Thom Miles plays the restored 1866 Koehnken & Co. organ at the Isaac M. Wise Temple, Cincinnati, Ohio. Thom Miles, organist. Arsis CD 157, www.arsisaudio.com; available from the Organ Historical Society ($15.98 plus shipping), www.ohscatalog.com.
Sonata in B-flat major, op. 65, no. 4, Mendelssohn; Nos. 1 & 3 from Studien für den Pedal-Flügel, op. 56, and Nos. 3 & 4 from Skizzen für den Pedal-Flügel, op. 58, Schumann; No. 1 Sukkoth (Tabernacles) and No. 3 Shabuoth (Pentecost) from The Three Festivals, Herman Berlinski; No. 1 Hinei Mah Tov and No. 3 Hal’luhu (Four Preludes on Jewish Melodies), William Bolcom; Trumpet Voluntary, John Bennett; Concert Variations on “The Star Spangled Banner,” Dudley Buck.
The 1866 Koehnken & Co. organ in the Isaac M. Wise Temple in Cincinnati, Ohio, is probably the most important surviving instrument produced by the once-flourishing organbuilding industry of Cincinnati. This 3/45 organ has many remarkable features that are not usually found on American-built organs of its period, such as a 5-rank Cornet on the Great, and a 4' Bassethorn (Corno di Bassetto) on the Pedal, to name but two. According to the article about it in The Tracker, 50:2, Rabbi Isaac Wise seems to have established an unusual rapport with organbuilder Johann Koehnken when he commissioned what was then the largest instrument yet built in Cincinnati for his synagogue in 1866. The organ is an amazing survival. Although some unfortunate changes were made to the reed stops when the organ was restored in the 1960s, the changes were not irreversible, and the Noack Organ Co. of Georgetown, Massachusetts, has done a superb job of restoring the instrument to its original condition. Indeed, this might be said to be one of the two or three outstanding historic restorations of pipe organs in the USA in the last decade or two. The performer on this CD is Thom Miles, who as organist of the Isaac M. Wise Temple was responsible for overseeing the restoration work.
The recording begins with a performance of the first of Mendelssohn’s Six Organ Sonatas. In the last several years a number of these sonatas have been recorded on German instruments that are claimed to be “authentic Mendelssohn organs.” As noticeably the product of a German immigrant, Johann Koehnken, who was trained by another Swiss-German immigrant organbuilder, Mathias Schwab of Cincinnati, there is a sense in which the Isaac M. Wise Temple organ is equally “authentic” for the performance of Mendelssohn’s works. The first organ sonata sounds extremely impressive on this organ—massive and majestic without being bottom-heavy, and imposing without being unduly loud. The same is apparent in the next four tracks on the CD, four more German compositions from the first half of the nineteenth century. These are four of Robert Schumann’s works for pedal pianoforte, and the first of them, op. 56, no. 1, sounds particularly charming on the Koehnken organ.
These nineteenth-century German works are followed, most appropriately, by some of the twentieth-century organ repertoire of the synagogue. There is a great wealth of such organ music, and it is a shame that much of it is little known outside of Reform Jewish circles. First come two pieces by Herman Berlinski (1910–2001), whose Sinfonias for organ are arguably the most important organ compositions of the century to have been written in a distinctly Jewish idiom. The two works found here are from Sinfonia 2: Holy Days and Festivals, a compilation of five movements. There seems some confusion about this in the notes, which state that there are but three movements and that the overall title is The Three Festivals. In fact, notwithstanding that there are three major festivals in Judaism—Sukkoth, Pesach, and Shabuoth—there are minor festivals as well. The best known of these is probably Chanukah. Thus Berlinski’s Sinfonia 2 was not limited to the three major ones, but includes movements for two of the minor festivals as well. The two movements from Holy Days and Festivals included on the recording are No. 1 Sukkoth (Tabernacles) and No. 3 Shabuoth (Pentecost). They are pleasant mystical works in a modern idiom.
After the Berlinski movements come two of the Four Preludes on Jewish Melodies by William Bolcom (b. 1938), a work specially commissioned in connection with Fritz Noack’s restoration of the Koehnken organ in the Isaac M. Wise Temple. William Bolcom is not a composer particularly associated with composing Jewish music, and indeed he has also composed quite a bit of music on Christian themes, as well as works of a more secular nature. In these pieces he has composed some well-crafted pieces based on traditional Jewish melodies. The four movements are entitled Hinei Mah Tov, Yism’chu, Hal’luhu, and Sim Shalom, of which the first and third are found on this CD.
Next, by way of a change, comes a Trumpet Voluntary by organist John Bennett (1735–1784), who from 1753 until his death was organist of the parish of St. Dionis Backchurch in London, which had one of the largest organs in Britain. In the playlist on the back of the jewel case, Bennett is rather curiously described as “early 17th. Century,” a period about a century and a half before he actually lived. The Trumpet Voluntary is nonetheless a masterful choice, since the Trumpet on the Koehnken organ sounds surprisingly like an eighteenth-century English one, and the piece comes off extremely effectively on this organ.
The final work on the compact disc is Dudley Buck’s well-known Concert Variations on The Star-Spangled Banner. This is included partly because Dudley Buck is believed to have played the organ in the Isaac M. Wise Temple while participating in the Cincinnati May Festivals of the 1870s. As in the Mendelssohn sonata, the Koehnken organ produces a very impressive and majestic effect in this piece. All told, this is a very attractive and interesting recording, and I thoroughly recommend it.
—John L. Speller
St. Louis, Missouri
