken from the fugue from Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for organ, BWV 565. Schumann would have known this work from Mendelssohn’s famous Bach recital at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, which he enthusiastically reviewed in his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (Examples 5 and 6).¹⁹

In measure 48, Schumann combines the subject with its augmentation in the pedal. Then in measure 74, there is a rest for performer and listener alike when Schumann quietly strettos the augmented B-A-C-H motive with occasional interruptions from the BWV 565 motive. (These fragments of the BWV 565 motive make the connection to Bach’s fugue even more obvious.) This motive gradually takes over the texture while crescendoing until the piece devolves into a virtuosic toccata, complete with double-pedal, arpeggios, octave doublings, and no hint of B-A-C-H. He then briefly alludes to the quiet B-A-C-H stretto passage again—this time with neighbor-tones on the B-flat—before a passage of triumphant homophony. There is one more fugal interruption before the chorale-style writing returns and a hemiola passage with sforzando chords every two beats. The movement ends with a coda over a B-flat pedal that continues to use the BWV 565 motive while eschewing the B-A-C-H motive, a final confirmation of this fugue’s inspiration.

The third fugue is the only one that is entirely quiet; there is a piano indication at the beginning with the description “Mit sanften Stimmen”—with gentle stops—and no further performance instructions. This is the only fugue that begins in two voices with the counter-subject present from the beginning. It is also the simplest and technically easiest fugue. The B-A-C-H theme only occurs in one form, and the emphasis is on lyricism rather than intellect or virtuosity. It is also the only fugue in a minor key, G minor, but ending in a tranquil G major.

The fourth fugue is the most austere and perhaps the least accessible of the set. This is clear from the outset when Schumann uses a jagged version of the B-A-C-H motive; instead of an ascending minor third between A and C, he writes a descending major sixth, meaning the subject outlines a pungent diminished octave. This is one of Schumann’s cleverest techniques: to utilize the B-A-C-H motive as a collection of pitch classes with no specific contour rather than a traditional theme with a set shape.   

Schumann further adds to the complexity and austerity of this movement by introducing the retrograde of B-A-C-H for the first time and immediately combining it with the subject’s normal form. The retrograde form of the subject almost always has staccato markings on the first and third notes to draw attention to itself, retrograde being among the more obscure contrapuntal techniques (Example 7).

This movement continues to use retrograde pervasively and eventually transitions into loud chordal writing with flashy pedal scales. Like the second fugue, it alternates between passages of strict counterpoint and homophony. The passagework and homophony bring what was an ascetic contrapuntal exercise—perhaps worthy of Schumann’s own questionable criticism of The Art of the Fugue—to a dramatic and exciting close. The climax in measures 96 to 99 is particularly thrilling and one of the highlights of the whole work, as if to apologize for the trials through which he has just put the listener.

As an additional conciliatory gesture, Schumann placed his charming scherzo-fugue next. The presence of a scherzo—an unusual template for a fugue—in this set is further proof that Schumann conceived this set as a suite of complementary pieces and not just miscellaneous movements based on the same theme. The fifth fugue is the only movement in F major and the shortest of the set. This movement’s subject begins with a fleeting B-A-C-H that sounds almost like a perfunctory after-thought—or pre-thought. It is a refreshing relief after the previous four movements which all employ the B-A-C-H motive so plainly.

Nevertheless, the scherzo is still a contrapuntal tour de force. It includes augmentation, inversion, retrograde, and retrograde augmentation, and combines the augmented form of the subject with the original form and the augmented retrograde form with the plain retrograde, an astonishing amount of artifice for a movement of less than three minutes. The technique, however, never hinders the charm. This fugue demonstrates well Schumann’s outlook on fugal composition: “Anyway, this will always be the best fugue the public for instance regards as a waltz by Strauss—in other words, where the artificial rootage is covered like the roots of a flower so that we can see just the flower.” For Schumann, artifice and contrapuntal ingenuity were always subservient to beauty and emotion.²⁰

The sixth and final fugue, the longest of the set, is another accelerando, crescendo fugue. It is also the only double fugue in the set, giving it more in common with the first movement of Mendelssohn’s Sonata No. 3 in A Major, op. 65, which, as previously mentioned, is also a crescendo, accelerando, double fugue. The three-bar subject begins with the B-A-C-H motive and ends with a short descending scale that is the source of the second subject. The first section also prominently features a five-note motive as a counter-subject, beginning in measure 16. This motive, intentionally or not, sounds like a quotation of the main motive in Bach’s chorale prelude on Valet will ich dir geben, BWV 736. The descending scale that closes the first subject becomes the second subject in measure 58 and begins a new section that is marked Lebhafter and più forte. This section does not use the B-A-C-H motive but instead develops the second subject, including stretto and inversion, and uses the same five-note countersubject.

In measure 95, Schumann finally combines the subjects and countersubject signaling the third and final part of this fugue, the only instance of strict five-part counterpoint in the entire set (Example 8).

The strict counterpoint continues until measure 116 when Schumann switches to grand, fortissimo, chorale writing with a few quasi-contrapuntal interruptions. The homophonic texture allows him to compose abrupt and distant modulations that are unusual in strict fugal textures: most notably, the modulation to G major in measure 139 and back to B-flat in measure 142. As in the second fugue, Schumann eventually eschews the B-A-C-H motive (after measure 144 in the sixth fugue), choosing instead to close the entire work not with either of the subjects but with the counter-subject.

As previously mentioned, Schumann “updates” the fugal form by incorporating elements of the character piece, which he does by developing and transforming the B-A-C-H motive. By examining the different transformations of B-A-C-H, as well as other motives, one can see certain relationships between movements beyond the obvious thematic unity of a monothematic work. Specifically, the movements can be organized into three related pairs: movements one and four, two and three, and five and six.

The first fugue is related to the fourth by merit of the fact that it utilizes a countersubject, itself derived from the B-A-C-H motive, which prominently features leaps of sixths, the same interval that is so characteristic of the fourth fugue’s subject (Example 9). 

While this relationship by itself may seem somewhat tenuous, Schumann retroactively confirms it with what is probably the most shocking harmony of this fugue: the false ending at measure 60, in which an F dominant-seventh chord resolves to a secondary-dominant ninth of the subdominant. What sounds like a dramatic change in register is actually the jagged contour of the fourth fugue’s subject in the soprano! The soprano and tenor lines also continue to prominently feature leaps of sixths through the coda of this movement (Example 10).

The second and third fugues are also connected by an allusion in the second fugue to the third fugue’s subject. In measure 48 of fugue two, the B-A-C-H motive appears in the pedal in augmentation with three extra notes that together with B-A-C-H will form the third fugue’s subject (Examples 11 and 12).

Just like in the first fugue, the relationship between fugues two and three may seem weak, but Schumann once again confirms it by developing the tail of the third fugue subject in the tenor and bass voices later in the second fugue (measure 135) (Example 13).

The connection between the fifth and sixth fugues is perhaps the most obvious. The fugue subject of fugue five has a five-note figure that occurs in the second (C, B-flat, A, B-flat, C) and third (G, F, E, F, G) measures of the subject (Example 14).

Schumann later inverts this theme, so it also occurs in an up-down shape. The inverted form of this motive (the aforementioned quotation of Valet will ich dir geben, BWV 736) then becomes the countersubject to the final fugue and is combined with both of the last fugue’s subjects. It is introduced in the first exposition in measure 16 and is combined with both subjects in measure 95 (see Example 8).

On the surface, nothing could have been more conservative in nineteenth-century music than a set of six fugues for organ. Further examination reveals, however, how progressive Schumann’s B-A-C-H fugues were. They were likely the first set of pieces to be based entirely on Bach’s name, they constitute a complementary “suite” of fugues—not just a collection of movements—and there are connections and developments between the movements that foreshadow Brahms’s developing variation. Schumann himself wrote, “I worked on this set for the whole of last year in order to make it somewhat worthy of the exalted name it bears; [it is] a work that will, I believe, long outlive my other works.”²¹ His prediction that his reputation would be based largely on these fugues did not prove to be accurate, but it was surely right of him to hold them in such high regard.

Notes

1. Helga Scholz-Michelitsch, “Robert Schumann and the Organ,” trans. Susanne Weber, The Franz Schmidt Organ Competition, http://orgelwettbewerb.kitz.net/Franz-Schmidt-OrganCompetition/Robert_Schumann.html. 

2. Eric Frederick Jensen, Schumann (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 145.

3. Ibid., 145–146. 

4. Scholz-Michelitsch, “Robert Schumann and the Organ.”

5. John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age” (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 308.

6. Daverio, Robert Schumann, 306.

7. Ibid., 307. 

8. Scholz-Michelitsch, “Robert Schumann and the Organ.”

9. Daverio, Robert Schumann, 306.

10. Ibid., 307.

11. Ibid.

12. Jensen, Schumann. 284.

13. Daverio, Robert Schumann, 307.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., 308.

16. Jensen, Schumann, 289.

17. Ibid. 144.

18. Daverio, Robert Schumann, 309.

19. Scholz-Michelitsch, “Robert Schumann and the Organ.”

20. Ibid.

21. Daverio, Robert Schumann, 308.

Bibliography

Daverio, John. Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Jensen, Eric Frederick. Schumann. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Scholz-Michelitsch, Helga. “Robert Schumann and the Organ.” Translated by Susanne Weber. The Franz Schmidt Organ Competition. http://orgelwettbewerb.kitz.net/Franz-Schmidt-OrganCompetition/Robert_Schumann.html.

Gavin Black

Gavin Black is director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center, Princeton, New Jersey.

The toccata principle

Studying J. S. Bach’s The Art of the Fugue inevitably leads to thinking about form. Whatever lens you view it through, the formal shape of that piece is important to its impact. Some of the qualities of abstraction that have been ascribed to the work may encourage us to focus too much on form or to attribute to form an even larger role in shaping the impact of the work than it really has. Paradoxically, I have thought recently about a formal principle that is very different from anything that is found in The Art of the Fugue. It stands almost opposed to it. 

I call this the toccata principle. This principle of shape or form is a bit elusive to describe because it is not “a form” as such, but rather a particular way of using contrast and continuity. It is a principle that can shape a piece and be responsible for creating form and structure. It is found in pieces that are constructed largely through other means. I have a feeling that looking for this principle in places where it might not be evident on the surface can help illuminate what is happening rhetorically in many situations.

There are elements of music—pieces, movements, passages—that are constructed according to what seems like a consistent evolution. Something happens at the beginning, it continues, and when it changes it does so according to some sort of logic. The texture does not change drastically or very often, and when it does change, the change is not jarring. This is nothing rare or arcane: it is by far the norm or a common form found throughout organ repertoire and in classical music in general. Each movement of The Art of the Fugue fits this description. So do the Bach trio sonata movements, the vast majority of his fugues and his chorale preludes, most Mozart concerto or sonata movements, and much of the output of Brahms and Bruckner. 

A different sort of construction occurs when a piece (or movement or passage) is created out of short elements of music that are very different from one another, making an overall shape as much out of contrast as out of continuity. This is the principle according to which most of Frescobaldi’s toccatas were clearly and explicitly constructed. This is why I tend to use “toccata” as a shorthand or tag for this sort of construction. This principle, however, also pervades much of Frescobaldi’s output that was not given the title “toccata.” It was picked up by, among others, Frescobaldi’s pupil Froberger, who was probably responsible for transmitting an awareness of this technique to a wide swath of the musical world north of the Alps. Froberger was widely traveled and quite influential. The North German organ praeludium grew out of this form.

Naming pieces

One of the things that I remember hearing in classes, lessons, and hallways during graduate school years was that a “Praeludium” in the Buxtehude, Lübeck, or Bruhns sense was not a “Prelude and Fugue,” at least not in the Well-Tempered Clavier or Mendelssohn or Shostakovich sense. At the time this felt like kind of a new idea. Some pieces by Buxtehude and others that were clearly in many short sections (some contrapuntal and some not) and the manuscripts that were titled “Praeludium” or “Toccata” had, according to then-modern tradition, been re-titled “Prelude and Fugue.” This in turn led to an often-futile search for the section that was “the fugue,” which was distinct from “the prelude.”

One way to frame the distinction between the Frescobaldi/Froberger/Buxtehude toccata or praeludium and the WTC-type prelude and fugue is that the latter is a piece in two movements, each often quite unified, whereas the former is a piece in one movement but with many sections. As I wrote above, the continuously spun out sort of musical unit often coincides with what we call a movement. This is almost circular or a matter of agreed-upon definition. If a piece starts and unfolds in a unified manner with logical development and then ends with a cadence and a double bar, we will consider this a movement, unless it is the entire work. It is easy to say that Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, BWV 548, for example, is a piece in two movements. That would be evident to a listener who had never heard the piece, or heard of it, and had never seen the layout of the printed music.

In a piece that is constructed from contrasting sections, the contrasts might be along some of the following lines: contrapuntal versus non-contrapuntal; regular in meter versus rhythmically static, recitative-like, irregular, or disjunct; slow versus fast; using dissonance in a regular, prepared, and resolved manner versus using dissonance for immediate or shocking effect; somewhat vaguely: harmonically lush and compelling versus harmonically bare and tentative; unified within the section as to texture (in the sense of normal prevailing number of voices or notes) versus irregular or varied within the section as to texture (for example, chords interspersed with scales); major versus minor; ending with a cadence versus ending abruptly; and more.

In the first toccata of Frescobaldi’s Second Book of Toccatas and Partitas (1627), there are eleven sections. This is in a piece that takes about four minutes to play. The opening section consists of chords, trills, and scale passages; the second contains a bit of imitative counterpoint in which the point of imitation in sixteenth-notes is accompanied by quarter-note chords as it migrates from voice to voice; the next section is composed of all dissonance and written-out trills; the fourth is again contrapuntal, but with more rhythmic variety in the voices; and so on. The piece ends with a long, rhythmically free cadential section, prior to which is a sort of jig fugue that almost could have been written by Buxtehude or Pachelbel. My purpose here is not to give a very thorough analysis of the piece, but to demonstrate that the sections are short, on average, and clearly contrast with one another.  

Buxtehude’s Praeludium in C Major, BuxWV 137, is one that I tried to learn in my very earliest days playing the organ. It was known to me in those days as Prelude, Fugue, and Ciacona. This made some sense as far as the fugue and ciacona were concerned: the fourth section of the piece is in imitative counterpoint, quite thoroughgoing, and it makes sense to call it a fugue; the seventh and penultimate section is manifestly a ciacona. But where’s the prelude? There are three quite distinct sections preceding the fugue: together they could be the prelude, I suppose. But they are not one coherent whole. The distinction between the opening section and the second section is as crisp as that between the part before the fugue and throughout the fugue. Then what of the sections between the fugue and the ciacona? In order for this work to have an accurate and convincing name that is a kind of blow-by-blow description, the name would have to be Prelude, Fugue, Interlude, Ciacona, and Coda—or something like that. In fact, it is a praeludium in one movement with eight contrasting sections.

All of this about titles is not necessarily important, as I am sure that the more accurate names are now in general use. But this nomenclature does tend to put a sort of screen or filter between the player (or student) and the actual structure and rhetoric of the piece. What is most interesting to me about that structure is the notion that a certain kind of experience creates the need for a different experience, and that it is this need—played out in infinite detail—that creates shape. 

It is the skill or genius of the composer of such a piece to make the details meaningful. How much dissonance or static rhythm and of what kind creates the need for what kind of lush harmony or compelling, dance-like pulse? What does it mean for a passage of irregular, ever-changing texture to be followed by regular, imitative, maybe almost chatty counterpoint? This is independent of the sort of shape that is created by continuity or recurrence, that is, the kind of shape that is found in The Art of the Fugue and in much of the music that we play or hear.

My use of the word “toccata” to label this compositional approach comes, as I said, from my having first encountered it in the toccatas of Frescobaldi. But words serve as names of pieces when and how composers want them to, and it is important not to take those words to mean more than they mean. At a certain point in music history, the word “toccata” came to denote a piece that is outwardly virtuosic and fast. This has been known to cause people to assume that any piece with that name should be presumptively treated as virtuosic and fast. But the term simply did not mean that at all in the seventeenth century. Likewise, by the nineteenth century, the word did not have any flavor whatsoever of the sort of structure that I am talking about here. The Widor Toccata, for example, is in a form that is about as opposite to this as could be: a perpetuum mobile spun out of one compelling gesture that seemingly cannot be stopped! (Or that one doesn’t want to stop.)

Bach wrote several pieces that come down to us with the word “toccata” in the title. Seven of these are harpsichord toccatas, and six of these are arguably constructed in a Bachian version of what I am describing here. The seventh is clearly not: it is basically an Italian concerto, as much so as the Bach work that actually bears that name. Of the organ toccatas, the D Minor, BWV 565, is in this sort of form; the so-called “Dorian” is emphatically not; the big C-major Toccata, Adagio, and Fugue is, though the sections are dramatically longer than those of any corresponding Frescobaldi, Froberger, or Buxtehude piece; the F Major is probably not: it is sectional in its construction, but the sections display a lot of unity.

Not all of the pieces that Frescobaldi himself titled “Toccata” are in precisely this form, though most of them are. “Toccata VIII” from Second Book of Toccatas and Partitas is clearly different, and the toccatas from Fiori Musicali are mostly not constructed this way. Also, many works of Frescobaldi’s that are given names of contrapuntal forms—canzona, ricercar, etc.—are constructed according to this sort of sectional contrasting plan, usually with the contrapuntal sections longer than all the rest.

Why in particular do I believe that it is fruitful to share these ideas with students? It is extremely easy to gravitate toward surface continuity as a source of shape and direction in music and to try to use our understanding of that continuity to guide interpretive choices. This underlies the way I normally pick pieces apart and I believe represents a common approach. We want to know what comes back, and how different themes relate to one another. We use this to make certain decisions, starting with basics like shaping similar themes in similar ways. So I think that students do not often look for contrast, surface discontinuity, or abrupt, apparently illogical change, or they are reluctant to make differences noticeably different. The notion that some pieces will have a more convincing overall shape and greater emotional impact the more we let differences be really different is, maybe, counterintuitive. But it is both true and sometimes a useful corrective.

To come back very briefly to the somewhat speculative mode of some of my Art of the Fugue discussion, we want evident continuity in life. But in real life, though there is often a lot of continuity, we never know for sure what is going to happen when we next turn the corner or even as we keep walking straight! I suspect that the Frescobaldi and Froberger toccatas, though in a very easy-to-listen-to harmonic language, were in fact getting at some of the same sense of dislocation and questioning that is found in some nineteenth- and, even more, twentieth-century music. It is interesting that Bach used the sectional/fragmented/contrast-based approach much earlier in his career than later. Was this just his moving away from early models, or did it reflect something evolving in his approach to life?

And then there’s Beethoven.

There was a specific incident that kicked off the most recent chapter of my own exploration of the toccata principle. I was listening to Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. This is a piece that it is very hard not to experience as a cliché. I had never disliked it, but I had never gotten as much power out of it as I do out of, for example, Beethoven’s seventh or eighth symphonies. I had probably always found it simultaneously stirring and a bit annoying. This time listening, though, I suddenly had the thought: “Oh! This is a Frescobaldi toccata!” And so it is. It is printed out in four movements. But those are not the real divisions. It is an overarching work with sections that have continuity, more thematic recurrence than Frescobaldi or Froberger, but that also have contrast and a sense of fragmentariness in spite of their length. 

I do not (yet?) have a rigorous measure-by-measure analysis of how this works, but I find it convincing, and it greatly enlivened the piece for me. I also suspect that Beethoven in particular used fragmentary contrast more than I (at least) had noticed. This is something that I want to continue to examine.

Shannon Murphy

Shannon Murphy is organist and assistant director of music at Trinity Presbyterian Church in Montgomery, Alabama. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in piano performance from Westminster Choir College where she studied organ with Ken Cowan and a Master of Music degree in organ performance from the Manhattan School of Music where she studied with Kent Tritle. Ms. Murphy is also an active recitalist. Recent appearances include programs at Saint Ignatius Loyola Church and the Cathedral of Saint John the Divine in New York City. An advocate for new music at the organ, Ms. Murphy has commissioned and premiered several works, including pieces by Aris Antoniades, Lydia Wayne Chang, Jonathan Posthuma, and Sarah Rimkus. Find more information at www.shannonmurphyorganist.com.

In nineteenth-century Russia, secular and sacred music had very little to do with each other, due to a separation in large part imposed by the Orthodox Church. Musicians of the West are familiar with this divorce of musical spheres, having endured a similar division in musical culture from the Middle Ages through the sixteenth century. However, there is a clear difference between the two experiences of division; this can be seen in the role of the organ.

In Europe, the organ and its repertoire developed mainly in the sacred realm, playing an integral role in church services both in the Medieval Roman Catholic Church as well as in the multiple denominations born in the Protestant Reformation. But in Russia, instruments were not allowed to be a part of Orthodox church services. According to the church, the voice was the only instrument necessary and worthy of use in liturgical settings.¹ While the organ was used at times in church services of minor outlying denominations, there was most definitely a dearth of liturgical organ music compared to the concurrently flourishing sacred traditions of western countries. Some may view this as a deficiency, but in another sense, the Russian repertoire for the organ in the nineteenth century provides a unique secular perspective on general musical trends. It is fascinating to consider the connections among the European organ traditions as specifically represented in music from the nineteenth century.

The oldest surviving record of pipe organs in Russia can be seen in the fresco of skomorokhi at Saint Sofia Cathedral in Kiev,² which dates to the eleventh century. The church outlawed these troubador-like figures, deeming them disciples of the devil.³ Regardless of the Orthodox Church’s antagonism towards amusement of any kind (even private musical activity in the home), the skomorokhi were in very high demand by various wealthy aristocrats and merchants.

Through the centuries, the organ gained ground outside of the church on its own merits as an instrument suitable for court entertainment, especially in the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries. Organ builders from Poland and the Netherlands were invited to establish firms; these as well as some minor Russian builders functioned, for the most part, on the whim of the tsar.

In the nineteenth century, the instrument had so grown in social status that it attracted the notable personage Prince Vladimir Odoyevsky (1804–1869) to become the first documented composer of organ music in Russia. He also commissioned a singular instrument for his home from the Saint Petersburg builder Georg Mälzel. It was modeled after Baroque organs of North Germany and nicknamed “Sebastianon.”⁴ While the instrument has not survived, its specifications are provided here:

Manual I

8′ Dulciana

8′ Gedackt

2′ Octavina

Sesquialter

Manual II

8′ Flauto traverso

4′ Fugara

8′ Melodicon

Pedal

16′ Subbass

 

Melody coupler

Pedal coupler

The 8′ Flauto traverso stop had a so-called “espressivo” effect, i.e., its volume varied with the pressure on the key.

Odoyevsky often held musical gatherings where musicians such as Mikhail Glinka improvised on the instrument. The prince himself was known for occasionally improvising fugues based on themes from Russian folksongs. In addition to an active performing life, he is also reputed to be the first Russian musicologist,⁵ having copied out music from the Italian Renaissance and organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, collected Russian folksongs, and published articles discussing musical trends of the past and of his time.

In Odoyevsky’s organ pieces, there are characteristics that reflect some aspects in the Russian ethos of music making in the nineteenth century, namely a sensitivity to color (in registration) and a disregard for Western traditions of composition. For instance, in measures 4–7 of Prayer Without Words, opus 73, number 2, the player (or registrant) is required to add and take away the Nazard every two beats, a purely coloristic effect.

In a later portion of the same piece, Odoyevsky uses octaves in a way that would baffle any western organist. Since he was in possession of stops at 8′ and 4′ pitches as well as manual and pedal couplers, it would at first seem that the doubling in measures 13–21 (Example 1) is entirely unnecessary.⁶ Yet, it is possible that the melodic octaves in measure 13 might be inspired by the znamenny chant, which developed from the ancient Byzantine tradition of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Yet the doubling in measures 14–15 is inconsistent with that thought and seems to come more from a pianistic style of composition.

There are other subtle instances of Western influence here. In the title Prayer without Words, there is an echo of Felix Mendelssohn’s character pieces Songs without Words for the piano. And in the simple lyricism of this piece, one sees the influence of Irish composer John Field, the inventor of the nocturne, who taught and inspired Odoyevsky, Glinka, and Frederic Chopin.

In 1833, Mikhail Glinka studied composition with German composer Siegfried Dehn. Glinka wrote (of Dehn), “He . . . not only put my knowledge in order, but also my ideas on art in general.”⁷ Out of this productive period came the opus 93 fugues for the organ: E-flat major, A minor, and D major. The influence of Germanic contrapuntal training is obvious in the treatment of the subjects, with use of parallel minor key, inversion, and stretto. Resisting imitation, Glinka did not write a Baroque fugue. The expressive leaps of the A minor fugue subject (Example 2),⁸ the motivic development of the codas, and the dynamic markings all point to a Romantic sensibility particular to Glinka.

It is interesting to consider this work in light of what Richard Taruskin has written about Glinka:⁹

What makes Glinka a founding father [of Russian music] has mainly to do not with his being the “formulator of Russian musical language,” whatever that may mean, but rather with the fact that he was the first Russian composer to achieve world stature. In short, with Glinka, Russian music did not depart from Europe but quite opposite—it joined Europe.

While the organ repertoire expanded, so did interest in the instrument; this can be seen in the establishment of organ departments of the first conservatories in the country. The Saint Petersburg (founded 1862) and Moscow (founded 1866) conservatories, headed up by the Rubinstein brothers, included organ study in their course offerings. Remaining consistent with the emphasis of their curriculum, the professors hired hailed from Europe. The first organ teacher appointed in Saint Petersburg was Heinrich Still, a German organist who studied at the Leipzig Conservatory. Jacques Handschin, another professor of organ in Saint Petersburg, was of Swiss descent, but born in Russia. Having studied with organists Charles-Marie Widor, Max Reger, and Karl Straube, Handschin provided a direct link to some of the greatest luminaries of the European organ world. It is interesting to note that Pyotr Tchaikovsky was one of the first students in the organ classes at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, graduating with a minor in organ studies.¹⁰

Despite its restricted use in the Orthodox Church, it is evident that in nineteenth-century Russia, the organ was thriving as a salon instrument, piquing the interest of composers and gaining respect in the academic field. Yet another aspect of the Russian organ world is its concert life. Franz Liszt’s recital of 1843, performed at the church of Saints Peter and Paul in Moscow, astounded and impressed. The frequent programs of music by Bach, presented by Johann Wilhelm Hassler in the early part of the nineteenth century, had an unprecedented cultural as well as academic influence. Widor himself gave the dedication recital in 1899 for the Cavaillé-Coll organ in Moscow.¹¹

Another development of the organ world reflective of the Russian musical scene at large can be seen in the instruments acquired by the conservatories. There was an organ built by Eberhard Walcker at Saint Petersburg and two Ladegast organs in Moscow. But the grandest statement of all is found in the last opus of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, the world-renowned organ innovator, which was installed in Bolshoi Hall at the Moscow Conservatory in 1899. This symphonic instrument undoubtedly had a huge influence in the performance and compositional direction of organ works in Russia. Its specifications are found here.¹²

Grand Orgue (Manual I, C–g3)

16′ Montre

16′ Bourdon

8′ Montre

8′ Flûte harmonique

8′ Violoncelle

8′ Bourdon

4′ Prestant

2-2⁄3′ Quinte

2′ Doublette

Plein jeu V

Cornet V (c–g3)

16′ Bombarde

8′ Trompette

4′ Clairon

Positif (Manual II, C–g3)

16′ Quintaton

8′ Salicional

8′ Flûte harmonique

8′ Cor de nuit

4′ Principal

4′ Flûte douce

2′ Doublette

Cornet V (c–g3)

8′ Trompette

8′ Cromorne

8′ Basson

Plein jeu IV

Récit (Manual III, C–g3)

16′ Bourdon

8′ Diapason

8′ Flûte traversière

8′ Viole de Gambe

8′ Voix-céleste

4′ Flûte octaviante

2′ Octavin

Plein jeu IV

16′ Basson

8′ Trompette

8′ Basson et Hautbois

4′ Clairon harmonique

Tremblant

En chamade (Manual III)

8′ Trompette

4′ Clairon

Pédale (C–g1)

32′ Flûte

16′ Contrebasse

16′ Soubasse

8′ Flûte

8′ Bourdon

4′ Flûte

Plein jeu IV

16′ Bombarde

8′ Trompette

4′ Clairon

Pédales de combinaison

Tirasse du Grand Orgue (I/P)

Tirasse du Positiv (II/P)

Tirasse du Récit (III/P)

Anches Pédale

Anches Chamade

Anches Grand Orgue

Anches Positif

Anches Récit

Octaves grave Grand Orgue

Octaves grave Positif

Octaves grave Récit

Expression Positif

Expression Récit

Grand Orgue sur Machine

Positif au Grand Orgue

Récit au Grand Orgue

Récit au Positif

Octaves grave du Récit au Grand Orgue

Sonette

dans Buffet d’orgue:

8′ Flûte, 8′ Violoncelle (Pédale), 16′ Montre, 8′ Montre, 8′ Flûte harmonique, 8′ Violoncelle, 4′ Prestant (Grand Orgue)

Mechanical key action (with Barker lever)

Mechanical stop action

An organ so fully equipped with a French reed chorus as well as string stops on every division is uniquely suited to perform symphonic repertoire. Unsurprisingly, there was already a significant representation of pieces inspired by the organ symphonies of French composers like Louis Vierne and Charles-Marie Widor. One fine example is the Prelude and Fugue in D Minor, opus 98,¹³ by Alexander Glazunov, which can be played convincingly only on an organ such as this (Example 3).

Here one encounters a far more technically advanced composition than either the character piece or fugue mentioned above. In the first place, there is double pedal, which poses a certain physical challenge for the performer. There is also a complex registration scheme: symphonic in nature, with flutes and strings working as separate ensembles, and contrasting dynamics achieved by means of adding octaves above and below 8′ pitch. Following the fugue, in measure 196 comes the classic French symphonic organ sound of full foundation stops (strings, flutes, principals) along with mixtures and reeds (labeled anches). Yet he does not stop there, as he adds even more 8′ reeds in measure 200,¹⁴ and 4′ reeds for the final chord (Example 4).

However technically advanced, there is also a marked difference in character between this and the works of composers such as Glinka, Odoyevsky, and César Cui. These all belonged to the generation of “The Mighty Five,” a group centered around the charismatic Mili Balakirev, who stood staunchly against the Germanic tradition of music making fostered by the conservatories. Richard Leonard says of Balakirev:¹⁵

[His] teaching methods, his disdain of textbook instruction in harmony and counterpoint, his insistence that learning should come instead from the study of great works, and above all his despotic handling of his pupils’ efforts, have all been the subject of endless debate.

This debate polarized the community and the musical conversation in Russia for much of the nineteenth century. While Balakirev’s free-spirited group was highly idealized, almost utopian in its philosophy, it did have one mark against them. They did not include organ study in their “Free School,” set up in opposition to the academic conservatism of the Moscow and Saint Petersburg schools. In the end, the Mighty Five gave way to a new group known as the Belyayev Circle, which aligned itself with the more academic aspirations of the conservatories. While the scholastic emphasis brought the advantage of consistent technical growth through systematic study, Leonard points out the weaknesses of this group:¹⁶

Inevitably, the strong academic influence brings with it a prevailing conservatism . . . . They lack the pioneering spirit, the urge towards enterprise, which had set in motion Glinka, Balakirev . . . . They are competent but unadventurous.

One sees this contrast exemplified in the music of composers César Cui and Sergey Liapunov. César Cui was part of Balakirev’s Circle, mainly remembered now for his articles written in various musical journals. After attending a concert where music of the Belyayev Circle was featured, Cui wrote an article entitled “Fathers and Sons” (the Mighty Five being the fathers, and Belyayev’s Circle the sons). In that article, he calls on the younger generation to “abandon this false path” and to “absorb the idea that the purpose of music is not to astound but to attract and captivate, that everything great is usually simple[;] that one cannot make oneself original by one’s own wish.”¹⁷

In Cui’s delicate and graceful salon piece, Prelude in G Minor,¹⁸ there is much influence from folksong, especially in measures 17–30 (Example 5), where the theme takes on a more simple and earthy quality than the opening section. The pianistic writing, seen especially in the arpeggiation of measures 16–20, somewhat detracts from its overall effectiveness. Even so, there is a certain warmth and personality to this small piece that lends a value all its own.

However, Cui’s prelude lacks motivic development and harmonic complexity in comparison to Liapunoy’s Prélude Pastoral, opus 54. Structured in variation form, this piece is much more advanced from a technical standpoint. Here we see the main thrust of the difference between the Balakirev and Belyayev groups. Although Liapunoy has a technical familiarity in writing for the organ, his music lacks the inspiration of even a small character piece by Cui, who is reputed to be one of the weakest composers of the Mighty Five.¹⁹

Take measures 126–135 (Example 6),²⁰ for instance. The whole piece centers around this moment. In the thirty bars prior, the registration and rhythmic pulse have all been building towards this point. In typical French fashion, the Grand jeux (reed chorus) is indicated here, and yet (in the author’s opinion) there is something supremely unsatisfying about this climax. The simplistic sequence, followed by stepwise motion and ending with octave arpeggiation does not seem worthy of the technical mastery of this piece or of the musical suspense that anticipated this turning point. The piece is practically finished at this point, though there are a few more variations that spin out the theme and gradually diminuendo towards a gentle close.

So, there is organ music that represents a synthesis of style between the technical forms and tools used in Western traditions and the various aims of Russian musicians throughout the nineteenth century. Perhaps the most interesting examples of this integration can be seen in the pieces that expressly intend to convey a Russian character. For instance, Reinhold Glière’s three-voice Fugue on a Russian Christmas Song²¹ does not seek to emulate either the French symphonic style or the Germanic tendencies of fugue. He uses the form merely to develop and express the theme to its utmost. His aim being such, the result is a piece entirely determined by the syncopated rhythmic profile and folk-like character of the subject (Example 7).

Although there seems to be much disparity in approach between the passionate idealism of Balakirev’s school of thought encouraged by Glinka and the technical and historical prowess of the Belyayev Circle, both generations eventually give way to a new method of composing, which incorporates emphases of both camps. Sergey Taneyev did his utmost to articulate this new vision when he wrote:²²

The task of every Russian composer consists in furthering the creation of national music. The history of western music gives us the answer as to what should be done to attain this: apply to the Russian song the workings of the mind that were applied to the song of western nations, and we will have our own national music. Begin with elementary contrapuntal forms, pass to more complex ones, elaborate the form of the Russian fugue . . . . The Europeans took centuries to get there, we need far less. We know the way, the goal, we can profit by their experience.

From the Choral-Varié of Sergey Taneyev, to Glazunov’s Fantasy, opus 110, and finally into twentieth-century organ works by Rachmaninov and Khatchaturian, one sees an even more pronounced integration of Western technique and form and the Russian spirit—a realization of Taneyev’s vision.

Notes

1. “An Overview of Russian Organ Music,” American Guild of Organists 2014 National Convention, Boston, Massachusetts, last modified September 2013: http://www.agoboston2014.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Russian-Organ-Music-Katya-Gotsdiner-McMahan.pdf.

2. “Mosaics and Frescoes of St. Sofia Cathedral in Kiev.” Sofia Cathedral website, accessed May 8, 2018: http://sofiyskiy-sobor.polnaya.info/en/sofia_cathedral_mosaics_and_frescoes.shtml.

3. Victor Seroff, The Mighty Five: The Cradle of Russian National Music (New York: Allen, Towne & Heath, Inc., 1948), 5.

4. Victoria Adamenko. “Russia,” in The Organ: An Encyclopedia, ed. Douglas Bush and Richard Kassel (New York: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, 2006), 479.

5. “Prince Vladimir Fyodorovich Odoyevsky (1803–1869) and Music.” RISM, last modified September 14, 2017,  http://www.rism.info/home/newsdetails/select/rism_a_z/article/64/prince-vladimir-fyodorovich-odoyevsky-1803-1869-and-music.html.

6. Alexander Fiseisky, ed., Organ Music in Russia, v. 1 (Basel: Bärenreiter-Verlag Karl Vötterle GmbH & Co. KG, Kassel, 1997), 10.

7. Richard Leonard, A History of Russian Music (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957), 43.

8. Fiseisky, Organ Music in Russia, 4.

9. Richard Taruskin, On Russian Music, (California: University of California Press, 2009), 29.

10. Adamenko, The Organ: An Encyclopedia, 479.

11. Fiseisky, Organ Music in Russia, XXII.

12. Fiseisky, Organ Music in Russia, XVI.

13. Fiseisky, Organ Music in Russia, 40.

14. Fiseisky, Organ Music in Russia, 46.

15. Leonard, A History of Russian Music, 69.

16. Leonard, A History of Russian Music, 202.

17. César Cui, “The Results of the Russian Symphony Concerts: Fathers and Sons,” in Russians on Russian Music, 1880–1917, ed. Stuart Campbell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 137.

18. Fiseisky, Organ Music in Russia, 2.

19. Leonard, A History of Russian Music, 66.

20. Fiseisky, Organ Music in Russia, 12.

21. “Les Maitres Contemporains de L’orgue,” IMSLP, last modified March 26, 2012, http://ks.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/c/cd/IMSLP193273-PMLP332253-Glière,_Reinhlod,_Fugue_sur_un_thème_de_Noel_russe._EdJoubert,_Sibl.FE.pdf.

22. Alfred Swan, Russian Music And Its Sources in Chant and Folk-Song (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1973), 132.

Bibliography

Adamenko, Victoria. “Russia,” in The Organ: An Encyclopedia, edited by Douglas Bush and Richard Kassel, 480. New York: Taylor & Francis Group, LLC, 2006.

American Guild of Organists 2014 National Convention, Boston, Massachusetts. “An Overview of Russian Organ Music.” Accessed May 8, 2018. http://www.agoboston2014.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/Russian-Organ-Music-Katya-Gotsdiner-McMahan.pdf.

Cui, César. “The Results of the Russian Symphony Concerts: Fathers and Sons.” In Russians on Russian Music, 1880–1917, edited by Stuart Campbell, 137. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.

Fiseisky, Alexander, ed. Organ Music in Russia, vols. 1–3. Basel: Bärenreiter-Verlag Karl Vötterle GmbH & Co. KG, Kassel, 1997.

Leonard, Richard. A History of Russian Music. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1957.

Petrucci Music Library. Les Maitres Contemporains de L’orgue. Accessed May 9, 2018. http://ks.imslp.info/files/imglnks/usimg/
c/cd/IMSLP193273-PMLP332253-Glière,_Reinhlod,_Fugue_sur_un_thème_de_Noel_russe._EdJoubert,_Sibl.FE.pdf.

Répertoire International des Sources Musicales. “Prince Vladimir Fyodorovich Odoyevsky (1803–1869) and Music.” Accessed May 8, 2018. http://www.rism.info/home/newsdetails/select/rism_a_z/article/64/prince-vladimir-fyodorovich-odoyevsky-1803-1869-and-music.html.

Ritzarev, Maria. Eighteenth Century Russian Music. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006.

Seroff, Victor. The Mighty Five: The Cradle of Russian National Music. New York: Allen, Towne & Heath, Inc., 1948.

Swan, Alfred. Russian Music And Its Sources in Chant and Folk-Song. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1973.

Taruskin, Richard. On Russian Music. California: University of California Press, 2009.

Steven Young

Steven Young is a professor of music at Bridgewater State University, Bridgewater, Massachusetts, where he teaches courses in music theory and directs the University’s choral ensembles. He is also organist at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church, Providence, Rhode Island. Young has presented papers and performances for regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists, the Organ Historical Society, and the American Choral Directors Association. He research interests focus on late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century French organist/composers, and he has written several feature articles and reviews for The Diapason. He also wrote the liner notes for Christine Kamp’s series of recordings of the organ works of Louis Vierne on the Festivo label. Young has recorded several of the works of Boston organist/composer Henry M. Dunham on the AFKA label.

In October 1926, just a month before his death, Aloÿs Claussmann chatted with an old friend, Claude Nievre, a writer for La Montagne, a newspaper whose office was directly below the apartment where Claussmann lay dying. Nievre had written an article titled “Un grand talent méconnu, Claussmann, musicien et compositeur” (An underestimated talent, Claussmann, musician and composer).¹ Among other things, Nievre made the point that Claussmann’s many years of service to his community of Clermont-Ferrand should be rewarded by naming him to the Legion d’honneur, the highest civilian award given by the country to celebrate accomplishments given in service to one’s country. Claussmann had spent fifty years selflessly serving the musical and religious community of Clermont-Ferrand with little or no thought to promoting his own career as performer, teacher, or composer. Sadly, the award was never granted to Claussmann, despite the efforts of all his friends and colleagues. However, his tireless efforts bore many wonderful fruits in terms of quality students, artistic performances, and respected compositions.

A native of the Alsace region of France, born in Uffholz on July 5, 1850, Claussmann began piano lessons at age 11 with his uncle, a local musician and teacher. Following those lessons, Claussmann studied at the Petit Séminaire de La Chapelle-sous-Rougemont. Between 1868 and 1870, he studied with organ virtuoso Eugène Gigout at l’École Niedermeyer in Paris, during which time he was awarded the premier prix in both piano and organ.

Interrupting his studies, Claussmann returned to Uffholz to perform his military service in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and 1871. When Alsace was lost to Germany at the end of the war, Claussmann opted to retain his French citizenship. He returned to Paris to complete his studies, where he distinguished himself as both performer and composer, earning the grand prix de composition in 1872 from l’École Niedermeyer.

In 1873, the position of maître de Chapelle at the cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand became available. Claussmann applied and was offered the position. He accepted it, and remained in Clermont-Ferrand for the entirety of his career, possibly to his professional detriment. Nonetheless, according to one writer, Claussmann wasted no time in establishing himself as a first-rate musician.²

In 1877, shortly after his appointment, the cathedral acquired a new organ with three manuals and forty-eight ranks of pipes, built by the Merklin firm, one of the most respected in France. The dedication program featured Edmond Lemaigre, then titular organist of the cathedral, and Alexander Guilmant, renowned organist. Claussmann participated as well, conducting two motets, including a Salve Regina of his own, newly composed for the event, and performing two organ works, one by François Benoist and another new work, also written by Claussmann, Offertoire.³

Claussmann’s musical work was not limited to his position at the cathedral. In 1881, Claussmann established the short-lived Société Philharmonique. Though enjoying only a brief existence, this may have been the first orchestra to provide written critical program notes for its concerts, attesting to Claussmann’s scholarly inclinations.⁴ Shortly thereafter, in 1886, he assumed position as organist titulaire, following Edmond Lemaigre’s relocation to Paris. It was at this tribune that Claussmann remained until his death in 1926.

During his tenure he composed the majority of his works for the organ (approximately 350 pieces), nearly a hundred for the piano, a fair number of songs, and a few other works for chamber ensembles and orchestra.⁵ Claussmann’s next big success was the premiere performance of his commissioned drame lyrique, Pierre, l’Eremite, composed to commemorate the 800th anniversary of the First Crusade (the text of the work was by the Abbé Raynaud). Written in 1892, the work awaited its premiere for three years. According to the reports, it was a resounding success, performed at least two times (May 15 and 17, 1895). The reviewer, while admitting that one could not analyze such a large work on one hearing, admired its beauty in both composition and performance.⁶ The performance featured an orchestra of sixty, a chorus of 200, and soloists, all led by Claussmann. It must have been quite the tour de force!

In 1909, Claussmann was appointed director of L’École municipal de Musique, and he remained its director until 1918 when he suffered from a serious health crisis that disabled him for nearly three months, at which point he was named honorary director, and Louis Gémont assumed directorship.⁷ The formation of this school was fraught with difficulties. Prior to its founding, there were two competing institutes, the Petit Conservatoire, headed by Jean Soulacroup, and the École de musique, directed by Louis Gémont, both of whom were considered for the position of director of the École nationale de musique. After several years of contentious battles about the school, and once it was decided to move ahead with the formation of a national music school that would align itself with the Conservatoire nationale in Paris, a closed door meeting took place, and Claussmann was named as director to the pleasure of many community members, and the displeasure of others, including the mayor of the city.⁸ Claussmann accepted, but wrote, with apparent jocularity, that if the conservatory were to open as planned, the undertaking would be substantial, and it would force him to cut his annual vacation very short. He did exactly that, and served with distinction for many years.

Little is known of Claussmann’s personal life; there are few letters and no personal papers. In 1877, he married Marguerite Barthélémy, and they had a daughter, Madeleine, in 1878. It is presumed that his wife predeceased him, based on the eulogies given at his funeral.⁹ According to Joseph Desaymard, writer and critic, who was his pupil and friend, Claussmann possessed a gentle spirit, keen intellect, good sense of humor, and youthful attitude.¹⁰ He rode his bike to work every day, and until the final few years of his life, he appears to have possessed good health.

Unfortunately, little is known about the critical reception of his work, at least in France. The local newspaper of Clermont-Ferrand rarely commented on musical events. However, the Société nationale included his Sonate pour violon et piano on a concert in May 1906, and the composition and performance received an extensive review reprinted in the Revue pratique de Liturgie et de Musique sacrée. The reviewer praised Claussmann’s melodic gift, his interesting harmonies, and his well-crafted forms.¹¹ This seems to be the generally held view of Claussmann as a composer.

Claussmann’s vast output of organ works includes music for any number of occasions. The two large collections, Cent pieces pour orgue ou harmonium, opus 34, and Cent pieces pour grand orgue, opus 66, encompass smaller works designed for liturgical usage, such as Entrées, Communions, and Sorties.¹² Undoubtedly he used these pieces himself over his fifty-year career at the cathedral.¹³ Even in these smaller works, Claussmann demonstrates substantial contrapuntal skill. The Entrée in D Minor, which opens opus 66, is only 63 measures long, yet it displays Claussmann’s fascination with counterpoint and with Franck, as the theme appears twice, in related keys, and then, upon returning to the tonic, is subjected to canonic treatment throughout (Example 1). The ninth piece in this set provides further evidence of Claussmann’s meticulous craftsmanship. While only 29 measures long, it has a tripartite form in which the return of the opening A section receives a new accompaniment with the melody moved to the left hand. In terms of larger organ works, Claussmann penned two sonatas, a Suite pour orgue, and several Livraisons containing varying numbers of pieces likely intended for concert use. These include fantaisias, pastorales, marches, toccatas, and many others. In these works one sees Claussmann’s wide-ranging inventiveness with their well-developed themes and solidly crafted counterpoint.

While steeped in the style of the Romantic era, the organ music often displays surprising originality. From the earliest opera, Claussmann combines both French and German styles, which may be the result of his earliest influences in Uffholtz, an area of France that reflected a great deal of Germanic influence due to its shared border with Germany. For example, opus 16 is entitled Orgelstücke rather than Pièces pour orgue. In the music, one often finds well-crafted melodies, a staple of the French tradition, fused with the intricate counterpoint that is intrinsic to German composition, making Claussmann’s organ music unique for its time.¹⁴ Claussmann’s fusion of the aforementioned styles is evidenced in Scherzo in G Major, opus 33, no. 4. While making use of a rather extended model of the scherzo and trio form—ABA′CA′, which resembles more of a Rondo—the typical French scherzo would not make use of the extensive counterpoint found in the fugal exposition that comprises the B section (in B minor). The fourth section, which itself is a small three-part form in the key of E-flat major, has a very lyrical melody for the outer parts and, again, the composer briefly employs some imitative polyphony in the middle portion.

Though Claussmann’s music is influenced by the style of César Franck, as evidenced in the Allegro symphonique, opus 33, no. 2, whose opening recalls Franck’s Pièce heroïque (Example 2), Claussmann often moves into unusual areas of tonality through his inspired use of chromaticism, following on and expanding the chromatic harmonic language of Franck. One even finds an example of progressive harmonic movement in some of Claussmann’s works, such as Pastorale, opus 26, no. 3, which begins in E major and ends in A minor, delivering an unexpected conclusion.¹⁵

In the United States, as early as 1892, one finds references to performances of Claussmann’s music. A concert review in the Indianapolis Journal accorded the Scherzo in A Minor a favorable assessment.¹⁶ (One assumes that the reviewer had heard other Claussmann pieces.) Several of the pieces from opus 26 were dedicated to American organists, including Clarence Eddy and William C. Carl, both former students of Alexandre Guilmant. (It is possible that Guilmant helped make the connection by recommending the works to Carl. Guilmant participated in the dedication of the organ at the Clermont-Ferrand cathedral in 1887 where he would have heard Claussmann’s music. It is also possible that Gigout recommended his music to Carl.¹⁷) The first volume of opus 16 was reviewed favorably by Everett Truette in The Organ, 1893, who wrote, “Three extremely interesting pieces . . . which are written somewhat in the style of reveries, and contain many passages of striking originality.”¹⁸ (It was of this Fantaisie in C Minor that Gigout wrote his praise of Claussmann.¹⁹) It is likely because of the work of Carl and Truette, who published some of this music in The Organ and other collections, that Claussmann’s music achieved some measure of popularity in America. Early twentieth-century newspaper accounts indicate that several of Claussmann’s works were performed quite regularly, especially Easter Dawn and Grand Choeur for organ and his Magnificat for choir.

Among other comments on Claussmann’s works, Pierre Balme linked him to a progressive aesthetic:

In his day, Claussmann had difficulty with being a ‘pioneer,’ even in spite of the example of his co-disciple Fauré, who remained all through to the end of his time, as innovative as younger composers. But why not have others reported rather how much he (Claussmann) was, in his prime, so profoundly ahead of the taste and knowledge of audiences and even music professionals? Twenty years ago, he was not afraid of modifying his composing technique according to the latest developments of the impressionist school.²⁰

Connecting Claussmann to the Impressionist school seems to be a stretch, though examples of augmented triads and unexpected harmonic connections are evident, as is the use of non-functional harmony, as witnessed in the frequent use of the raised fourth and fifth scale degrees, creating the sensation of whole-tone harmony. If this is what Balme refers to, then it is possible to put Claussmann in that category. However, Claussmann’s music is thoroughly steeped in the chromatic harmony of the period, and he often makes unexpected harmonic connections, such as moving between C major and F-sharp major for the middle section of the Fantaisie in C Minor, opus 10. These unexpected relationships may also be seen in the transitional passages of Au Crépusucle from opus 33, where the dominant seventh chord of the tonic G-flat resolves to a D major sonority, which is then repeated whole step below, obscuring any sense of the tonic (Example 3). If this fluidity of key relationships is considered “impressionistic” by the writer, then the term applies.

Overall, Claussmann retains a consistent style throughout his other music; one finds equally challenging tonal relationships in most pieces. Additionally, his treatment of form does not necessarily conform to expectations of his era, but a clear structure is always evident and logical. One might apply musicologist Carlo Caballero’s argument about Fauré, who he claims maintained the consistency of style throughout his works, which Fauré believes was “a crucial property of any music that is truly original,”²¹ and apply that to Claussmann as well. Hervé Desarbre would agree, according to the liner notes to his recording of selected organ works, as he claims that Claussmann’s style did not change much over the years.²² Claussmann retained remarkable consistency in his technical style and tonal language beginning with the major organ works from opus 10 and continuing through the late opera.

Many of Claussmann’s works have been recently republished, some with needed editorial emendations, as the printed editions contain numerous errors (especially clef change indications).²³ As there appear to be no extant manuscripts, it is difficult to know Claussmann’s intentions. Both B-note Musikverlag and FitzJohn Publishing have reproduced many of his works. IMSLP (www.imslp.org) has a reasonable collection available, and France’s Bibliothèque Nationale Gallica site had started to digitize many other works.

Whether Claussmann would have enjoyed the success his contemporaries did had he remained in Paris is a question that can never be answered. He made his choice, apparently without regrets, and enjoyed the respect of the community he served for nearly fifty years. The music of this underestimated talent attests to the mastery of his craft and the fertility of his imagination, and deserves to be re-examined and given a place in the concert repertoire.

Notes

1. Claude Nievre, La Montagne, October 12, 1926, p. 2.

2. Th. Mourgue, “Profil d’artistes: M. Claussmann,” Le Moniteur, June 29, 1892, p. 2.
“. . .il vient s’etabilir chez nous où on ne tarde pas à reconnaitra en lui un musician de premiere ordre.”

3. J. Merklin, Le cathédrale de Clermont-Ferrand et ses orgues, Lyon: Impr. de A.-L. Perrin et Marinet (1878), p. 28. As with others, Offertoire served as a common title for works; Claussmann wrote several.

4. Joseph Desaymard, Avenir du Plateau Central, November 8, 1926, writing Claussmann’s obituary (No page citation as this comes from the Bibliothèque de la Patrimoine of Clermont-Ferrand collection MS 1654). Present research has yet to find concert announcements or programs presented. In 1885, another community orchestra was formed which enjoyed much success, directed by Jean Soulacroup.

5. Cataloguing the works of Claussmann has presented a challenge. Pierre Desaymard made an attempt at this in the 1980s but seems to have missed some pieces. Four of the works from opus 33 do not appear in any listing of his, possibly because they were published by the English firm J. Laudy and Co. See Desaymard, Bibliographie des oeuvres d’Aloys Claussman, Bulletin historique et scientifique de l’Auvergne, vol. 1.90, pp. 305–321 (1981).

6. Le Moniteur, May 16, 1895, p. 2, and May 18, 1895, p. 2. According to Louis Gémont, the work was performed again in 1925 (Le Moniteur, November 11, 1926, p. 2).

7. In a letter to Paul Dukas, Claussmann thought that he was close to death at that time (Bibliothêque Nationale, Paris, W-48).

8. Jean-Louis Jam, “Aux origins d’une succursale provinciale du Conservatoire de Paris,” Bulletin historique et artistique de l’Auvergne, vol. XCIX (1998), pp. 127–156. An excellent and somewhat entertaining chronicle of the events.

9. Le Moniteur, November 11, 1926, p. 2.

10. Joseph Desaymard, “Le Mort de Claussmann,” L’Avenir, Nov. 9, 1926, p. 2.

11. Alexandre Georges on “Aloys Claussmann,” Revue pratique de liturgie at de la musique sacrée, nos. 103–104 (1926), p. 169.

12. These sets appear to be based upon Franck’s L’Organiste, but Claussmann’s pieces are more technically advanced.

13. In one edition of Le Courrier Musical, opus 64 was listed among the pieces that an organist should play.

14. While the fugue was certainly not an uncommon form in French organ music of this period, it was used relatively infrequently. Franck composed one fugue for the organ; he relied on canon and melodic juxtapositioning as his preferred contrapuntal devices. In examining the Widor organ symphonies, with their numerous and varied movements, one finds only two fugues, and those appear in the earliest of the symphonies.

15. This work is dedicated to R. Huntington Woodman, an American organist who studied with César Franck in 1888.

16. Indianapolis Journal, March 11, 1894, p. 8, featured a review of an organ recital by
W. H. Donley. I believe this refers to the Scherzo in B Minor from the Deuxième livre de la première collection, opus 10.

17. Gigout wrote glowingly of Claussmann’s work and was pleased to be the dedicatee of one of his pieces. See Mourgue, op. cit.

18. Everett E. Truette, The Organ, vol. 1, no. 4 (August 1892), p. 95, reviewing the Fantasia in C Minor, First Meditation in B Major, and Andante in D Major.

19. See Morgue, op. cit.

20. Pierre Balme, “Aloÿs Claussmann,” L’Auvergne littéraire, artistique, et historique, January 1926 (vol. 85), p. 15–17.

21. Peter Cirka, A profound identity: evidence of homogeneity in Gabriel Fauré’s thirteen piano Nocturnes. Unpublished DMA paper, Boston University, p. 9, and p. 26 (2015).

22. Hervé Desarbre, Aloys Claussmann Organ Works, Disque Mandala MAN 4927, 1997.

23. An example of the need for good editing appears in the Sérénade for Cello and Piano, opus 49. The cello part and the piano score have completely different notes and keys in places.