Harpsichord Notes: Handel vs. Scarlatti

Michael Delfín

Mattheson: The Melodious Talking Fingers and Harmony's Monument

Johann Mattheson: The Melodious Talking Fingers (Die Wohlklingende Fingersprache), Colin Booth, harpsichordist. Soundboard, SBCD-220, $16.98.

Johann Mattheson: Harmony’s Monument (Harmonisches Denckmahl), The Twelve Suites of 1714, Colin Booth, harpsichordist. Soundboard, SBCD-208 (2 CDs), $16.98. Both available from ravencd.com.

Of the memorable Baroque composers of quotable music and words, Johann Mattheson does not appear as a household name, but in his day he achieved recognition among his peers, particularly for his writings on music. Nowadays he is known both as a composer and author of theoretical works, and as the one who nearly brought an early end to the composer of The Messiah! Handel and Mattheson violently quarreled during the premiere of the latter’s opera Cleopatra, and were it not for an obtrusive coat button deflecting a sword thrust, Baroque music might have lost a significant body of music! The two later reconciled, and Mattheson dedicated his Melodious Talking Fingers to Handel. Keyboardists are fortunate enough to hear this work and Mattheson’s twelve suites in a masterful recording by harpsichordist and builder Colin Booth. His research into Mattheson’s life and music are well reflected in these two albums, which provide a window into the music of a highly instructive and colorful composer. In addition, Mr. Booth precedes this captivating repertoire with program notes that bait the listener without meaningless or uninformed conjecture.

Though different in many ways from Bach, Handel, and Telemann, Mattheson utilized many of the same musical ingredients via different tastes and yielding highly inventive and engaging flavor. The collection’s curious title perhaps hints at the occasionally capricious nature of its contents. These “technically competent fugues . . . do not sound as if written to demonstrate Mattheson’s desired contrapuntal rigor from his colleagues,” yet the contrapuntal mastery is evident. Numerous fugues consist of multiple subjects and demand considerable dexterity and singing interpretations to convey their richness. Additional pieces in this collection display grace and wit, providing even more opportunities for the player’s hands to sing and speak. Colin Booth does both. His performance shows admirable command of the fugues’ structure, yet the learned nature of the pieces yields to very characterful interpretations, from the singing quality of the fugues’ subjects to the unusual fugal characteristic of complete silence. The radiant first fugue gives way to a graceful and lyrical fifth fugue (complete with the buff stop), while the severe eighth and the triple-subject ninth receive their own creative colors, even with their austere nature. A palpable energy permeates most of the livelier fugues, and the listener is rewarded for embarking on this journey in the peaceful conclusion of the final fugue on the chorale Werde munter mein Gemüte. The dances are likewise imbued with character befitting their wit and charm, and Mr. Booth delivers a both a humorous Burla and a Seriosità whose sensitivity recalls the warmth of Couperin’s many sensuous pieces.

The twelve suites contrast enormously from those of Mattheson’s German contemporaries, as the former contain a more overt personal touch, especially in their fantastical opening movements. Their dance movements, though similar in nature, are far more adventurous in rhetoric and surprise, and Mr. Booth’s recording captures the adventurous qualities of these suites as a whole. His performance conveys the architecture of both individual dances and entire suites with the same mastery as in the fugues. His tempo choices and interpretations of character hold the suites together well, and his use of inegalité, though occasionally predictable in allemandes and courantes, imbues the dances with elegance. Gigues drive relentlessly and energetically, while their slower counterparts sway gracefully, whether sarabandes, airs, or minuets. The more fantastical movements rivet the listener in their arresting character, from the seventh’s virtuoso “Prelude” to the sixth’s suave “Prelude” to the second’s brilliant “Tocatine.” Mr. Booth seems especially committed to selling the unusual movements or those placed unusually; these stand out, especially the hilarious fugue that begins Suite No. 11 and precedes an equally outrageous gigue of an overture! The gorgeous third and sixth suites are the highlights of the album. Their soulful allemandes, energetic courantes, dulcet slow movements, and vivacious gigues show that composer of austere fugues could write absolutely beautiful dances.

As if the listener were not already in for a treat, Colin Booth’s instruments add yet another dimension of both inventiveness and craftsmanship to these albums. His 2016 restoration of the Nicolas Celini harpsichord yields a sound befitting to the speaking quality of Die Wohlklingende Fingersprache, and both instruments in the suites provide a vibrant sound for the many contrasting movements. Furthermore, Mr. Booth recently issued an edition of Fingersprache, available for purchase on his website (colinbooth.co.uk) and from Raven. All in all, these albums provide a rare opportunity to hear lesser-known and deserving repertoire played by someone committed to making its presence known and able to deliver it masterfully via both interpretation and instrument.

Michael Delfín

Prelude to Twilight

Dark Harpsichord Music, by Colin Booth. Soundboard, SBCD 203, 2023, $16.98. Available from 
ravencd.com.

Jean-Henri D’Anglebert: Prelude in G Minor; Armand-Louis Couperin: Allemande in G Major; Johann Mattheson: Air in G Minor; Louis Couperin: Prelude in F Major; Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: “Andante” from Sonata in F Major, W62/6; D’Anglebert: Prelude in D Minor; Johann Sebastian Bach: “Chaconne in A minor” from Violin Partita in D Minor, transcribed by Booth; François Couperin: “Prelude in A Major” from l’Art de Toucher le Clavecin; Louis Andriessen: Overture to Orpheus; Louis Couperin: Passacaille in G Minor.

This album is the replication of a program that Colin Booth presented in the Great Hall at Dartington, England, on a summer’s evening in 1995, a performance involving gradually dimmed candlelight throughout the program until only twilight remained with birdsong accompanying. With such an evocative title, one may wonder what music will unfold and how, and Mr. Booth’s compelling album invites the listener to sit with and absorb equally compelling music. As one discovers throughout this album, the moving selection of harpsichord works is never truly “dark,” i.e., without light. Rather, Booth’s own note on the Andriessen work speaks to the theme of the entire program: “exploring at length, and in a limited range of tonalities, a mood of subtly varied introspection.”

Without question the objets d’art of this album are the prelude and postlude of sounds of nature, and the improvisatory links between works complement the atmospheric approach to programming. Booth’s brief improvisatory links guide the listener through both changes of key and of nuance between the works of Mattheson and Louis Couperin, and then C. P. E. Bach, D’Anglebert, and J. S. Bach. The shortest of links is a mere five seconds and opens an unmeasured prelude in a relative minor key to the piece preceding it. The other two links are over twenty seconds and are comprised of more elaborate improvisatory material.

After an atmospheric presentation of birdsong, the first sound of the harpsichord is a D’Anglebert prélude non mesuré in G minor. Booth gently acquaints the listener with this new timbre emerging from the twilight, and his pacing is a foretaste of the sweetness to come. Armand-Louis Couperin’s “Allemande in G Major” from the 1751 Pièces de clavecin smoothly follows the D’Anglebert and graces the listener with its richness and suave character. Couperin’s exploration of the lower, richer, and indeed darker register of the harpsichord renders Booth’s selection of the work highly appropriate. A graceful “Air” from the second of Mattheson’s two suites in G minor from the 1741 publication follows. It is an ambling piece and contains a blending of French and German styles common with Mattheson’s works. Booth tastefully changes registration between a single 8′ and the lute stop. (If one listens to Booth’s other albums, one will find considerable creativity in registration.)

The grander of Louis Couperin’s two préludes non mesuré in F Major follows a brief improvisatory link, and the listener is invited to sit with a soliloquy-like statement from the pen of the first remembered Couperin. Booth’s timing in works of this genre becomes somehow predictable, especially in ornamental gestures that contain repeated notes, which come across as accents more than graceful additions to texture. In the French dance movements, one may observe a similar predictability in Booth’s inegalité, occasionally preventing one from enjoying these magnificent dances as entire structures comprising significant harmonic events and flowing passagework between them.

The linking of French claveciniste repertoire to a German Rococo sonata movement may strike the listener as odd, but the suave nature of the C. P. E. Bach “Andante” movement follows the smoothness of the Couperin prelude well. Booth’s graceful ornaments and creative fermata improvisations serve the placement of this German andante between two French claveciniste works. The subsequent D’Anglebert prelude arrests the listener with its registration and its frequently breathless pacing. The agitation Booth brings to this performance perhaps prepares the listener for the scope of the Bach “Chaconne” to come, following an appropriately solemn link. Perhaps the pièce de résistance of this album is Booth’s transcription of Bach’s monumental “Chaconne in D Minor” for solo violin, transcribed to A minor in this rendition. Booth’s performance effectively highlights the dance element to this massive work and allows the listener to follow the natural unfolding of Bach’s writing. Rather than create a virtuosic transcription à la Busoni or merely replicate the backbone of the work à la Brahms, Booth both honors and amplifies Bach’s original harmonic and motivic structure, adding material idiomatic to the harpsichord’s sound and textural capabilities while leaving the core of the work intact. Booth also utilizes his harpsichord’s registration to great effect, thus showcasing contrasting sections and highlighting the work’s structure. This is among the most engaging performances on this album and worth the lengthy listen. (Interested harpsichordists may find Booth’s transcription in the key of D minor at https://www.colinbooth.co.uk/.)

From the darkness of the chaconne’s end, a gentle glimmer of light emerges in the François Couperin “Prelude in A Major” from L’Art De Toucher Le Clavecin. Some of the Bach’s energy may have carried over into this performance, as Booth takes a little time to settle into the differing affect of the work. The only contemporary piece on the program, Overture to Orpheus, comes from the pen of Louis Andriessen, a Dutch composer recognized for his early serialism and neoclassicism, and later for his minimalism. Booth’s performance emphasizes the score’s tranquillo markings, perhaps placing the mind at ease as twilight falls. Whether the piece ponders, dances, races, or waits, it must be experienced as Andriessen himself described it, “prelude-playing.” The number of improvisation-based works on this album lead up to this one piece, which surpasses them all in length and as such must not just be listened to, but absorbed, even accepted.

The final work on the album, a gentle Passacaille in G Minor by Louis Couperin, cleanses the palate and allows the listener a final respite before a night’s rest. The sweetness of the middle G-major section in particular lifts the spirit from the darker sonorities of this album, and the final G minor seems less heavy than the solemn register of the harpsichord may indicate. The final birdsong becomes all the more meaningful. Having listened to several of Colin Booth’s albums, I can confidently state that this is my favorite so far. From start to finish, its originality engages the listener, who is transported into a mysterious twilight and beyond.

David Kelzenberg

Dialogue: Bach, Buxtehude, Kathryn Cok, harpsichord. DMP Records, DVH 140431, 2022, €15. Available from dmp-records.nl.

Chromatische Fantasie und Fuge d-moll, BWV 903, Johann Sebastian Bach; Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern, BuxWV 223, Dieterich Buxtehude; Fantasie und Fuge a-moll, BWV 904, Bach; Fuga in C, BuxWV 174, Buxtehude; Fuge C-dur, BWV 952, Bach; Praeludium in g, BuxWV 163, Aria: Rofilis, BuxWV 248, Buxtehude; Fuge a-moll, BWV 959, Bach; Canzona in C, BuxWV 166, Buxtehude; Präludium, Fuge, und Allegro Es-dur, BWV 998, Bach; Courante Simple in a, BuxWV 245, Buxtehude; Capriccio B-dur, BWV 992, Bach.

Dr. Kathryn Cok is a native New Yorker currently living in the Netherlands, where she completed her graduate studies and now teaches at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague. She is active as a performer and researcher and currently serves as vice president of the Historical Keyboard Society of North America. As far as I am aware, this production represents her first commercial recording of late Baroque solo keyboard repertoire.

Cok presents on this recording a very interesting collection of famous and obscure keyboard works by the two most celebrated keyboard composers of the German high Baroque. The program opens with a Bach work clearly influenced by Buxtehude and a challenge: how does one approach and perform a work so often heard and familiar as Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue? Is it even possible to bring something new to this work, studied and performed since Bach’s own time, without introducing bizarre elements (as many have tried) or otherwise deviating in significant ways from the score? In hearing the first notes, the Dutch influences in Cok’s playing are evident, particularly in the slower sections of the piece. She plays with great sensitivity, emphasizing the forward motion of the voices rather than the vertical harmonies, usually slightly delaying the upper voice. The recitativo sections are treated with subtlety and tenderness, while the rapid sections are played with flair and virtuosity. Added ornaments are always tasteful and appropriate, although her inclusion of the supertonic in the final arpeggiated tonic chord (here and elsewhere) was a fresh surprise. In short, Cok succeeds in breathing life into the work without deviating significantly from the score.

The accompanying fugue is more sedate in character, earning its epithet in the chromaticism of its theme. Bach makes extensive use of pedal points throughout the fugue in all voices. Many performers allow these extended notes to simply fade into silence or use trills to extend the pitch; Cok chooses to repeat the tied pitch at the beginning of each tied bar, sometimes alternating octaves upon repetition. Her solution keeps the harmonies active in our ears. Given these extended pedal and inverted pedal points, the parallel octave passage (pedal?) at the work’s conclusion, and other elements, I believe this work could be appropriately performed on the organ.

It is interesting that most of the Buxtehude works in the present collection have been published traditionally with the organ works and are most frequently performed on that instrument. That said, Cok makes a persuasive case for their performance on the harpsichord.

The first Buxtehude work heard, a charming setting of the chorale Wie schön leuchtet der Morgenstern (BuxWV 223), is one such case. It is sectional, with each line of the chorale treated in contrasting style. In performance on the organ, it is easy to facilitate these contrasts by changing manuals or registration. In this performance, the resources of the harpsichord provide the ability for similar dynamic contrasts.

The next Bach work, while similarly titled Fantasie and Fugue, could hardly be more different than the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue. The Fantasy and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 904, is a more serious and profound work, likely a product of a later time. The first movement is a prelude in fairly strict, mostly three-, although sometimes expanding to four- or five-voice counterpoint. The fugue is a splendid double fugue, with both subjects combined at the conclusion. It is a work that appeals to the mind as much as the ear and was a wise choice to show contrast with the much earlier chromatic pair. Interestingly, the second theme of this fugue is a descending chromatic line, thus an inversion of parts of the subject of the D-minor chromatic fugue.

Three other great works of Buxtehude (alternating with Bach works on the CD) are also drawn from the organ repertoire. These are the famous “Gigue” Fugue in C Major, BuxWV 174; one of the large stylus phantasticus praeludia, BuxWV 163, this one in G minor; and the lesser-known Canzona in C Major, BuxWV 166. The fugue is a rollicking delight, briskly performed by Cok. Both the G-minor praeludium and the Canzona in C are extended dramatic works in stylus phantasticus with alternating imitative contrapuntal sections and free dramatic flourishes. Cok has clearly mastered this style, performing these works in a highly improvisatory manner, with bold contrasts in registration and tempo and lavish embellishments.

Cok has included two relatively obscure Bach fugues, found among those many works buried in the appendices of the Bach Gesellschaft and mostly ignored for generations. The Fugue in C Major, BWV 952, is not a particularly interesting work in three voices. The subject is one of those instrumental-type “sewing-machine” subjects that rambles on in a sequence before finally finding an answer. The counterpoint and harmonies do suggest the work of the young Bach—indeed, the successful working out of the piece implies a somewhat later date of composition—but the lack of musical creativity suggests the work of a lesser mind, perhaps the exercise of a young student or even a youthful Bach son. The performance is quite fine, bringing as much life and interest to the work as is possible given the rather feeble source material.

The Fugue in A Minor, BWV 959, brings us into another world altogether. It is a fugue à 3 with occasional chords expanding to four voices. One immediately notices in comparison with the previous fugue the more interesting and intriguing fugue subject, ripe with possibilities. There are many “un-Bachian” elements to be found in this work, unlike the previous straightforward C-major fugue, which surprise the listener on first hearing and mark it as a product of his earliest productive years. In earlier times the authenticity of many of these early “quirky” works was questioned by scholars simply because “there’s nothing else like it in the canon.” One need only to study works such as the famous Toccata in D Minor, BWV 565, Chromatic Fantasy in D Minor, BWV 903i, Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582, the Pastorale in F Major, BWV 590, the Piece d’orgue, BWV 572, the canzona, the capriccios in B-flat major and E major, and many others, to realize that Bach was experimenting and often composed only one example of a form, genre, or style.

This experimentation is equally evident within works, with almost unlimited experimentation in harmony, modulations, scales, manual (and pedal) figurations, endings, etc. These striking and unusual techniques allow us to follow his compositional matriculation as they merge and evolve into more mature music.

This is a lengthy way of saying that I have no problem accepting this curious and creative work as the effort of a youthful Johann Sebastian Bach, despite its eccentricities. I do not know for certain, but I suspect it was these same quirky eccentricities that attracted Cok to this work and inspired her to this dynamic and dramatic performance, which succeeds without overemphasizing the more unconventional elements.

The two remaining works by Buxtehude included in this recording are both variation sets, published in modern editions not among the organ works, but with a collection of traditional keyboard suites presumably intended for performance on harpsichord or clavichord. Seldom performed, these suites and variations for keyboard are far less well known than are Buxtehude’s brilliant and justly acclaimed so-called “organ works” (and that’s an article for another day).

According to Emilius Bangert, publisher of the first modern edition of these suites and variations (Hansen, 1941, suites only republished by Dover), the tune Rofilis “is a melody from Lully’s Ballet de l’Impatience; it became widely known, and already in the seventeenth century was used in Denmark as a hymntune.” Without an initial statement of the unadorned tune, Buxtehude provides a set of three brief (sixteen-bars without repeats) variations in Aria: Rofilis, BuxWV 248, a work that requires subtlety rather than virtuosity. The entire work is scarcely two minutes in duration, but it is ample time to demonstrate Cok’s ease with this style. Her playing here is a fine example of pure musical poetry.

The roots of the final Buxtehude work in this collection, Courante Simple, BuxWV 245, are more shrouded in obscurity. It is immediately a larger-scaled work than Rofilis, with more variations exploring higher technical and stylistic demands. The variations tend to increase in complexity as they progress, allowing Cok to again demonstrate her subtlety, creativity, and virtuosity at the keyboard.

The final music of Johann Sebastian Bach included in this delightful collection comprises two major works, both well known. Heard first is the Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro in E-flat Major, BWV 998. This work has been a standard of the keyboard repertoire at least since Wanda Landowska recorded it on her Pleyel harpsichord in 1949, but it is actually catalogued as a “lute work” in Wolfgang Schmieder’s Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis catalog. There have always been questions about this group of so-called “lute” works, even though lutenists have played them, and guitar transcriptions and performances have been popular since the days of Andrés Segovia. The manuscript of the E-minor lute suite includes a notation at the top of the page reading aufs lautenwerk. The lautenwerk, a gut-strung keyboard instrument designed to imitate the sound of the lute, was supposedly invented by Bach himself, and his post-mortem instrument inventory suggests that he possessed two of them. Although no historical examples are known to exist, several modern instrument builders have constructed modern lautenwerke based on surviving descriptions. In style, all of the lute works are similar, typically featuring a flowing melody in one voice or two, accompanied by a walking bass line in slower notes, and/or passages of style brisé. They are seldom contrapuntally complex, with voices being fragmented even in fugues.

Under Cok’s fingers, the leisurely prelude is pure poetry. The melody sings, and there is just enough flexibility of rhythm and agogic to keep the music flowing and engaging the listener. Likewise, the fugue is brought to life in a tranquil way, allowing us to anticipate and appreciate each entry of the theme.

When the mood suddenly changes, Cok makes the shift in style without a noticeable bump. The return of the original section restores tranquility. The final “Allegro” is an outburst of joy, and Cok brings the whole work to an exciting, rollicking conclusion.

Arguably the earliest popular instrumental work by Bach is the so-called Capriccio sopra la lontananza del suo Fratello dilettissimo, BWV 992 (“Capriccio on the departure of his beloved brother”), the work with which Kathryn Cok concludes her recorded performance. It was written for the occasion of his brother Johann Jakob’s departure to serve the King of Sweden. The work is in six sections, each relating in a programmatic way to the departure:

1. Arioso: Adagio, “Friends Gather and Try to Dissuade Him from Departing;”

2. (Andante), “They Picture the Dangers Which May Befall Him;”

3. Adagiosissimo (or Adagissimo), “The Friends’ Lament;”

4. (Andante con moto), capriccios “Since He Cannot Be Dissuaded, They Say Farewell;”

5. Allegro poco, “Aria of the Postilion” (Aria di postiglione);

6. “Fugue in Imitation of the Postilion’s Horn” (Fuga all’imitazione della cornetta di postiglione).

Due to the youthful genesis of the work, it lacks many elements of the style of the mature Bach. Yet it has remained a standard of the harpsichord repertoire at least since it was popularized by recordings released by both Wanda Landowska and Ralph Kirkpatrick in the late 1950s. It is easy to see how this work has far surpassed most of Bach’s early keyboard works in popularity, given its obvious charm and the documented transmitted program. Textures vary from simple figured-bass passages to full-fisted chords in some cadences. Quite a bit of ornamentation is notated in modern editions, but given the provenance of its multiple sources, it is unclear how much of it actually originates with the composer.

Like much of the music of Buxtehude and the young Bach, it requires great freedom and imagination to interpret successfully in performance. Throughout this entire program, Cok has demonstrated repeatedly that she has mastered the art of the stylus phantasticus. Her performances show thoughtfulness, creativity, subtlety, and virtuosity—all in the service of the music.

The harpsichord heard in this recording, built by Titus Crijnen in 1999, has a rich and resonant sound, superbly captured by the recording team. Kathryn Cok’s spirited and musical performances throughout this disc make recommendation easy. She is an artist of considerable skill, and this compact disc recording should only serve to further her already impressive reputation.

Larry Palmer

Scarlatti’s cat in London, Vienna, and Texas

Our story begins with Thomas Roseingrave, born in Winchester, England, in 1688. He emigrated to Dublin, Ireland, with his father, his first music teacher. In 1707 he entered Trinity College, but did not complete his degree. A life-changing trip to Italy was financed in 1709 by Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, “to improve himself in the art of music that hereafter he may be serviceable to the Cathedral’s music program.”

It was at the home of a nobleman in Venice that young Roseingrave was invited to play the harpsichord. As he related to music historian Charles Burney some years later, “finding myself rather better in courage and finger than usual, I exerted myself and fancied by the applause I received that my performance had made some impression on the audience . . . .” Burney continues,

". . . a grave young man dressed in black and in a black wig had stood in one corner of the room, very quiet and attentive while Roseingrave played. Being asked to sit down at the harpsichord, when he began to play, ‘Rosy’ said he thought ten hundred devils had been at the instrument. He never had heard such passages of execution and effect before. Inquiring the name of this extraordinary performer he was told it was Domenico Scarlatti, son of the famous opera composer Alessandro Scarlatti. Roseingrave did not touch the harpsichord for a month following this experience, but, after his hiatus he became very intimate with the young Scarlatti, following him to Rome and Naples, and hardly ever leaving him during his time in Italy . . . ."

Returning to England in 1714 or 1715, Roseingrave continued to champion Scarlatti’s music, producing one of his operas at the Haymarket Theatre and publishing an edition of forty-two Scarlatti sonatas in 1739, a volume that included some examples from the 1728 Essercizi, including Kirkpatrick number 30, the “Cat’s Fugue,” which came to bear the descriptive title that is often credited to the composer Muzio Filippo Vincenzo Francesco Saverio Clementi, born in 1770 in Bonn. And why, you may ask, is it universally known today as something to do with a cat?

That answer derives from its wide-ranging fugal subject that begins on the G below middle C and continues upward dotted quarter note by dotted quarter with these intervals: G–B-flat, E-flat–F-sharp, B-flat–C-sharp, then cascades downward in eighth notes: D, C-natural, B-flat, A, G, F-sharp, G—a rather strange subject, but, bearing Scarlatti’s original tempo indication of “Moderato” this 6/8 theme does indeed sound rather like a middle-aged tabby cat walking on its favorite harpsichord keys!

I would emphasize the moderate tempo should you wish to play this audience-pleasing harpsichord or organ sonata! A Lyrachord recording by a very fine harpsichordist who is excessively fleet of finger rather destroys the fun and enjoyment of the quite unusual harmonies generated. Of course, I, too, have been guilty of playing too quickly many times, but once I approached retirement age I found that I really preferred to dwell longer on sonorities that I find beautiful. (Although my late-in-career students would probably counter, “But he always mentioned that he would prefer a slightly slower tempo!”)

Roseingrave made a number of changes to Scarlatti’s score of K. 30: these included a few differing notes, some octave doublings, and the replacing of many dotted quarter notes with a plain quarter, followed by an eighth rest rather than a dot—making these passages much more suitable to the organ and to the resonant acoustics of London churches. Speaking of which it may be of interest that Roseingrave, in 1725, became the organist of Saint George’s, Hanover Square, the parish church of none other than George Frederic Handel, the longest-lived of the 1685 triumvirate.¹

If one should wish to play from Roseingrave’s score, the best edition of K. 30 is a 1972 publication from Alfred Music, New York, edited by Willard Palmer (who used to say when I was performing in his presence, “Unfortunately, no relation”) and Margery Halford, both Houston-based early-music supporters. These intrepid researchers compared all the earliest printings (there is no autograph known to exist)—and their edition contains a facsimile of the work from the first printed edition (London, 1738) of which the first copy was presented by the composer to his patron King Joâo V of Portugal. Roseingrave’s changes to the score are given in smaller staves directly above the affected measures, and other divergences are indicated by footnotes referencing a copy of Scarlatti’s first edition that was reprinted by Witvogel in 1742 and Clementi’s version, published about 1811 in the second of four volumes comprising Clementi’s Selection of Practical Harmony. All of these useful addenda resulted in a score of 10 pages: the most comprehensive edition that I have found of this iconic work.

To continue with the references found in my title, I used an April 2019 recording from a demonstration concert performed on the oldest playable organ in Texas, the Caetano Oldovini organ built in 1762 and now housed in Southern Methodist University’s Meadows Art Museum. This instrument was originally in the Monks’ Gallery of Evora Cathedral in the university city of that name in Portugal, where it was one of three organs in the building.

Vienna: Reicha

A composition that I have never encountered on anyone else’s concert programs is the Fugue on a Theme by Domenico Scarlatti, opus 36/9 by Antoine Reicha. I found this delightful homage in Volume 2 of Bohemian Piano Music from the Classical Period, edited by Peter Roggenkamp, published by Universal Edition, Vienna (UE18583), in 1990. Perhaps Reicha, an exact contemporary of Beethoven (both born in 1770) felt some special kinship when he moved from Prague to Bonn with his parents in 1785?

In 1799 Reicha traveled to Vienna with the hope of provoking interest in his newly composed opera. His first visit was not to Beethoven, however, but to his idol, Josef Haydn, to whom his opus 36, a collection of contrapuntal works, is dedicated.

Eventually Reicha moved to Paris, where in 1818 he was appointed professor of counterpoint and fugue at the Paris Conservatoire, where his classes included such now well-known figures as Hector Berlioz, Franz Liszt, and, for the ten months prior to his death in 1836, as special mentor to César Franck!

Reicha’s “Cat Fugato” (pun intended) with its tempo indication of “Allegro moderato” may portray a slightly younger cat than Scarlatti’s, but the theme is the same, and the full title Fugue on a Theme from Domenico Scarlatti leaves no doubt as to the homage work that it is. Gently swirling sixteenth notes sound lovely on the harpsichord, and I enjoy, immensely, introducing this beautiful novelty to audiences. Depending on my mood of the moment I sometimes make the piece even more special by changing the concluding chord from minor to major; thus far, no thunderbolt has reached me from the heavens (nor from below the earth), so I suspect that I have the composer’s blessing.

Thus we have fulfilled the offerings named in the title of my presentation for the May conference of the Historical Keyboard Society of North America (HKSNA) held this year at Huntsville, Texas, in the beautiful venues provided by Sam Houston State University. I made an ad hoc quick recording of Reicha’s Fugue utilizing my Richard Kingston Franco-Flemish double harpsichord, to complement the organ solo of Scarlatti’s original Fugue. A neighbor did the recording, and, with the multiple duties of preparing for the trip, I did not check the disc that was offered. Thus, when I checked its suitability and compatibility with my computer, I had the shock of its not being playable.

My rescuer in this debacle was newly minted DMA Silvanio Reis, a star pupil of Temple University’s Joyce Lindorff (who, incidentally, succeeded me as president of the Southeastern Historic Keyboard Society, one of the now-merged components of the current national organization). His computer was receptive to MP-3 recording, and he not only operated the sound for this second selection, but also took over the earlier disc of the organ fugue, which made my morning presentation much easier than I could have imagined. Dr. Reis also made his own presentation, “The International Idiom in the Keyboard Sonatas of Domenico Scarlatti,” during which he played examples from six sonatas as apt musical preludes to my more verbal and humorous offering.

Note

1. Dates given in Gerald Gifford’s article for Grove’s Dictionary of Music, Fifth Edition.

Editor’s note: the staff of THE DIAPASON congratulates Dr. Palmer on being named a member of the International Advisory Panel for the Historical Keyboard Society of North America.

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.

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