Johann Ludwig Krebs, <i>Prelude in F Major</i>: A Guide Towards Performance

Jan-Piet Knijff teaches organ and chamber music and is organist-in-residence at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College/CUNY. He holds the Doctor of Musical Arts degree from The City University of New York as well as the Artist’s Diploma from the Conservatory of Amsterdam and is an Associate of the American Guild of Organists. He won both first prize and the Audience Prize at the International Bach Competition Lausanne, Switzerland. His organ teachers have included Piet Kee, Ewald Kooiman, and Christoph Wolff. Visit his website at <www.jpkmusic.com&gt;.

Introduction

Although only a handful of his organ works survive, Nicolaus Bruhns was undoubtedly one of the most important organists of his generation; the famous Bach Obituary mentions him as one of the composers Johann Sebastian took “as a model” for his own work.1 Bruhns was born less than twenty years before Bach, in December 1665, to a family of musicians in Schwabstedt in North Frisia. At the age of 16 he went to Lübeck to study violin with his uncle Peter Bruhns and organ and composition with Dieterich Buxtehude. On the latter’s recommendation, Bruhns worked in Copenhagen for a few years, but in 1689 he returned to the land of his birth to become organist at the Stadtkirche in Husum. He declined an offer from the city of Kiel to become organist there, accepting a 25% raise in Husum instead. After almost exactly eight years in the position, Bruhns died on March 29, 1697, only 31 years old. He was succeeded by his brother Georg, who had succeeded their father in Schwabstedt at the time Nicolaus was appointed in Husum. Georg stayed in Husum until his death in 1742.

Nicolaus must have been an equally virtuoso organist and violinist, and the story that he sometimes accompanied himself on the organ pedals while playing the violin rings true (Harald Vogel was apparently the first to suggest that the arpeggio passage in the “Great” E-minor Preludium may reflect this practice). Although Bruhns’s organ in Husum was not particularly large, it must have been a very fine instrument, as it was built by Gottfried Fritzsche (1629–32), one of the foremost builders of the time. After various alterations, it had 24 stops on three manuals (Hauptwerk, Rückpositiv, and Brustwerk) and pedal in 1723. In addition to a number of sacred cantatas, Bruhns’s works for organ include two preludia in E minor, one in G major, the chorale fantasy on Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, and an Adagio in D major (surely a fragment from a larger preludium in that key, the Adagio was first published by Carus Verlag in the Husumer Orgelbuch, Stuttgart 2001). The authorship of the Preludium in G Minor, first published by Martin Geck in 1967, remains uncertain: its only source mentions a “Mons: Prunth” as the composer, and even if the last name is to be read as Bruhns, it is possible that the work is Georg’s, not Nicolaus’s, as Barbara Ann Raedeke has suggested;2 the piece is definitely much less convincing than Bruhns’s other organ works.3

Editions

Three editions of Bruhns’s organ works are currently available in print:

• Doblinger (Vienna & Munich, 1993), edited by Michael Radulescu. Vol. 1 contains the preludia in G major and E minor, vol. 2 the preludium in G minor and two versions of the chorale fantasy Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland.

• Breitkopf & Härtel (Wiesbaden 1972), edited by Klaus Beckmann. Contains the four preludia and the chorale fantasy. A revision of this edition that will include the Adagio in D Major is scheduled for publication.

• C.F. Peters (Frankfurt & New York, 1967), originally edited by Fritz Stein for the series Das Erbe deutscher Musik in 1937–9, revised by Martin Geck. Contains the four preludia and the chorale fantasy.
Although no longer in print, the following edition can still be found in libraries and sometimes turns up in book sales:

• Kistner & Siegel (Organum series IV, vol. 8), edited by Max Seiffert. Contains only the preludia in E minor and G major.

Although all four editions can be considered scholarly “urtext” editions in their own right, there are vast differences among them. As welcome and “modern” as Seiffert’s editions in the Organum series were at the time of their publication, they are now mostly outdated, sometimes because new sources have turned up, sometimes because eighty years of scholarship (and performance) have led to new conclusions. Important to know is that Seiffert generally supplied tempo indications; he also generously added ties without telling you. The Peters edition, too, is now outdated.

Klaus Beckmann’s editions of the North German organ repertoire (his complete Buxtehude edition is best known, but he also did Böhm, Lübeck, Tunder, and many others) have often been criticized. Given the absence of autographs (manuscripts in the hand of the composer), Beckmann feels it is his task to establish as best a text as he can. In practice this often leads to changes that are arbitrary at best in the eyes of many scholars and performers. While Beckmann mentions everything (or most everything) in his critical commentary, the format he uses is not particularly inviting, to say the least; and if you don’t read German, the abbreviations are practically undecipherable. Although Beckmann’s Bruhns edition is certainly usable, you have to watch out, and better spend a couple of hours figuring out all the changes he made if you want to know what’s actually in the source.

The edition by Michael Radulescu stays much closer to the original: corrections are noted in an accessible commentary; editorial ties are dotted and editorial rests and ornaments put in brackets. The result is an edition that is very trustworthy but at the same time looks a little pedantic. An interesting feature is that Radulescu offers most pieces on two staves, with the pedal notes on the lower staff with the stems down. This is how an organist of Bruhns’s (and even Bach’s) time would have read virtually every organ work (assuming they used staff notation), but it is probably a little unpractical for most organists today, and there is hardly ever any doubt as to which bass notes belong in the pedal in Bruhns.

Most organists may prefer to play from the Beckmann edition after correcting the text on the basis of Radulescu’s edition. As an alternative, I have prepared an edition on three staves in which I have made suggestions for hand division by assigning right-hand notes to the top staff and left-hand notes to the middle staff. Since the source is written in German organ tablature (a kind of letter notation), any hand division is editorial anyway. The practice of indicating hand division however is widely used elsewhere in seventeenth-century keyboard music, and there are very few places open for serious discussion in the “Little” E-minor. The edition will be made available on-line, but for now, simply contact me by e-mail if you want a copy ([email protected]).

Overview

Let’s start off with getting an idea of the whole piece. Don’t start playing right away; just take a look at the score and see what’s going on. At the very beginning, you will notice the pedals rushing in with a dazzling solo, resulting in a “drum roll” (m. 5 ff.), supported by strong off-beat manual chords. This section is followed by a short Adagio (mm. 10–16). Then follows an Allegro in 12/8 with extensive use of the echo effect. Notice how at the end (mm. 33 ff.) the roles are inverted: the echo comes first this time!

Another short Adagio (mm. 39–46) leads to a fugue, marked Vivace (mm. 47–84). Take a look at the pedal and notice how the fugue can be divided in three short sections: mm. 47–67; 67–76; and 76–84. Once again a short Adagio, and we arrive at the final Allegro (mm. 90–105), a dialogue between soprano and pedal, ending in a playful series of arpeggiated chords.

The concluding Adagio begins with off-beat repeated chords in the hands (mm. 106–110), followed by a pedal point supporting expressive harmonies. A diminished-seventh chord is emphasized by a rhetorical pause before it resolves into the final cadence.

Beginning to play

Now that you have an idea of the piece as a whole, it’s time to start playing. But, unless you’re an experienced player and a good sight reader, don’t try to sight-read the whole piece at once. Why not start with the opening pedal solo, clearly conceived for alternating toes and really not very hard to play at all. Play the first four measures (finishing of with the first notes of m. 5) and notice how Bruhns already has told you a whole story! To get an even better idea of the expressive writing, try playing the pedal solo as “solid” chords, either with a hand (or both hands) or actually in the pedal (Example 1).
Now that you have the opening measures under your belt, let’s take a look at the very end of the piece: simply sight-read the last three measures—no big deal. Now, why not connect the beginning four measures and the last three: after the first note in m. 5, simply jump to m. 117. Play this combination of beginning and end a few times; it gives you a sort of “summary” of the piece, a “framework” to fill in the rest of the music. It’s a good idea to return to your little “summary” regularly when working on the piece; it helps you to bear in mind the end-goal of your journey.

For now, continue with the opening section, trying the pedal “drum roll.” This works best when played mildly staccato (as if repeating the note at the same pitch). Forget whatever you may have learned about keeping your knees together when playing the pedals: that doesn’t help very much in this kind of situation. Instead, think of your right knee moving out over your right foot when playing that high b. Once the pedal part feels comfortable, try adding those off-beat manual chords. You want them to be strong and expressive, sure, but since they come on light beats, try not to give them their exact full length (rather something like a dotted eighth note).

In m. 8, there is a mistake in the manuscript; the most logical solution may be to play quarter-note chords (as in Radulescu’s edition), but many organists have become used to hearing eighth-note chords here (as in Beckmann), which does give a little change of pace. See what you like best; it doesn’t really matter too much, and from the point of view of the source, you could argue either way.
When arriving at the Adagio in m. 11, be sure to keep (approximately) the same tempo by “thinking” sixteenths in that measure.

The 12/8 echo section

Think of the eighths in the right hand as triplets; you can maintain the same tempo for this section. It’s easiest to reserve the right hand for the “triplets” and take all the other manual notes in the left hand. Here are some fingering suggestions for the first two measures (Example 2).
Using the same finger for neighboring notes helps creating a clear, slightly detached sound. Make sure not to overdo it: you don’t want the music to sound too jumpy (at least, I don’t). If you feel really uncomfortable using this kind of fingering, you can easily change it, for example by using a thumb on the e'' before the d#'' in m. 18; just try to avoid a “Romantic” legato. For the left hand, you may find it easiest to start with the index finger on the first two notes. The pedal won’t give you much trouble; I would avoid heels, simply playing right-right-left-right in m. 27. In m. 36, simply stick with the right toe; “lean” a little into every note so that they don’t become too short, but you still want them to be clearly articulated.

Take your time for the manual changes to the “echo” manual and back (no matter which manual you use for the echo); the little bit of time it takes to get from one manual to another (and vice versa) actually helps making the echo effect clearer. In general, try to make your movements easy and pleasant; when it feels that way, there’s a good chance the music will also sound that way.

The fugue

Again, resist the temptation to sight-read the whole fugue. Instead, pick out the entries of the theme first and then play them in the appropriate hand or feet. Here’s how it works:

m. 47: theme in soprano, played in the right hand;

m. 50: theme in alto, left hand;

m. 53: theme in tenor, left;

m. 56: theme in bass, pedals.

Those four entries constitute the exposition of the fugue. After an “episode,” a kind of development of the motive from m. 48, we’re back to business:

m. 67: theme in alto, left hand;

m. 70: theme in tenor, left;

m. 73: theme in bass, pedals.

Finally, there are two incomplete entries of the theme:

m. 76: in alto, right hand (but put the left index finger on the long g' in m. 77);

m. 77: in soprano, right hand (with the thumb going under the left index finger on the first beat of m. 78).

This gives you the outline for the fugue. Here, by the way, is my fingering for the theme (Example 3). In the pedal, once again try to avoid the heels (Example 4).

While we’re at it: what is the reason for avoiding the heels in this kind of music? Well, first off, it makes you look good in historically informed organ circles, where the general assumption is that the heel was not (or very rarely) used in organ music up to (and including) Bach. Although we have no idea what virtuoso performers like Bruhns (and Bach) did in real life, most if not all of their music can be comfortably played without using the heel. More importantly, it’s usually easier to get a good sound and the “right” kind of touch that way. It is not true that it was (or is) impossible to use heels on seventeenth-century pedals, although it’s generally more difficult at the center (around c) than at the extremes. If you find it hard to imagine that an inventive virtuoso like Bruhns never ever in his lifetime hit on the idea of using the other part of his foot, you may want to support your theory by pointing out m. 60 in the G-major preludium, where the left foot plays two neighboring sixteenths (B–c) while the right foot is otherwise engaged. However, using the heel does not make this spot particularly easy to play either! In the end it’s not so much what you do in those exceptional cases that matters but your general approach.

Here are some more fingering suggestions for the fugue (Examples 5a and 5b). In mm. 59–61, reserve the right hand for the top voice only, combining alto and tenor in the left hand. In mm. 65–67, I recommend taking the three middle voices in the left hand, again reserving the right hand for the top line. It’s nice to have all of your right hand to shape this nice melodic line as well as possible, and to play a trill on the dotted quarter b¢ in m. 66 (see below).

The section ends with the same two measures three times (Bruhns did that more often, see the end of the second fugue of the “Great” E-minor). What to do? Well, unless you want to be boring, I wouldn’t play them the same three times. Here are some options:

• Change manuals, perhaps playing forte, piano, and pianissimo. On Buxtehude’s organ, the manuals would probably have been Hauptwerk, Rückpositiv, and Brustwerk, respectively. The problem with this is the pedal: you will probably need to adjust the pedal registration at least once (or even twice). It is possible, of course, to play the pedal part in the left hand (combining the three upper parts in the right) when going to a quieter manual (even though Bruhns’s writing does not seem to suggest it).

• Add a few ornaments the second time, and perhaps some more (or different ones) the third time.

• Play on the same manual throughout but “think” different dynamics: really strong the first time, milder the second, as light as you can the third time; or: loud at first, then more quietly, and loud again. Don’t worry too much about how the difference in sound happens; if you have a clear concept and communicate it to the organ the best you can, the result will be noticeable somehow to a sensitive listener.

Finally, a combination of two or all of the above may be even more effective. Whatever you do, if you use pedals, again reserve the right hand for the soprano and make sure to play the left hand pick-up chord really light (and short) in order to make place for the right-hand f#¢. Radulescu’s edition has a half-note chord at the beginning of m. 83; this certainly needs to be shortened to a quarter to make the soprano clear (you find this kind of thing frequently in chorale preludes by Buxtehude, for example).

The Allegro

Since this section is essentially a dialogue between right hand and pedals (think of it as the first violins on the one hand and the cellos and double basses on the other), why not begin with playing just that dialogue, without the supporting chords. To get an idea of how things sound, you can even start off with playing the pedal part in the left hand. However you do it, try to get a smooth dialogue going without “waiting for the bus” at every barline. The fingering is pretty obvious; the pedaling is a little more challenging, although there are really not that many options. Here is my suggestion (Example 6).


Yes, the left foot has to leap around a bit. And yes, you have to be a little careful to make the left-foot notes sound not too hacked (particularly the first g#). But using heels (and, for my part, silent substitution) doesn’t make things much easier either. In my experience, as long as the bench is at the right height and if you let go of the idea of keeping your knees together at all costs, the toe-only solution is easiest and sounds best. Here are some ways to play around with this spot in order to get the music “into your feet” (Example 7).

Make up your own variations! Much better to play around and have fun with a little tune like this than banging out the notes in the score a zillion times. While you’re playing around, try to make things feel as comfortable as possible. If things don’t feel quite right, try to adjust the height of the bench just a little or to move it back or forward a bit; small things can make a huge difference. Become sensitive to the way you move and try to find ways to make it easier for you.

One finger is crucial to keep you going: no matter what finger you’re using right before it (chances are it’s a thumb or else the index), put your little pinky on the third beat in m. 97.

When adding the chords to the soprano-bass dialogue, make sure not to make the quarter notes too long. The eighth-note pick-ups can be nice and short (without making them too jumpy, of course).
In m. 104, the manuscript has g¢¢ followed by f#¢. Clearly, the two notes must be in the same register. It’s really up to what you think sounds best and/or makes most sense here (Beckmann goes for high, Radulescu for low).

At the beginning of the last Adagio, imagine the repeated chords as played on one bow by a group of string players, and remember they’re off-beat, and therefore light (Example 8).

Ornaments

In a number of places, this music needs ornamentation to be at its best, either simple or more elaborate. The soprano d in m. 10 needs a trill which would probably best start with the main note, although starting with the upper note e is certainly a possibility (see below). In m. 39, the long d in the pedal followed by the written-out turn cries out for a virtuoso, long trill, something like Example 9, or perhaps Example 10. In mm. 66 and 75 of the fugue, the dotted quarter in the soprano sounds best with a simple trill, starting with the main note, something like this (Example 11).

The suggested fingering helps to create a nice, clear trill; the articulation before the turn actually sounds good and suggests a bit of a diminuendo. But if you don’t like putting the middle finger over the index, simply put a thumb on the last note of the trill.

Most of the trills I have suggested here start with the main note. But isn’t there some kind of rule that trills in Baroque music always start with the upper note? Well, yes, but that’s one of those gross oversimplifications of popularized historically informed performance practice. In the seventeenth century, main-note trills seem to be the rule, although upper-note trills certainly exist, and apparently became quite fashionable in France in the second half of the century. A rule of thumb: if the note with the trill is itself consonant, start with the upper note; but if the note itself is dissonant, then start with the main note. In both cases, the first note of the trill is dissonant, creating that nice little bit of friction. Also, if the note immediately before the trill is already the upper note, you may not want to repeat it as the beginning note of the trill.

If you want to add a trill on the soprano d#'' in m. 85 (which would sound very nice), consider starting with the upper note. A trill on the soprano b¢ on the second beat of m. 97 could go either way, as long is the trill is short. The soprano c'' on the last beat of m. 100 could also go either way, depending on whether you want to emphasize the c'' (start with the main note) or whether you want to incorporate the preceding sixteenths in the trill (start with the upper note).

More ornamentation: the Adagios

The four Adagio sections, with almost exclusively whole notes and half notes, may sound lovely the way they are written—they would probably be considered an opportunity for (quite) extensive ornamentation by any performer of Bruhns’s time. How much and what exactly you want to do is ultimately up to you, but here are some ideas for mm. 10–16 (Example 12).

With these ideas as a basis, try to work something out for the other sections. Bear in mind that the ornamentation is supposed to make the music more expressive, not to show off your virtuosity or to emulate the composer. Try not to write your ornaments down, but instead play around with as many different ideas as you can come up with. Ideally, your ornamentation is going to be different from performance to performance! In the final Adagio, Bruhns uses imitation: the chromatic line a–g#–g–f# appears in the soprano (m. 111), tenor (m. 113) and, sort of, in the bass (m. 115). In order to bring out the imitation, you may want to use similar ornaments for both the soprano and the tenor line.

Registration

Large-scale pieces like preludes and toccatas are played with an organo pleno registration: principals 8', 4', 2', mixtures, the Quint 22?3' if there is one, and perhaps a flue stop 16' in the manuals (Bruhns might have used his Quintadena 16¢), and the same plus reeds in the pedals (use at least a Posaune 16' if you have one). You can add an 8' flute stop in the hands to make the sound a bit fuller, but avoid throwing in tons of 8' and 4' stops; that tends to make the sound muddy. You probably want a really big pedal registration for the solo at the beginning; if the pedal is not loud enough by itself, couple to one (or more) of the manuals.


The question is to what extent you want to vary registration for the various sections of a piece like this. Obviously, you will need an echo manual for the 12/8 section. You sometimes hear this section with a “small” registration (8+4+2, or 8+4+1, or something like that) and something like flutes 8+2 for the echo. As always, much depends on the organ and the particular situation, but I like to use at least a small pleno for this section with a few stops for the echo (which could effectively be played on the Brustwerk on an organ similar to Bruhns’s).
It could be nice if the fugue is a little quieter than the first and last sections; you could use a slightly lighter pleno or even principals 8+4+2, for example; of course, you would have to lighten the pedal, probably by taking off the reed(s) and perhaps the mixture. M. 85 could be a place to go back to a bigger registration, with further opportunities for a crescendo in m. 90 (marking the beginning of the Allegro), m. 106, and m. 117.

Tempo

The tempo of any performance of any piece of music depends on many factors including the acoustics of the hall, the time of the day, and without a doubt the mood of the performer. Many compositions can sound surprisingly convincing at very different tempi; the most important thing is that the tempo feels right to you! Nonetheless, here are some metronome markings for the piece; take them for what they are: a ballpark indication.

Beginning: ~66

12/8: ~60–66

Fugue: ~60

Allegro: ~96

Discography

Finally, for CD collectors, the following recordings of Bruhns’s complete organ works may be worth considering:

• Piet Kee: Bruhns and Buxtehude. Roskilde Cathedral, Denmark. Chandos CHAN0539.

• Lorenzo Ghielmi: Bruhns, Buxtehude, and Brunckhorst. Basilica San Simpliciano, Milan, Italy. Winter & Winter 910 070-2.

Jan-Piet Knijff teaches organ, historical keyboard instruments, and chamber music and is organist-in-residence at the Aaron Copland School of Music at Queens College/CUNY. He holds the DMA from The City University of New York as well as the Artist Diploma from the Conservatory of Amsterdam and is an Associate of the AGO. He won second prize at the Hindemith-Micheelsen Organ Competition (Rotterdam, The Netherlands, 1996) and has performed the three organ sonatas and the Concerto for Organ and Chamber Orchestra on both sides of the Atlantic. His organ teachers have included Piet Kee, Ewald Kooiman, and Christoph Wolff. Visit JP’s website at or contact him at [email protected].

This is the second in a series of “organ lessons” by Jan-Piet Knijff. The first, “Bruhns’s ‘Little’ E-minor,” appeared in the January 2006 issue of The Diapason, pp. 22–24.

Introduction

Like it or not, almost all organ music of any significance (and a lot that has no significance at all) was written by composers who were also organists. One of the major exceptions (along with Brahms, who was no organist either) is Paul Hindemith (1895–1963), arguably one of the giants of twentieth-century music. Hindemith wrote a handful of excellent works for organ: three sonatas (1937–40), the Kammermusik No. 7 (Concerto for Organ and Chamber Orchestra, 1927), and finally the Organ Concerto (1962). The three sonatas have long been an essential part of the organ repertoire, although probably more so in some cultures than in others.1 The Kammermusik, a very appealing work, has been recorded by a number of organists, but is not often heard in concert, undoubtedly for practical reasons. The 1962 Organ Concerto is very rarely heard.
An outstanding violinist, Hindemith became concertmaster in Frankfurt at age 20, working with conductors such as Mengelberg, Furtwängler, and Scherchen. He soon had enough of orchestra life and, as a performer, concentrated on the viola and the viola d’amore, making a career both in chamber music and as a soloist. His real vocation, however, was composition. Hindemith wrote in every conceivable genre: opera, oratorio, choral (both sacred and secular), solo vocal (including the cycle Das Marienleben [The Life of Mary]), orchestral, concerto, chamber music—often for instruments that had previously been treated in a stepmotherly fashion—and piano solo. Hindemith taught composition in Berlin and, after his emigration to the United States in 1940, theory at Yale University. He retired from the concert stage as a violist in 1939 upon hearing some of his own recordings; after World War II, he was increasingly active as a conductor, not only of his own works. The subject of this article is the second movement of Sonata No. 2 for organ, probably the most accessible of all of Hindemith’s organ music, both to the performer and to the listener. The work is available from Schott (ED 2559), Hindemith’s publisher; the second movement is found on pp. 10–12.

Overview

The movement has a very clear and simple structure, which, however, may not be terribly obvious at first sight. And once they get “stuck” in “learning the notes,” many musicians have a tendency to overlook the large structure of the work: they can’t see the forest for the trees, so to speak. In this particular movement, Hindemith’s manual indications (Oberwerk and Hauptwerk—Swell and Great, if you like) are the key. Why not take a look (don’t start playing right away) at the beginnings of each section where the hands are playing on a new manual: mm. 1, 10–11, 20–21, 38–39 (page turns don’t help in getting an overview of a piece!), 57, 60, 63, 64–65. The first thing that may catch your eye is that the pedals don’t play when your hands are on the Oberwerk; this, of course, is handy, because it saves you from having to adjust the pedal registration in performance. Next—and perhaps you want to play the first four to six notes of the soprano of each section—you will notice that the soprano in each Hauptwerk section simply repeats that of the Oberwerk section preceding it. In other words:

mm. 1–10 Oberwerk A
10–20 Hauptwerk A'
20–38 Oberwerk B
38–56 Hauptwerk B'
57–60 Oberwerk C
60–63 Hauptwerk C'
63–64 Oberwerk D
64–66 Hauptwerk D'

The Hauptwerk sections can be considered varied repeats of the preceding Oberwerk sections. But, though the harmonization and inner voices may be quite different, you’ll find that—with the exception of a pick-up note or two and an octave transposition once—the soprano of the Hauptwerk section is exactly identical with that of the preceding Oberwerk section. In fact, it may not be a bad idea to play through the soprano only of the piece (just the top notes in the right hand) to realize this for yourself and find out where those little changes are made: two pick-up notes are added in m. 10; the last three notes of the first section (mm. 9–10) are transposed up an octave at the repeat in mm. 19–20; and the pick-up notes are changed from b - g# in m. 20 to f# - g# in m. 38. Finally, Hindemith wrote out a rallentando at the end: the dotted-quarter ending in m. 64 is stretched out to dotted-half notes in m. 65–66.
Of course, the end of the B section above (mm. 32–38) is a shortened and varied reprise of section A, this time finishing on the tonic E. The overall form of the movement, then, is something that’s often referred to as a “rounded binary,” in this case followed by a little coda, and could be summarized as follows:

||: X :|||: Y X' :|| Coda.

Tempo and Character

Hindemith wrote another short keyboard piece very similar to the second movement of Sonata No. 2: the second “Interludium” from Ludus Tonalis (Hindemith’s equivalent of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier).2 The time signature here is also 6/8 with the characteristic dotted-eighth rhythm appearing frequently, particularly in the first half of a measure. The metronome mark is the same (50 to the dotted quarter); the tempo indication is “Pastorale, moderate.” I think we can safely consider the sonata movement as a little “pastoral” (literally: “shepherd’s song”) as well.
The German tempo indication ruhig bewegt means “quietly moving” (literally “quietly moved”); if you wanted an Italian equivalent, it would probably be andante. The character of both the “Interludium” from Ludus Tonalis and the organ sonata movement is very reminiscent of the siciliano, the slow dance in 6/8 (or 12/8) with the dotted-eighth-note pattern in the first half of the measure, found in so many Baroque pieces. A good example from the organ repertoire is the first movement from John Stanley’s Voluntary in D minor, op. 6 no. 1. It’s almost impossible to miss the right tempo for the Stanley movement; and approximately the same speed will work well for either Hindemith piece. (The indications langsamer and noch langsamer, found towards the end of the organ movement, mean “slower” and “even slower” respectively.)
The metronome mark for the sonata movement tells you to play 50 dotted quarters per minute; and when you think about it, that means that the dotted quarter is something like a very slow second. But of course, this does not mean that Hindemith expected you to take out your metronome, put it on 50, and play the whole piece with the blessed machine ticking away. Use the metronome to get an idea of what the tempo is like; hum the tune along for a measure or two, get the feeling, and put the machine away. If you want to make sure that you know “how the piece goes,” listen to a recording (perhaps one of those listed below). To make sure that you play the whole piece in (approximately) the same tempo, jump from fragment-here to fragment-there maintaining the same “flow.” But nobody’s heartbeat is perfectly regular, and no musical performance should be either: “The metronome mark is only valid for the first measure of a piece.”3

Registration

Hindemith did not indicate any registration beyond the manual indications and a simple piano and mezzoforte. If one stays with the manual indications (playing with hands on the same keyboard, alternating between Swell and Great), I think one would in all likelihood want to avoid reeds. Often a registration with flutes 8 and 4 on the Swell and foundation stops 8 and 4 on the Great works well. In an ideal world it may be nice not to couple the manuals; in practice, coupling often works well on organs with electric action. On a tracker, you will probably want to avoid the coupler, as it may make the action heavier than you might like for this movement. In the pedal, use a registration with 16 and 8, strong enough to make the “theme” in mm. 54–56 clearly heard; but not so loud that the pedalpoints in mm. 39–53 become overpowering.
Although the manual indications Oberwerk and Hauptwerk seem to refer to a Baroque or “Baroque-ish” type of organ, the movement works well on pretty much any organ with at least two manuals. As long as you have pedals, it can also be played effectively on a one-manual organ by simply adding a stop for the mezzoforte sections.

Beginning to Play

Whether I am learning a keyboard piece or teaching a new piece to my choir, I often like to begin with getting an idea of the end of the piece (or movement): this is the goal of the journey, and it’s usually a good thing to bear that in mind from the start. In this case, take the last four measures. Take the time for the grace notes (with the beautiful g-natural!); they are best played before the beat, which means that, in the penultimate measure, the c#' in the alto still sounds during both grace notes! In the same measure, notice Hindemith’s written-out rallentando (a dotted half note instead of a dotted quarter). Also, notice how the left hand on the Great brings the first three notes of the little melody in augmentation (in this case, three times as slow); something you would like to point out in a paper for your music theory class, I think!
I see two possibilities for fingering in the last two measures [Example 1]. If you choose the second option, pay attention that the tied-over b in the left hand does not stick around after playing the c# in the right; and make sure that the thumb moves as smoothly as possible from the c#¢' to the d . As for the pedal in this measure, the important thing is to get your right foot on the A; to me, the easiest way to do that is by alternating toes, starting with your right foot on the e.
Now that you have an idea of where the piece is going, take a look at the beginning, mm. 1–5. I love how the right hand begins on its own, then is joined by the left hand in a little duet; Hindemith adds an alto and tenor only for the “cadence” in mm. 4–5. Make sure to play nicely legato in both hands; but of course, the b¢ in the middle of m. 2 (not the grace note) must be clearly separated from the note before (by shortening that note) and from the grace note following (by shortening the note itself) at the same time. Think of it this way [Example 2]. But don’t allow the left hand to go along with the articulation of the right! Here is my fingering for the chords in mm. 4–5 [Example 3]. Of course, frequent finger substitution helps to obtain a nice legato; but if an index finger on the b in the left hand produces too much tension in your hand, use your thumb instead. In that case, you try to make the thumb’s “journey” from c#' to b (quite a trip!) as smooth and short as possible; try to avoid “hurried” movements, however.
Now that you have learned both the end and the beginning of the movement, why not put the two together to create a kind of “summary” of the piece: glue the beginning of m. 5 to the middle of m. 63; or, even more concisely, glue the beginning of m. 2 to the end of m. 64. During your work on the piece, you want to come back to your little summary from time to time; it helps you to avoid “getting lost” in the notes.

Section A

After the long opening phrase discussed above, the movement continues with a number of shorter gestures: the beautiful unison passage in mm. 5–7 (a nice contrast with the four-part harmony in mm. 4–5) is followed by the motif with the repeated c#¢¢ in the soprano, and the sentence concludes with the Phrygian cadence on f# in m. 10. It is important to bring out Hindemith’s phrasing well; in practice, that means shortening the last note under a slur. Effective fingering can also help; here’s my suggestion for the unison passage [Example 4]. In m. 7, omit the c#¢ in the left hand, as you’re playing it with the right hand anyway. In the right hand, you want to nicely separate the soprano c#’s while playing legato in the alto [Example 5]. In the left hand, a “natural” way to get the right phrasing can be to use the same little pinky on the e and the A in m. 8 (the left hand starts with a thumb on the b in m. 7).

Section A'

The beautiful varied repeat of section A starts with five-part harmony; make sure to keep track of the sustained e in the left hand (mm. 11–12) and the sustained a¢ in the right (mm. 13–14). A few crucial fingers in the left hand: a middle finger on the last a in m. 12; silent substitution (2–1) on the a in m. 14, followed by a middle finger on the d; and index finger and ring finger on the chord in m. 18. Think of the pedal part as the double basses in your orchestra; isn’t that a beautiful line in mm. 11–15? The easier and smoother your feet move on the pedals, the better. Here are my suggestions for pedaling this and the next pedal passage [Example 6]. For smooth crossing-over of the feet, it’s usually best to put one foot further back when you’re crossing over in front, and vice versa. (In the music examples, this is indicated with a line underneath or over the toe-symbol.)
Very beautiful is the end of this section with the soprano transposed up an octave: take the opportunity to let those notes really sing. Notice, by the way, the only six-part chord in the movement, supporting the high a'' in m. 19; I recommend shortening the low a¢ in the right hand in order to move your thumb up to the c''.

Section B

As in section A, the right hand begins on its own, but is soon joined by the left hand in a little duet which seems to begin as a canon (twice: compare mm. 21 and 23–24). By sustaining the tenor note f in m. 25, Hindemith allows the texture to expand to three-part harmony, leading to the four-part “unison” A in m. 27. The right-hand descent that follows needs careful finger substitution [Example 7]. Mm. 32–38 can be considered a kind of recapitulation of the opening theme (in the “home key” E). After the “attempts” at a canon in mm. 21 and 24, Hindemith now brings the opening melody in canon, first in the alto (m. 34), then in the tenor (m. 36). Try singing along with the canon when working on this fragment! A fingering suggestion in the left hand: put your index finger on the e in mm. 32 and 34.
Here’s what I recommend for the right hand in mm. 36–38 [Example 8]. Linger on the pick-up for m. 36 as long as you can, as if you have glue on your fingers; and—using the same glue perhaps—glue the f#'-e'-f#' (all played with your right thumb) together as much as you can (in other words, make the journey as short and smooth as possible).

Section B'

This section is a very nice example of the use of pedalpoint: sustained bass notes, creating a kind of “envelope” of sound. Notice that the pedal F is released and then played again in m. 41 (in order to help clarify the phrasing in the right hand). Although the basic ideas from section B are all present in section B¢, the attempts at canon are now a tone lower: see mm. 39 and 42–43. In addition to the pedal part, Hindemith adds extra voices in the hands as well, creating a four-to-five-part texture in mm. 39–49; again, be careful with the sustained notes in the inner voices (the b' in m. 43–44 and the d in mm. 45–48); it’s easy to lose sight of them. Very beautiful is the open fifth d–a in m. 45 as opposed to the unison a in m. 27! The canons at the end of the section are given to different voices from before: first the tenor (m. 52), then the pedal (m. 54). I think there’s really only one option for the pedaling [Example 9]. It is a possibility to play legato from the pedalpoint D in m. 49 to the E in m. 50 while “taking a breath” in the hands; or, you can lift both in the hands and in the pedal—this to me is a matter of taste. Whatever you do, make a clear comma in the pedal before the entry of the canon in m. 54—this probably means inserting an eighth rest at the end of the long E in m. 53.

Discography

If you enjoy listening to CDs and you are interested in hearing some real-life approaches to Hindemith’s organ music, here are some recordings you might like to consider:
• Piet Kee Plays Hindemith and Reger. All three sonatas; Grote of St. Bavokerk, Haarlem (Netherlands); Chandos.
• The Art of Peter Hurford. Includes Sonata No. 2; Dom, Ratzeburg (Germany); Decca Argo.
• Hindemith: Organ Concerto, 3 Organ Sonatas. Anton Heiller, Elisabeth Ullmann; Brucknerhaus, Linz (Austria); Warner Classics.

Conclusion

The second movement from Organ Sonata No. 2 is probably the most accessible organ piece of Paul Hindemith. Though not exactly easy, it is not terribly hard to learn and though mildly spiced with the usual Hindemithian dissonances, the piece sounds friendly enough to appeal to an “average” audience, either in church or in the concert hall. On Sunday mornings, the piece could serve as prelude or as (part of) the music during the offering or communion. For young organists preparing for college auditions, the movement could be an excellent choice from the twentieth-century repertoire (provided that you have some more upbeat pieces from other style periods). Finally, for those whom I got “Hooked on Hindemith,” I would recommend the last movement (also Ruhig bewegt) from Sonata No. 1 as your next piece to consider. Perhaps we’ll talk about that one another time.

Gavin Black is Director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].

Buxtehude BuxWV 141 – Part 3: Practicing the first fugal section
This month we return to the Buxtehude Praeludium in E Major, BuxWV 141, looking at the second section of the piece, which begins at m. 13 and goes through about m. 50. This—except for its last three measures or so, which are a transitional passage, cadential in nature, and which we will in the main discuss next month—is a contrapuntal, essentially fugal, section, a fact which has implications for studying, practicing, and learning the music. Much of what I will suggest here will involve revisiting the ideas that I discussed in the series of columns about counterpoint that began in September 2008, applying those ideas to this specific passage.
The fugal section that begins in m. 13 is in four voices. The musical text could by and large be written out on four staves, accounting for all of the notes, with each staff presenting a coherently “melodic” melody. (It departs from this briefly in mm. 32–33 with the addition of a few “extra” notes, and again in the transitional passage.) The voices behave like the voices of a contrapuntal piece: each of the four voices has a different compass, each of the voices is present most of the time but not all of the time, and, melodically, the voices do the same things at different times and different things at the same time. The section is “fugal” in that the voices enter one at a time, each with a version of the same theme, and that theme recurs a lot during the section.

Theme
This theme is as follows, in its first iteration:

It enters first in the top voice, and then in the other voices in descending order. It is present in 24 of the measures of the section, and a motive identical to the second half of this fugue subject is present in another 3½ or 4 measures. The longest stretch without any of this theme present—prior to the transitional/cadential section at the end—is about one measure.
(There is an interesting side note about this theme, one that in a sense is irrelevant to the piece on its own terms because of the chronology, but which should be intriguing to organists nonetheless. The first half of the theme is the same as the fugue subject of Bach’s Fugue in E-flat Major, BWV 552, and the second half of the Buxtehude theme is essentially the same as a recurrent pedal motive in the Prelude, BWV 552. This Buxtehude work seems like a more likely source of Bach’s inspiration for the so-called “St. Anne” Prelude and Fugue than is William Croft’s hymn tune, which Bach most likely never heard.)

Bass voice in pedal?
The first practical question about working on this section is whether or not the bass voice belongs in the pedal. This is often a question with Buxtehude, since the sources for his music do not often indicate pedal explicitly, and in any case are rather far removed in origin from the composer. In this section, there are several reasons to believe that the bass voice was indeed intended as a pedal part. First, it works on the pedal keyboard, and, in order to make it work, the composer has shaped it a little bit differently from any of the three other voices. That is, there is no scale-wise writing in the bass voice that is any faster than the eighth-note, whereas there is such writing in each of the other voices. Second, there are many places in this passage where it is awkward to play all four of the voices in the hands and where the fingering is much more natural without the lowest voice. (This is true, for example, in m. 33 or mm. 42–43.)
There is, as far as I can see, only one spot prior to the transitional/cadential section where it is actually impossible to play all four voices in the hands, namely the second eighth note of m. 44. Someone else might be able to find a clever way to make it work, and it is certainly possible to do so by fudging the duration of some of the longer notes. (Someone with larger hands than mine would have no trouble with it, but the stretch of a tenth is beyond what is normally found in music of this time.) Furthermore, the transitional section ending in m. 50 certainly requires pedal—really physically requires it—and there is no particularly good place to shift the bass line to the pedal if that line has been played in the hands from m. 20 on. So on balance this seems to me to be a section to be played with pedal.
(The closing fugue of the Praeludium in E Minor, BuxWV 142, presents an interestingly different picture. There the fingering is made dramatically easier, more natural, and more idiomatic to the organ playing of the time by not including the bass voice in what the hands are expected to play. However, at the same time the bass line itself is, if not unplayable in the pedal, still extraordinarily difficult and well outside what would have been the norm at the time.)

Learning protocol
The protocol for learning this fugal section starts with the approach that I outlined in the columns on counterpoint mentioned above; that is, playing through each voice separately and then playing pairs of voices. Here are some specific points about applying that approach to this passage:
1) The section that we are looking at is about 34 measures long—long enough that it should be broken up into smaller sections for this kind of practicing. It doesn’t really matter how it is broken up. It is fine to practice separate voices and pairs of voices in chunks of just a few measures, or in significantly larger chunks. One average way to do it would be to have breaks at around m. 23 and at around m. 36. Each voice will naturally break at a slightly different place. So, for example, it would make sense to play the soprano voice from m. 13 to m. 20, the alto from m. 15 to the middle of m. 23, the tenor from m. 17 through the first beat of m. 25, and the bass from m. 20 through m. 24. Then these sections of these voices can be combined in pairs.
2) When playing individual voices, it is fine to finger those voices in ways that will not be used when later putting the voices together. This is especially necessary and important with inner voices—typically the alto voice in a piece or passage that has three voices in the hands. Such an inner voice will almost certainly end up migrating from one hand to the other. However, at this stage it is important to play each voice in a way that is comfortable and natural, and that makes it as easy as possible to hear that voice as a coherent melody. It is also necessary to be flexible about playing inner voices in either hand. So, of course, when putting soprano and alto together it will be necessary to play the alto in the left hand, but when putting alto together with tenor it will be necessary to play the alto in the right hand.
3) At this stage, it is also not necessary to play the pedal part in the pedals. Practicing the pedal line as a pedal line (see below) can come later or can start in parallel with this process of getting to know the voices. However, for carrying out this approach to learning the voices, just as it doesn’t matter what fingering is used, it also doesn’t matter whether the feet play the bass voice or the left hand does. The important thing is that the student be able to listen carefully and hear the voices well while playing them.
4) In putting voices together in pairs it is a good idea some of the time to play the two voices on two manuals, in order to hear them with extra clarity. This is especially useful when voices cross or, as for example with the soprano and alto voices at mm. 38–39, come very close. The two sounds should be similar in volume and different in character.

Pedaling
While studying individual voices and pairs of voices, it is emphatically not a good idea also to finger and practice the manual part of the texture. That will come a little bit later. It is perfectly fine to practice the pedal part, however. It is interesting that in this piece the pedaling choices are more straightforward, and in fact the pedal part is probably easier overall, in the more active fugue subject and subject fragments, than in the measures in which the pedal is playing long-held notes.
The fugue subject can easily be played with alternate toes, starting with the right foot; the subject fragment that occurs in m. 33 and elsewhere can also be played with alternate toes, starting with the left foot. These pedalings are natural enough that I would expect essentially every student or player to use them. (There are other possibilities: for example, using the same foot to play some of the successive quarter notes, or occasionally using heel to play some of the sixteenth notes that are on white keys when the immediately prior note was on an adjacent black key. On the whole, I doubt that many players would find these variants easier or better, but perhaps some would. They could certainly be OK.) This consistent alternate toe pedaling implies nothing in particular about articulation, phrasing, timing, or other interpretive/performance matters.
However, when the pedal part moves more slowly, particularly from m. 43 on, pedaling choices both affect and depend on choices about articulation. To the extent that the player prefers or can accept spaces between these long notes, he or she can apply the principal of playing each note with whatever foot happens to lie most comfortably above that note. As an example that would lead me to the following succession of toes for the eleven pedal notes beginning with the first note of m. 44 and going to the end of m. 50:
l-r-r-l-l-r-l-l-r-r-l
For someone else it might be a little bit different. Creating more legato in this passage would involve different pedaling choices—for example, crossing the left foot under to play the E in m. 44, and then playing the C# in m. 45 with the right foot.
Of course, practicing the pedal line once pedaling choices have been made involves the usual things: keep it slow and accurate; look at the feet as little as possible—ideally not at all; repeat small-enough passages that the memory of the feeling of the passage does not fade before you get back to it. When the pedal part has become secure, join it first to the tenor voice, then to the left hand part as such—once that has also been practiced as outlined below—then to the hands together. (Of course, it is fine also to practice pedal with right hand alone. However, as always, left hand and pedal is most important. Usually if left hand and pedal has been practiced enough, then adding the right hand is something that feels natural and almost easy.)
And do not forget what might be the cardinal rule of practicing: if you hear yourself make a wrong note while practicing, do not stop or hesitate or go back and correct it. By the time that your ears have heard the wrong note, your mind should already have moved on to playing the next note. Next time through the passage you can make sure to adjust what needs to be adjusted to correct what was wrong.

Fingering choices
Once you have played through all of the voices and all of the pairs of voices, it is time to work out a fingering for the three voices that will be in the hands. And, as I discussed in the column from last July, the first task is to decide which notes belong in which hand. This must come before making specific fingering choices, and it must be done in such a way as to make those fingering choices as easy and natural as possible. As I wrote before: I have seen students waste a lot of time or even make a passage that could be fairly easy almost unplayable by assigning notes to hands in a way that was awkward. However, there is not always only one good answer, and the answer is not the same, necessarily, for any two players.
In any situation in which three voices are present and the notes of the alto voice can be reached by either hand—that is, generally, in which neither the soprano notes nor the tenor notes are more than an octave away from the alto notes—the player can, in a pinch, try it both ways. Generally it is nice to put “extra” notes with whichever other voice is less active. So, in m. 19, for example, I would play the first three notes of the alto voice in the right hand since the tenor voice has sixteenth notes, but then play the half note E in the left hand, since the soprano voice then has sixteenth notes. In m. 24 I would play the one alto voice (whole) note in the right hand, even though the soprano voice notes are a bit farther away, since the tenor voice is more active; in m. 25, however, I would shift the alto voice to the left hand since the soprano voice become much more active. Again, these choices are not right and other choices wrong. It is simply very important that each player—each student perhaps with the help of a teacher—work this out carefully and patiently, in a way that feels right.
After the “handing” and fingering have been worked out, it is possible to try an interesting challenge, namely to play the alto voice alone with the correct fingering. This involves letting that voice move from one hand to the other according to the plan that has been worked out. The goal is to play it in such a way that it sounds as natural and cantabile as it would sound played in one hand. It is simultaneously harder to do this outside the cushion of the other voices and good practice for playing that voice well when it is partly obscured by the other voices.

Practice procedures
Practicing the three-voice manual texture of course follows the usual pattern for any practicing. Each hand should be practiced separately, slowly, until it seems easy. The tempo should be allowed to rise only according to a pace that is comfortable: once a passage is learned well at one tempo, it can be played a little bit faster; playing it much faster will often lead to its falling apart. Once each hand is solid at a given tempo, the two hands can be put together at a slower tempo. This can then also be allowed to speed up gradually. The rule about not stopping or hesitating when you hear yourself make a wrong note is always utterly important.
After a player or student has carried out all of the above—individual voices, pairs of voices, pedal part, individual hands, left hand with pedal, and all the rest—there is an interesting exercise to try. Play the section—well learned, all parts together—and consciously listen only to one voice at a time. This is easiest with the soprano voice, next easiest with whichever voice is the lowest at a given time, quite hard with a real inner voice. The ability to do this and also keep the whole thing going accurately and with a feeling of ease will help to reveal the fruits of studying the voices thoroughly and also test the solidity of the overall practicing of the notes.
Next month I will discuss both the transition measures 47–50 and the free section that follows, beginning in m. 51. ■

Gavin Black is Director of the Princeton early Keyboard Center. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].

Boëllmann Suite Gothique, Part 2: First movement
This month’s column looks at the first movement—Introduction-Choral—of the Suite Gothique. In the main, we will outline an approach to practicing the movement, starting of course with working out fingerings and pedalings. We will also consider some interpretive questions, mainly as they interact with or affect choices that must be made about fingering and pedaling.
Several technical features of this movement immediately stand out:
• Many thick chords in the hands—both hands;
• Double pedal for several measures;
• Except for the double pedal passages, the pedal part is strikingly low in compass, with the E-flat in the middle of the pedal keyboard as the highest note;
• Very little indication for swell pedal use;
• The hands sometimes more or less double each other in octaves;
• Conceptually each hand seems to be more of its own part than is usually true in a contrapuntal piece, where voices often wander from hand to hand—however, that does not mean that the hands cannot help each other out a bit;
• Very few chords do not include raised notes;
• There are no explicit instructions from the composer about articulation or phrasing, except for commas in three places, and one important slur, with its repeat.

Articulation
The thick chords raise one important technical issue right away, namely the matter of fingering in relation to articulation. It is essentially always easier—more natural as to hand position—to play successive chords of three or more notes non-legato. Sometimes it is actually impossible to do otherwise, more so the more notes there are in the chords, of course, but also depending on other matters, such as the placement within chords of raised notes. However, in a typical passage made up of successive chords, there are almost always some that can be played legato fairly easily, others that can be played legato with some sort of extra effort, and some that really cannot be played legato at all. This is of course different, around the margins at least, for different players, with hands of different sizes.
In music that we believe to be basically non-legato in overall style, none of this presents particular problems. Chord fingerings can be chosen based largely on the comfort of each chord—in turn based mostly on hand position—and the non-legato transition from one chord to the next can be practiced until it is, while non-legato, still smooth and cantabile, if that is what is desired. In a piece or a passage that we want to play legato, we must grapple with finding the best way to make connections between chords when it is not easy to do so. (By contrast, it is, from a technical point of view, almost trivially easy to play at least most of the upper voice melody in the third movement—Prière—legato, as per the marked phrases. The fingers of the right hand are simply available to do so.)
The question of whether this movement is meant to be legato, or the question of whether a given player wants or prefers to play it legato is unclear, or, more accurately, it is one that different students, teachers, and players will answer differently from one another (and from me). I am not interested in prejudging questions like this—that is, I want to try as best I can to leave all sorts of interpretive possibilities open as we consider how to work on the pieces under discussion. Also, there is a close relationship in a piece like this between articulation and room acoustics. In a very resonant room, a thick texture will come across as essentially legato even if the fingers and feet put small spaces between the notes and chords. If the player literally connects notes and chords, then there is a chance that the result will be enough beyond legato to sound unintelligible. This is an important consideration, especially since most organ repertoire, certainly including the pieces of Boëllmann, was written to be played in very resonant rooms. Of course, we must play in the rooms that are available to us.

Fingering
A fingering for the chords of the opening, in the right hand, that is designed to be comfortable, accepting that most of the chords will be non-legato, might look like Example 1. This happens to suit my hands. For another player, the best fingering might be a little bit different. In m. 5, for example, some players would rather do this (Example 2):

To achieve more full legato, substitution might be used, especially, for example, in the second and sixth measures (Example 3). (I find this fingering awkward, but possible with practice.)
A player with large hands might be able to do this (Example 4),

releasing the lower two notes of the opening chord early, but joining the upper two notes to the notes of the second chord. (I cannot quite do this one. Don’t try it unless it is really comfortable. The stretch could cause injury.)
In the passage at m. 13 (Example 5), the left hand can take some of the notes printed on the upper staff. I have put boxes around a few that I think make sense treated this way, although there are others that are possible. The decision to do this would make it easier to play the upper notes of the right-hand part legato, at the expense of some legato in the inner voices. This is an artistic judgment call, but notice the slurs in m. 18 and later its echo in m. 25. These are the only slurs in the entire movement, and are probably an important part of the rhetoric of this phrase.
Any student must make decisions and choices about fingering matters such as these, perhaps in consultation with a teacher. There are two important technical practicing points to make about some of these fingerings. First, non-legato fingerings will end up sounding smoother and most natural the more they are practiced, at first, with large rather than small breaks between the notes. That is, a gesture such as this (where the asterisks are) (Example 6),

should be practiced with the A-flat/
E-flat/C chord released almost as soon as it is played (but released gently), so that the motion to the next (B-flat/F/D) chord is as easy as possible. Then it will also be easy, later in the practicing process, to close that gap and make the articulation very small and unobtrusive. If you try to make the articulation too small from the beginning—waiting until the last instant and then quickly moving to, almost lunging at, the next chord—then it is likely to end up sounding awkward and stiff, no matter how much you practice it.
Second, it is important to remember to use the correct order in any fingering that includes multiple substitutions. For example, in this triple substitution (Example 7),

it is necessary to execute the substitutions from the lowest to the highest: 2-1, then 3-2, then 5-4. In every case, it is important to carry out substitutions in such a way that the hand moves inward—becomes smaller—rather than moving outward and stretching out. This can always be worked out by trial and error, and getting it right can make the difference between a substitution’s being impossible and its being easy.

Pedaling
One advantage of double pedal is that it resolves any doubt as to which foot should play which note. In effect there are two pedal lines—in the case of the first four measures of this piece, identical to one another except for being an octave apart—and each line has to be executed by one foot. An approach to pedal playing that involves paying attention to the position of each foot with respect to itself (as outlined in my earlier columns on pedal playing) not just, or mainly, in relation to the other foot, tends to make double pedal passages not seem as different from “regular” pedal as they might otherwise. In the case of this passage, as with the manual part, there is a relationship between pedaling and articulation. If this were a line from a Buxtehude piece (which it, unlike the manual part, could just as well be) then any comfortable pedaling would be fine: perhaps all toe, perhaps some heels when the angle was such as to make that comfortable. If, in keeping with an overall interpretive approach, we want to play this line legato, then a pedaling like this for the right foot part might work (Example 8).
The two quarter notes could be played by rolling the toe area of the foot, that is, playing the B-flat with the outside of the foot and the A-flat with the inside. The first note (G) of the second measure could be played with the toe, creating what should be a small articulation before that note. I might also play the first note of the passage with the toe initially, to make a clean, crisp beginning easier to achieve, before substituting the heel to prepare for the next note. There are other possible variations. The left foot could well use exactly the same pedaling as the right.
For the non-double segments of the pedal line, different players will choose different pedalings based largely on personal preference. Here are two different pedalings for mm. 5–8 (Examples 9 and 10); and of course there are other possibilities.

Practicing
The most efficient procedure for practicing this movement is the same as for almost any piece: work out fingerings and pedalings; divide the piece into manageable sections (in this piece, it makes sense to work with the phrases suggested by commas and by fermatas, although it is certainly fine to subdivide those units into smaller ones); practice these sections with separate hands and feet, very slowly; put hands together, or hands and feet together, only when the separate components are very well learned; increase tempo only when a given tempo has become almost trivially easy. This procedure can never be mentioned too often, and it can never be stressed enough that, if it is followed thoroughly and patiently, it always works.
In the case of this movement, I would strongly suggest that at every stage of working on the piece, until it is really ready to go at approximately the composer’s suggested tempo of half note equals 50, the beat in the student’s head, or coming from the student’s metronome, be equal to an eighth note. The quarter note will be too slow to be followed easily until close to a performance tempo.

Special procedures
In the case of this movement, there are a few special procedures that can enhance the learning of the piece—that is, getting to know it musically—while the notes are being learned securely. These are analogous to the practicing of separate voices in a contrapuntal piece, but modified to reflect the texture and structure of this piece: one in which the melody—the top voice—is indeed musically the most important thing, and in which the interaction between that melody and the bass line is the main source of motion.
So the first special practice technique is simply to play the melody and the bass line together, omitting all of the other voices or chordal notes. This can be done with the bass line in the pedal—as soon as the pedal is well enough learned—or with the bass line in the left hand, read from the pedal line or extracted from the left hand part of the manuals-only phrases. It can also be done with the melody in the left hand—since the left hand often doubles the melody—and the bass in the pedal. This can be done before the fingering of the chords has been practiced and made comfortable, since the extracted individual lines are fairly easy to play. But I would also suggest continuing to do it at later stages of work on the piece as a listening exercise and a way of keeping focused on the architecture of the piece, rather than just the complexities of learning it.
In the passages in which the left hand doubles the right hand an octave lower (this is a slightly oversimplified description of the texture), it is difficult for the ears of the performer to follow the left-hand part. The higher sounds of the right-hand part predominate. And, although the left hand in these passages is in a meaningful sense somewhat subordinate to the right hand, the overall texture will benefit from the left hand’s being played in as interesting and nuanced a way as the right hand, and from the two hands really being in sync. One way to work on this is to play the two hands together—once they have been practiced and are secure!—on different keyboards, with the left hand significantly louder. The right hand should be almost but not quite actually drowned out. Of course this only applies to some passages (mm. 1–8, 16–23, and 33–37, more or less). Then, when next practicing on a “normal” sound, try to focus on listening to the left-hand part, and let the right hand take care of itself.
Next month I will return to the Buxtehude Praeludium, looking at the first contrapuntal section beginning at m. 13. We will return later to the Boëllmann, looking at the Menuet.

Jonathan B. Hall, FAGO, ChM, is the author of Calvin Hampton: A Musician Without Borders and of many articles on the organ and sacred music. He is past dean of the Brooklyn AGO chapter, director of music at Central Presbyterian Church, Montclair, New Jersey, and teaches music theory at the Steinhardt School of New York University.

The free organ works of Johann Ludwig Krebs (1713–1780) are eminently enjoyable to learn, perform, and listen to. They are available to any well-trained organist willing to invest dutiful practice. They pose no particular conundrums of registration. They please almost any audience. In a nutshell, they’re good music. It seems unfair to point out that they simply aren’t as great as the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, who taught two generations of Krebses (Johann Ludwig and his father, Johann Tobias). What organ music, after all, is as great as Bach’s? The composers certainly reflect a similar idiom—breathe the same air. The influence of teacher on student, and their shared culture, is abundantly clear.
Indeed, it often seems more than clear. Anyone who is well acquainted with Bach’s free organ works will find more than a shared Zeitgeist with his student. One can often identify a clear model for a given Krebs work. It is interesting, even amusing, to walk through the two volumes published by Peters and note which Bach works leap to mind on page after page.
However, a closer look reveals that Krebs’s musical borrowing is far subtler than it first seems. While certain ideas are clearly taken from Bach, others are just as conspicuously left out. Further, in a given piece, there is often more than one Bach model in evidence. Understanding this is the key to a really fruitful engagement of Krebs, not as a second-rate Bach or copycat, but as an original artist, fully a product (almost the only product) of the “Bach School.” Though he was pervasively influenced by his great teacher, this should not lead us to dismiss his work as altogether derivative. It is not. It just sounds that way . . . at first.

Editions
The best source for the free organ works is the two-volume Peters edition. The volumes appeared widely spaced in time: the first, edited by Walter Zöllner, dates back to 1938; the second, by Karl Tittel, to 1974. Both editors are a bit nervous about the family resemblance between Krebs’s works and Bach’s. Zöllner writes: “In the present selection, we have not included works which are too obviously founded on a Bach model . . . ”1 Tittel writes:
The five preludes and fugues published by Zöllner do not display any overstressed evidence of Krebs attempting to emulate Bach’s style of writing. In this respect it is perhaps of interest to cite Spitta who remarks that, although Krebs was fond of imitating the thematic material and adopting in full the form of Bach’s works, he nevertheless displays a certain originality.2

The impression is given—confirmed upon examination of the pieces—that Zöllner got the “most unique” [sic] pieces, and Tittel must labor to justify the works that have fallen to him. Both editors sense an uncomfortable proximity; but it was not the job of either to analyze it.

Praeludium und Doppelfuge
Regardless, there are strong echoes of Bach in both volumes; perhaps more so in Volume II, but perhaps more interestingly in Volume I. Consider the Praeludium und Doppelfuge in F minor, Volume I, page 16 ff. The parallels between the prelude and the Prelude in B Minor, BWV 544, are immediately apparent. There is a strikingly similar employment of 32nd notes; there is almost-identical passagework in the pedals; there is the same thinning-out of texture. Above all, there is the same high tragic tone. What spares the piece the stigma of plagiarism is, in part, the very different harmonic profile of the opening: where Bach offers dialogue, Krebs restates his theme repeatedly, in a lower register each time. Texturally, as well as rhetorically, there is not a great deal of difference.
Meanwhile, the fugue bears no resemblance at all to the B-minor fugue; that emulative honor goes to the double fugue in D minor in the same volume, page 58 ff. Here, the theme is constructed of conjunct eighth-note motion, like the fugue of 544. This fugue, however, contains a remarkable string of quotations in its midst. Starting in measure 192, there is an unmistakable parallel to measures 51–53, inter alia, of the “Wedge” prelude, BWV 548, followed immediately by a clear reference to the ending measures of the C-minor Passacaglia, just before the thema fugatum (measures 194–196 in Krebs, 165–168 in BWV 582). Just as this latter quotation concludes, the second theme of the double fugue is announced: the same material as Bach, at the same structural point.
So much quotation, in such a little space, from such disparate works! It is fair to infer that Krebs was so full of Johann Sebastian Bach that there wasn’t always room for himself: so far from “the only Krebs in the Bach,” sometimes only Bach was in the Krebs.
I have noticed a general tendency for Krebs not to use the same model for both halves of a prelude-fugue pair. Whether this comments on his sense of Bach’s intended pairings or lack thereof, is the matter of another study. In general, though, he tends not to imitate the pairs as we have received them. I note a few possible exceptions to this. First, the Prelude and Fugue in E Major, in Volume I, starting on page 1, is perhaps reminiscent of the F-major toccata BWV 540, albeit with antiphonal effects reminiscent of the “Dorian” toccata BWV 538. The fugue, appropriately enough for either model, is cast in a vocal, stile antico fashion, at least up to a point. Also, in Volume II, the D-major (page 1 ff.) seems exuberantly modeled on the G-major, BWV 541, start to finish. (This prelude and fugue has long been the author’s personal favorite.)

Prelude and Fugue in C Minor
In Volume II, some of Krebs’s borrowings are obvious. Consider his Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, overtly modeled on Bach’s C-minor Prelude and Fugue (also in D minor), BWV 549/549a. The similarity is clear at the outset, with a pedal exordium that is almost directly copied (Examples 1 and 2). Krebs’s fugue subject, while shorter than Bach’s, uses a similar antecedent-consequent, or “question and answer” format (Examples 3 and 4). The surprise is that the fugue turns out to be a double fugue, much closer in form and style to the “Legrenzi,” BWV 574, among others. (This fugue, as well, begins with a repetitive subject.) As we have seen before, the prelude-fugue pair does not look to the same model.
Meanwhile, gone altogether from Krebs are the North German stylus fantasticus sections that feature prominently in all three of his models, the prelude and both fugues. What Krebs consistently omits to borrow is just as intriguing as what he uses—here, the archaic features of the early Bach canon. There are, for example, no showy showers of passagework at the final cadences. The pieces, rather, show a marked preference for straightforward, even unsentimental conclusions.
So, in Krebs’s C-minor prelude and fugue, we have a prelude that clearly references a Bach prelude, and a fugue that betrays an intertextual web of references. (Intertextual: a term from literary criticism, applied to music by such theorists as Robert Hatten. He distinguishes one kind of intertextuality, called strategic, where specific quotations or references are marshaled; from another called stylistic, a pervasive and general spirit of reference.3)

Prelude and Fugue in A Minor
Another prelude-fugue pair of Krebs, in A minor (volume II, page 23), shows the same approach to borrowing. The prelude is easily mapped: it is solidly based on the Toccata in F, BWV 540. The time signature is the same, as is the opening passagework over a tonic pedal. After some time spent with canonic manual figurations, there is—guess what?—a pedal solo! There are many harmonic divergences between the two, though sequences involving third-inversion secondary-dominant harmonies are highly evocative of the model. The piece is well crafted and exciting, and would doubtless have a secure place in the canon, if only we could forget about Bach!
So much for the prelude. The fugue is another matter altogether. Here Krebs’s borrowing is again very different, much subtler, and quite interesting. We have nothing even remotely resembling the fugue that follows the Bach toccata. The A-minor fugue is not a double fugue, nor does it contrast alla breve and stile nuovo. If anything, its theme bears a slight resemblance to BWV 546 (Example 5)—but it lacks the melodic coherence and harmonic promise of its model (Example 6).
This is not a great, or even particularly good, subject. The coiled watchspring of the Bach theme has been unwound, its potential energy lost. The main charm of Krebs’s theme consists in its more-than-fair share of surprises, most of them intervallic. In eight measures, we have an augmented second, a diminished fourth, two diminished fifths, and two octave leaps! But rather than conjure magic from simple means, Krebs offers us a few striking thematic peculiarities up front, and makes comparatively little of them. Similarly, his rhythmic profile can’t (or won’t) settle between stile antico and a kind of emergent classicism.
This theme admits of a real answer in the dominant, yet for some reason Krebs gives it a tonal answer in the subdominant. This choice—which strikes one as capricious—is no borrowed Bachian gambit. If anything, it is a minor milestone of changing musical style. Its very capriciousness, like that of the theme, is mannered, an affected neurosis, the handling of a musical form no longer instinctively understood. Finally, the keyboard idiom is noticeably awkward throughout—a marked contrast to the fluency of the toccata. (One can almost hear Krebs exclaim, “Fugues were supposed to be weird!”)
Thus far, insofar as borrowing is concerned, we have little to go on, except an echo of a quotation and a familiar stylistic context: both strategic and stylistic intertextuality. But at measure 91, we run abruptly into another Bach model—once again, the “Wedge” fugue (Examples 7 and 8). The “Wedge” is of course the subject of many a study; one of its most-celebrated attributes is its complex architecture. Astoundingly, the entire exposition is repeated, sonata-like, giving the whole a vast ABA form. In the B section, the Vivaldian model prevails, with alternations between concertino passagework and the ripieno return of the subject. Further reiteration of this information is needless.
While Krebs’s passagework, running from m. 91 to 116, certainly looks and feels “Wedge-like,” the resemblance turns out, again, to be only skin-deep. For one thing, the fugue’s overall architecture is completely different from that of the “Wedge.” There is no return to the exposition; the form is not ABA, but ABC. Krebs works with his theme for a while, takes a break, and then carries on again, much as if to say, “Now, where was I?” But in the B section itself, there is neither any symmetry nor any returns of the theme. Scalar passages in the circle of fifths yield to ornamental figurations over an ostinato pedal. The B section then itself takes an AB form. Meanwhile, the outer wings of the work—sections A and C—are through-composed, Krebs simply “following his bliss.”
Ironically, Krebs has another fugue, formerly attributed to Bach as BWV Anh. 181, in A minor, which is unmistakably indebted to the “Wedge” for its theme (Example 9). But to return to the first A-minor fugue: to be sure, Krebs honors what by his day was a set rule of fugue writing, when he enters his theme in four voices and follows with an episode. The basic model of theme–episode–theme informs the strictly fugal sections of the work, with a soupçon of virtuosity in the middle. (BWV Anh. 181, by contrast, is an orthodox Spielfuge, with neither interludes nor ritornelli.)

Differences in contrapuntal treatment
Another feature lacking here—as in most of Krebs’s organ works—is any of the contrapuntal pyrotechnics expected in Bach. There are no sudden and surprising inversions, augmentations, or retrogrades. There is no stretto. There are none of the superlative eruptions of chromaticism that Bach dishes out so inimitably in the final bars of so many of his best pieces.4 (When, on very rare occasion, Krebs sets a theme in inversion, he announces it all over again, while calling attention to the technique with a superscription.5) Whether Krebs lacks the inclination for harmonic and contrapuntal pyrotechnics, or the chops, is an interesting question.
We do know that, by the time the third fugal voice has entered in measure 17, the piece has yielded up its last surprise, unless the B section is surprising. We cannot evade the implicit judgment of Art, which teaches us that it is nobler to bring much out of little than the reverse. It has to be said candidly, if with regret, that this fugue is at least to some extent an exercise in parvum in multo.
I have not, by any means, fully explored the intertextual ground of Krebs’s free organ works. Further examples could have been cited; many another paper could be written. The question should also be asked: how are these pieces different? Critics speak of an emerging classical style in Krebs, a new architecture no longer sure what to do with Baroque building materials. There is some truth to this. There are passages where Krebs almost seems to be marking contrapuntal time, far more interested in harmony or emotional content. For this author, much of the previously discussed fugue in A minor (see, in particular, measures 156 ff.) fits this description. Little is accomplished of contrapuntal moment; the right-hand part feels almost crude. At times, one almost wishes for a damper pedal! Yet a certain mass of sound is achieved, perhaps pointing towards another esthetic altogether.
But therein also lies a precious insight. A sympathetic student of Krebs should not hold the composer up to comparison with Bach; would you like that standard applied to you? Rather, one should try to see past the borrowings—the persistent sense of pastiche—and try to hear what Krebs is trying to say. If this can be done—if one can hear Krebs despite the echoes—the organist will sense a kindred spirit, and can, I believe, really start to enjoy this repertoire.
Johann Ludwig Krebs outlived Bach by a good 30 years, and Bach was widely considered conservative, even dated, in his day. In his awkwardness with fugal form—in his frequent overreaching and lack of formal plan—was Krebs looking forward, even as he thought he was looking back?
Also, in encountering the organ works of Krebs one has an opportunity to hear something much closer to the mainstream. What was it really like to go to church in Germany in the long afterglow of Bach, and hear one of the best practitioners at work, playing with Kraft and Feuer? With genius comes a certain isolation; Krebs may be more representative of the norm than the transcendental Thomaskantor could ever be.
There is in Krebs’s music a joy, an exuberance, an earnest good nature, that should be judged on its own merits. The shadow of a genius makes a brilliant man almost disappointing. It takes empathy to accept the clear Bach references in Krebs, and then hear past them to a distinctive and strangely fresh voice.

Gavin Black is Director of the Princeton Early Keyboard Center in Princeton, New Jersey. He can be reached by e-mail at [email protected].

Boëllmann Suite Gothique, Part 5: Toccata
In this month’s column we look at some aspects of the fourth and last movement of Boëllmann’s Suite Gothique, the Toccata. This is the last column in this series to deal in detail with a specific movement. Next month’s column will wrap up the yearlong series with a discussion of some general points.
The Toccata is probably the best-known and most popular movement of the Suite Gothique. (One singularly modern measure of popularity suggests that it is: it has far more entries on
YouTube than any of the other movements.) It is a true perpetuum mobile, in that there is one note value (in this case the sixteenth note) that is both always present and never superseded by a quicker note value—that is, until the last several measures, where the intensity is ramped up for a dramatic ending. The relentlessness of those sixteenth notes, along with a sense that the piece at least comes across as being difficult to play—virtuosic—is part of what makes it fit the genre of “toccata” as that genre was understood in the late nineteenth century. There are, of course, other organ toccatas from about the same time as the Boëllmann that are constructed similarly, in particular the work by Boëllmann’s mentor Eugène Gigout—the Toccata in B Minor from 1890—and the famous Widor Toccata from 1879.
It is interesting to remember that in the Baroque period, the word “toccata” was understood entirely differently. A toccata was a piece in several sections, with contrast between the sections. The Buxtehude Praeludium that is the other subject of these columns is in toccata form, though under a different name. Whereas we sometimes think of a toccata as a piece that is meant to show off virtuosity, in the sense of speed, dexterity and general flashiness, originally the word denoted a piece that was meant to show off the variety of possibilities inherent in a keyboard instrument. Of course in this Boëllmann Suite, the work as a whole, amongst all of its movements, shows off a generous subset of what the organ of the composer’s time could do, with different textures being assigned to different movements rather than to different sections of a continuous piece.

Textures
The sixteenth-note perpetuum mobile of this movement manifests itself in three different specific textures, with slight variants. The first texture, found initially in the opening, occupies about 55 measures out of the total of 111 (Example 1). The second texture involves the sixteenth notes’ moving to the left hand and the introduction of syncopation (Example 2). This texture is present in 32 measures. In both of these textures, the sixteenth notes are in chord patterns and remain within one hand-span. That is, the hand does not have to turn over to reach the notes of each chord shape. This is a crucial factor in the technical learning of the movement. The third texture displays more variety within itself. It first shows up in measure 26 (Example 3). With its variants, it accounts for 18 measures, only three of which occur before measure 67. It more or less takes over the ending of the piece.
Each of these three textures is first introduced in a manuals-only passage. The pedal, whenever it comes in, is providing slower-moving motifs, starting with what most listeners familiar with the piece would probably identify as the principal theme (Example 4). This theme returns several times, sometimes as is, sometimes in octaves. Other than this, the pedal provides quarter-note or slower harmonic foundation.

Hand placement
What from amongst these initial observations about texture might have interesting implications for learning the piece? Several things stand out.
Although the two hands are never meant to be played on separate manuals (all of the several manual changes, at m. 20, 28, 35, 53, 61, etc., involve moving the whole texture to a new keyboard), there is never any ambiguity about which hand should play which notes. I have scarcely ever seen a piece about which I would so confidently predict that every player would make the same hand choice decisions. The hand choice that makes sense is that represented by the placement of notes on staves in the Durand edition (and for that matter every other edition that I have seen). There are a very few spots where it would not be actually impossible to take an isolated left hand note in the right hand—the first note of m. 10, a few notes in m. 20 and similar passages—but it would always be awkward. This is interesting, since working out hand choices has been a focus of our discussion of several of the previous movements of the Boëllmann and also of the Buxtehude. It is a step that is just not relevant here.
For the majority of the quarter-note beats of this piece, each hand is playing a chord shape that fits under the hand without a change of hand position. Each of the manual examples above illustrates this. (In two beats of Example 3, the right hand’s notes are not chord shapes: this is the exception. In any case, the notes fit under the hand without a shift in hand position.) This means that fingering choices are also subject to less variation than usual, though not as little variation as the hand choices.
Most of these quarter-note-long chord-shaped note patterns succeed one another without the need for any planning. That is, the transition from one to the next is self-evident or, at least, straightforward. This manifests itself in different ways. For the long stretches of the left hand that resemble Example 1—eighth-note chords separated by eighth-note rests, or, looking at it another way, detached quarter-note chords—it is obvious that the rests give the hand an opportunity to regroup between chords and to play each chord with whatever fingering is simply the most comfortable. Furthermore, the chords are never very distant from one another on the keyboard. There are no scary leaps.
When the right hand has the pattern of the beginning measures, the transition from the last note of one (spread out) chord shape to the next is also easy. This is because the new beat begins in the direction in which the hand is already deployed, and the first note of the new beat is never too far away. After the thumb has played the fourth right-hand note of the piece, for example, the hand could easily play any note from c#′ to, say, e′′′. The actual next note, g′′, is extremely easy to find. It lies right under a finger, the fourth or fifth, most likely. This situation is repeated throughout the piece. If the fifth right-hand note of the piece were a middle C, for example, then the fingering and execution of that spot would go from being natural and easy to being extremely difficult. It would require careful planning and a lot of practice, and would indeed set a lower ceiling on tempo. If that note were a very high note, say a′′′ or even c′′′′, then the logistics and planning would still be straightforward but the execution would be much more difficult.
When the left hand has spread-out chords, as in Example 2, those chords are also arranged in a way that lends itself to simple and predictable fingering, much like the opening right-hand motif, though the specific chord shapes are different. In many of these measures—mm. 20, 22, 24, 28 and several similar spots—the right hand has mostly scale-wise quarter-note or slower melodies for which fingering is again straightforward. However, in a few places—mm. 26, 34, 59, and quite a few measures near the end of the piece—there is a new element. The right hand has to play a legato melody in the top part of the compass while playing sixteenth notes below that melody. This is seen in Example 3. These are the spots in the piece where the fingering becomes somewhat involved. The solution, assuming that the legato of the upper line is to be preserved, is to use substitution in those upper notes, so that each note can be played by the most available finger and then held by the fifth finger. This leaves the rest of the hand free to carry out the sixteenth-note patterns (Example 5).
(Of course this is just one way of doing it, based, as usual, on my particular hand. Others might want to use 2/5 on the first beat of the new measure, for example.)
So, this piece—at least the manual part of it—is constructed out of surprisingly simple elements, easy to plan out as to fingering and also easy to execute. That does not mean that a student can play it well without working hard on it. For one thing, the coordination with the pedal is potentially quite challenging; for another, it is all meant to go quite fast—fast enough that it ceases to be easy, even though it is made up of easy elements. In fact, any student should be over-conscientious about mapping out the fingering for all of these simple elements, and also should practice all of the parts amply: short sections, one hand at a time, until each hand for each section has become second nature. Only then should the hands be put together. This is in principle exactly the same as with any other piece.

Pedal part
The pedal part, unlike the hands, does provide the opportunity to make choices that will vary among different players. The opening pedal theme (Example 4) can be played with alternate toes and come out as legato as the player might wish. This way of playing it feels quite natural. Furthermore, there are no indications for use of the swell pedal or other non-note-playing uses of the feet during the passages in which the pedal plays this theme. However, there are also a number of different heel-and-toe-based pedalings that could also make sense. Given the time and place of the creation of this piece, any of the above could represent the composer’s assumptions about how it might be played. Since it is important that this theme be played easily with spontaneity, it is key that the student feel comfortable with the chosen pedaling.
During the middle measures of the piece, the pedal line is often a harmonically based quarter-note bass line. Again, the pedaling can be worked out a number of different ways, none of them particularly complicated. For example, in mm. 29 and 31 the third-beat quarter note can be played with right heel or left toe, consistent with its being legato. Or the choice could be made to play the quarter notes detached, in which case all of the quarter notes could be played with the right toe.
Measures 73–75 are a particularly interesting case. Clearly, the higher notes will all be played with the right foot and the lower notes with the left. The choice as to whether to get the heels involved will be based on personal preference and also on the intended articulation. These notes have no articulation marked. The overall sound and texture at this point in the piece is loud and energetic. Are these notes an energetic driving bass, or a kind of quasi misterioso chromatic near-trill? Or something else? Choices about articulation here will possibly depend in part on acoustics. This is a good place for a student to try different things and listen carefully to different effects.
Near the end of the piece, the opening pedal theme comes back in octaves. (This starts in m. 85.) Needless to say, by physical necessity, the left foot will play the lower octave and the right foot will play the upper. And again, choices about toe and heel will be made based on both personal preference about technique and decisions about articulation. If the student has conceived the theme as legato from the beginning, then it perhaps makes sense to play it legato here. However, the fact that the texture here is very loud and emphatic might suggest a somewhat more emphatic articulation. On the other hand, the composer has altered the upper line, changing it from sixteenth notes to quarter notes (Example 6). What does this suggest about the pedal articulation? This is another place where it would be interesting for a student to try different things and listen carefully.

Pedals in octaves
There are two things to mention about practicing a pedal part that is in octaves. The first is that, all else being equal, it is easier both to learn the part and to execute it in performance if the toe and heel choices are the same for both feet. This is certainly not absolutely necessary, but it will happen naturally here, since the black note/white note patterns largely determine the heel placement. The second thing—more crucial—is that practicing the feet separately is useful and important. Doing enough of that will make everything about putting all of the parts together easier and more secure. The protocol for practicing a passage like this should include practicing each foot separately with each (separate) hand, as well as the feet as a unit with each hand. Probably practicing each foot separately with the left hand is the most important component of practicing the passage.

Crescendo marking
The composer has, rather considerately, limited crescendo marking (mostly, see m. 76) to places where the pedal line is both low and slow. That makes it as easy as it can be to choreograph the use of the swell pedal or, on a modern organ, of the toe studs or the crescendo pedal. This should be incorporated into the separate pedal practicing from the beginning, not left to the step of putting parts together.

Practice strategies
It is always important to practice parts and combinations of parts thoroughly enough so at each step of the way the material being practiced becomes easy and natural. A specific reason that it is important to do so with this piece is that it is meant to go fast. Of course, no one must play it at the given metronome marking. It can be very effective slower than that, and also faster if it is executed well. However, at any tempo, it is important that the feeling of the piece not be at all deliberate, that it trip along lightly but—as it goes on—powerfully. In particular, it is important that the quick upbeat notes in the pedal part slip into the stream of sixteenth notes in the right hand in a way that has energy and momentum, and doesn’t interrupt the flow of those notes. This can be achieved only if everything is very solidly—extra solidly—prepared.
This ends our trek through some aspects of the study and practicing of two very different important works of the organ repertoire. Next month I will give an overview of what we have learned and observed, and try to draw some general conclusions.