The Organ Works of Arthur H. Bird

Enrique Alberto Arias

Enrique Alberto Arias holds a PhD in music history and literature from Northwestern University. He is currently associate professor in the School for New Learning at DePaul University, Chicago. In addition, he is president of Ars Musica Chicago.

Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863-1943), the distinguished organist and composer, is a name found frequently in the earlier issues of The Diapason.1 The present article will consider his Kontrapunktische Symphonie über Themen von Joh. Seb. Bach. In addition to the discussion of this great and complex work, Middelschulte's connections to Ferruccio Busoni and Bernhard Ziehn will be explored as well as Middelschulte's position within the so-called Chicago "Gothic" school.

Biography

Middelschulte was born in Heeren Werve, near Dortmund, Germany on 3 April 1863. He received a good part of his musical education at the Royal Academy of Church Music in Berlin, where he studied with Haupt, Loeschern, Alsleben, Commer (editor of the series of early music entitled Musica Sacra), and Schröder. He also studied with August Knabe in Soest, who considered Middelschulte his most famous student. Knabe also seems to have instilled Middelschulte's profound veneration of Bach. Middelschulte is often said to have been Haupt's last student and to have functioned as his assistant. Carl August Haupt (1810-91) was a distinguished organist who participated in the Bach revival of the 19th century; thus these years of study with Haupt also formed many of the features of Middelschulte's career. Middelschulte became Haupt's assistant and later was the organist and choirmaster of the St. Lucas Church in Berlin.

In 1891, Middelschulte came to Chicago, where he served as the organist at Holy Name Cathedral, a position he held until 1895. During this time he studied with the theorist and composer Bernhard Ziehn (1845-1912), who, as we shall later see, deeply influenced Middelschulte's musical style. In 1893, Middelschulte gave a series of recitals for the Columbian Exposition. He also held organist positions at St. James Catholic Church in Chicago and the K.A.M. Temple. In 1894, Middelschulte became organist for the Theodore Thomas Orchestra (later, Chicago Symphony Orchestra), a position held until 1918, when the anti-German sentiments of the First World War caused him to leave this post. An indication of the honor in which he was held was that he played for both the memorial services of Emperor Frederick III in Germany and for Theodore Thomas.2

During these years he taught at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, the Wisconsin Conservatory, and the Detroit Conservatory of Music (originally known as the Foundation Music School). According to Hans Joachim Moser, Middelschulte was at the American Conservatory from 1891 to 1918, but in fact he was at the Conservatory until 1936.3 He is listed on the faculty of the conservatory until the fall of 1936, and in 1932 he took the place of Adolf Weidig, who had died in 1931, as a leading member of the theory department in addition to his position in the organ department. In 1922, he received an honorary LL.D. degree from Notre Dame University, where he regularly gave summer classes in organ. By this time Middelschulte was Chicago's major organist and an important composer of works for organ. In 1939, Middelschulte returned to Germany, just before the outbreak of World War II. During the last few years of his life, Middelschulte lived in Switzerland and Italy because of declining health. He died in Dortmund, Germany on 4 May 1943 of a heart attack. Among his many students, several went on to have major organ careers, principally Virgil Fox and Arthur C. Becker, about whom I have written previously for The Diapason.4

Thus, although born and educated in Germany, Middelschulte made the United States and, more specifically, Chicago his home. Middelschulte was a scholar and composer, whose works re-flect his intimate knowledge of Bach.5 Middelschulte was, by all accounts, a virtuoso organist of the first order, famous for his performances from memory (he was one of the first organists to do this). His performances of Bach were widely recognized as models of style, thus relating to Ferruccio Busoni's fabled Bach performances on the piano. Middelschulte's repertory was apparently vast. For example, the 1 June 1926 issue of The Diapason announced that Middelschulte would give a series of four recitals at Notre Dame in July of that year. One recital was to be "historical," and included compositions by Palestrina, Frescobaldi, Merulo, Gabrieli, and masters of the Baroque period. The second recital, not unexpectedly, was to be devoted to the organ works of Bach. The third (and this is striking) was to be of American organ music (including a composition by John J. Becker, one of the members of the American experimentalist group and a student of Middelschulte's), while the final recital was to be a potpourri, but including works by Reger and Bach.6 Few organists could equal such a feat. But this series is interesting for its inclusion of works before Bach. His studies with Franz Commer, one of the most important musicologists of the 19th century, would have made him aware of this repertory. His recital of American organ music, despite his conservative German background, shows his interest in promoting the music of his students.

It is impossible to understand Middelschulte's accomplishments without a consideration of his German connections and the German tradition of such Chicago musical institutions as the American Conservatory of Music and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. The American Conservatory of Music was founded in 1886 and incorporated in 1887. The founder was John J. Hattstaedt, and by the early 20th century the American Conservatory was considered one of the leading music schools in Chicago. It had strong ties to Germany in that most of its faculty were trained there. Thus, for example, Adolf Weidig (1867-1931), who had studied with such notables as Riemann and Rheinberger, continued this German tradition at the conservatory, where he taught composition and theory. Weidig was also a violinist who played in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra and an accomplished composer whose works deserve renewed attention.7 His teachings are summarized in the text that was widely used at this time: Harmonic Material and Its Uses (Chicago: Clayton Summy, 1923).

There were many other important German musicians in Chicago at this time. For example, Emil Liebling (1851-1914), a student of Liszt's and known for his editions of the etudes of Carl Czerny, was an impressive pedagogue who also was an editor for The American History and Encyclopedia of Music. He came to Chicago in 1872 and remained until his death.8 Bernhard Listermann (1841-1917) was the concertmaster of the Thomas Orchestra and continued a distinguished career in Chicago, publishing a violin method and some compositions. This list must include the great Theodore Thomas (1835-1905), born in Essen, Germany, and the founder of what would become the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. Thomas was one of the major conductors of his time who permanently left his mark on Chicago.9

Theodore Thomas founded the Chicago Orchestra in 1890, but the name of the orchestra was changed to the Theodore Thomas Orchestra in 1905 and then the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in 1912. Thomas conducted the orchestra until his death in 1905, when he was succeeded by Frederick Stock, who conducted the orchestra until 1942 (the year of his death). The Chicago Symphony Orchestra was created in the German tradition, and the rehearsals were conducted in German up to World War I. There was great emphasis placed on German repertory (including the then-modern Richard Strauss), and the orchestra was known for its German sound because of the rich brass, a tradition that continues to the present day. Middelschulte accordingly worked in musical institutions where his German musical heritage was highly valued and where he made significant contributions.

Middelschulte's influences

Middelschulte's compositional style grew out of his studies of Bach, but it was also clearly influenced by the theories of Bernhard Ziehn, with whom he studied in Chicago. Bernhard Ziehn (1845-1912) was born in Erfurt, Germany, but came to Chicago in 1868 to teach mathematics and music theory in the German Lutheran School of Chicago. In addition to his studies of music theory and history, Ziehn was an accomplished mathematician and botanist, whose studies of poison ivy were commended by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Ziehn had a number of notable students, including the composer John Alden Carpenter and the pianist Fannie Bloomfield-Zeisler. It was said that Middelschulte was Ziehn's favorite student, and certainly he was the student who most clearly exemplified Ziehn's theories in his own work.

Ziehn had promulgated a principle of symmetric inversion: that in chromatic music a figure or motive could be inverted exactly without regard to tonal considerations. Ziehn writes in Canonical Studies: A New Technique in Composition: "Experience gained by careful practice is the only means of finding out whether or not a setting is suitable for symmetric inversion. No rules can be given, but with certainty we can say: the more chromatic a setting is the more appropriate it becomes for symmetric inversion, because chromatic progression is the smoothest."10 From this quote it is clear that by using symmetric intervals tonality is obscured; thus Ziehn adumbrates an idea that is also found in Schoenberg's 12-tone serialism. This technique is illustrated in Example 1.

Another influence on the music of Middelschulte was that of Ludwig Thiele (1816-48). Thiele had been a classmate of Mendelssohn's, and, like Haupt (Middelschulte's teacher), had studied with A.W. Bach. Thiele wrote a number of large-scale organ works that evidence the same kinds of canonic techniques, double pedal usage, and chromaticism that are characteristic of Middelschulte's works. It is evident that the Haupt, Thiele, and Rheinberger (just to name a few) were deeply influenced by J. S. Bach and thus prepared the way for Reger and Middelschulte.11 In turn, they were indebted to Mendelsohn's and Schumann's revitalization of Bach performance and scholarship.

Busoni and Middelschulte

Ferruccio Busoni and Middelschulte enjoyed a personal relationship. In 1910, while on tour, Busoni gave some concerts in Chicago. At that time it seems Ziehn suggested to Busoni that he complete Bach's Art of Fugue . Instead of doing so, Busoni took the themes of the incomplete Contrapunctus found at the end of the Art of Fugue  as the basis for what would ultimately become the Fantasia contrappuntistica. As Busoni himself writes referring to the decision to add a new theme to the Contrapunctus:

The fourth subject, on the other hand, had to be a completely new creation; there was no clew as to its character. There was the inevitable stipulation that this fourth subject had to sound simultaneously with the three earlier ones and must also suit them. As the principal theme of the Art of Fugue  (of which the "Fragment" forms the close) was not one of the three subjects already worked out it was easy to guess that this principal theme should step in (as fourth) and thus close the circle of the whole work. Bernhard Ziehn, in Chicago, gave an affirmative and conclusive answer to my question on this point, and I was able to begin this part of my work on sure ground.12

But John J. Becker, who, as previously noted, had studied with Middelschulte, writes:

It was Middelschulte who helped Busoni on the way, by suggesting that he study the theoretical combinations as worked out along the same line by Bernhard Ziehn of Chicago. (Middelschulte is proud to call himself a disciple of Ziehn). Busoni did so, and was convinced by those studies that Bach intended using the theme of the very first Fugue of "Die Kunst der Fuge." He worked along this line and successfully found the solution, thereby solving one of the most difficult aesthetic problems confronting the musical world.13

This implies that it was Middelschulte more than Ziehn who influenced the conception of the Fantasia contrappuntistica. Indeed, Busoni knew about Ziehn through Middelschulte and this opens up the question whether Busoni and Ziehn ever met personally.

As Marc-André Roberge points out, the first version entitled Grosse Fuge was sketched and written between January and March 1910 and was a continuation of the Contrapunctus XV from the Art of Fugue .14 In June 1910 Busoni reworked the Grosse Fuge into the Fantasia contrappuntistica by adding the "Preludio corale" based on the third of the Sechs Elegien for piano (1907). This Elegie is entitled "Meine Seele bangt und hofft zu dir" (My soul is afraid and hopes in you). It is, however, actually based on the chorale Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr'.15 In July 1921, Busoni rewrote the Fantasia for two pianos and somewhat modified its complex structure. It is this two-piano version of the Fantasia contrappuntistica that is the best known. Busoni, however, wrote: "The Fantasia contrappuntistica is thought of neither for pianoforte nor organ, nor orchestra. It is music. The sound-medium which imparts this music to the listener is of secondary importance."16

The relationship between Middelschulte and the Fantasia is striking. In 1911 Middelschulte made an arrangement of the Fantasia for solo organ and, it now seems clear, according to Roberge, that he helped or even composed the organ part for Frederick Stock's arrangement of the Fantasia contrappuntistica for organ and orchestra that was made in the same year. Roberge writes:

Busoni dedicated the edizione definitiva of the Fantasia contrappuntistica "An Wilhelm Middelschulte, Meister des Kontrapunkts." He must have had for Middelschulte a profound admiration, since he chose him to be the dedicatee of one of his most ambitious works. It is obvious that both men discussed some compositional aspects of the work, because sketches for the Grosse Fuge contain contrapuntal studies based on the Art of Fugue  by both Middelschulte and Ziehn. There are also two four-part canons bearing the dedication "Herrn Ferruccio Busoni zur frdl. [freundlichen] Errinerung von W. Middelschulte, Chicago. 16. Januar 1910."17

Chicago Gothic Tradition

It is thus obvious that Middelschulte participated in the conception of the Fantasia and was considered by Busoni to be "a master of counterpoint." Both Ziehn and Middelschulte were, furthermore, the principal members of what Busoni termed the "Chicago Gothic" school. As we shall directly see, Middelschulte ultimately responded to Busoni's Fantasia with a work related in a general way to Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica: the Kontrapunktische Symphonie (1932).

Middelschulte wrote exclusively for the organ, and his style is fairly consistent from his earliest works through those of his later years. The general aura of these works is indeed "Gothic," which is to say that a dark chromatic, contrapuntal style prevails. Textures are thick, and the ear is constantly surprised by the harmonic progressions caused by the chromatic and frequently dissonant counterpoint. Many sections are saturated chromatically, which is to say that all twelve chromatic pitches follow in rapid succession in all the voices of the texture. Because of this, many sections employ a kind of atonality; thus conservative and radical elements are blended in his works. Middelschulte's compositions are difficult to listen to because of their subtle references, complex textures, and extensive designs. The structures and rhythmic language are clearly derived from Bach; thus Middelschulte, like Reger, Busoni, and, later, Hindemith, employs a neoclassicism based on German models.

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie über Themen von Joh. Seb. Bach is a culminating work. It is, however, a reworking of his earlier Kanonische Fantasia über B.A.C.H. und Fuge über Themen von J.S. Bach (1906). The Fantasy is based on 43 variations in canon over the BACH theme in the bass. The fugues that follow are based on some of the same themes that Middelschulte would subsequently use in the Kontrapunktische Symphonie: the theme from the Musical Offering , the theme from the "Confiteor" of the Mass in B Minor, the BACH theme from the Art of Fugue , and the theme from the Toccata and Fugue in D minor . Both these compositions are dedicated to August Knabe, Middelschulte's teacher from the Teachers College in Soest, Germany.18 In addition to the use of the same themes, specific sections, such as the fugue based on the theme from the Musical Offering , of the Kontrapunktische Symphonie and the conclusion are derived from the earlier work. Accordingly, the Kontrapunktische Symphonie develops the line of thought present in the Kanonische Fantasie; but, as we shall see, it uses more themes and develops more combinations as a result. The following points reflect an overview of the connections between these two compositions: 1) The concept is the same for both works. 2) The same themes by Bach are chosen though, as we shall see, the Kontrapunktische Symphonie employs 14 themes derived from Bach, while the Kanonische Fantasie employs only four. 3) Specific sections of the later work are derived from the earlier (but often with changes of counterpoint). 4) Both clearly result from Middelschulte's study of Bach.

One can ask why Middelschulte wrote two compositions closely related to each other several decades apart. Perhaps Middelschulte wanted to work out further possibilities in the Kontrapunktische Symphonie not present in the Kanonische Fantasie; thus the Kontrapunktische Symphonie uses more themes and the combinations are more complex. Although the general conception of the two works is the same, the Kontrapunktische Symphonie has an even denser harmonic language and more intricate structure.

Although written later in Middelschulte's career, the Kontrapunkstiche Symphonie also reflects Middelschulte's early association with Ziehn and Busoni. It combines Ziehn's approach to organizing chromaticism through symmetric inversion with Busoni's concept of a series of fugues based on Bach but expanding on the given themes. But it must also be noted that the Kanonische Fantasie, the composition that is reworked and developed for the Kontrapunktische Symphonie, was composed before Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica and may well have impacted Busoni's conception of this stunning work. Thus it seems that a work by Middelschulte perhaps influenced Busoni, whose Fantasia contrappuntistica in turn is mirrored in the Kontrapunktische Symphonie.

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie was premiered in 1932, as the following notice from The Diapason dated 1 June 1932 makes clear:

A new work for the organ which is expected to attract much more than ordinary attention is a Symphony in D minor on themes and motives by Johann Sebastian Bach, which has been composed by Wilhelm Middelschulte, Ll. D., and is to receive its initial performance at the summer series of recitals to be played by Dr. Middelschulte at Notre Dame University, South Bend, Ind., and in a recital at Rockefeller Chapel, University of Chicago, June 5.

This implies that the composition was completed by 1932, although it was not published until 1935. This is also evident from a letter Middelschulte wrote to  John J. Becker, his student, on 28 July 1932 in which he says: ". . . I enclose a program of music which shows you that I have not been idle--wrote a Symphonie on 12 [sic] Bach themes for the organ . . . played it here in Chicago and Detroit--everywhere with great success . . ." Again he writes in another letter of 9 January 1933: "Enclosed is a program of music of my Contrapuntal Symphony--built on 14 Bach themes--wish I had fifteen fingers . . . had great success with it in Detroit and still polishing it--also at work on my 2nd Symphony . . . "19 I believe that Middelschulte forgot for the moment how many Bach themes he actually used, but it is evident from the second quotation that he was still working on the final details in 1933.

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie consists of a prelude and five fugues on 14 themes from various compositions by Bach. In the preface, Middelschulte lists these themes as well as their sources:

1. The Musical Offering , BGA, VI, p. 222.

2. Confiteor and Remissionem from the Mass in B Minor, BGA, VI, p. 264.

3. Fugue in D Minor, BGA, XV, p. 269.

4. Fugue in B Minor, BGA, XV, p. 206.

5. Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, BGA, XV, p. 218.

6. Art of Fugue , BGA, XXV, 1 and XLVII.

7. Fugue in C Minor, BGA, XV, p. 132.

8. Prelude in A Minor, BGA, XV, p. 198.

9. Fugue in E Minor, BGA, XV, p. 242.

10. BACH theme from the Art of Fugue , BGA, XXV, 1 and XLVII.

11. Chorale prelude Sleepers Awake, BGA, XXV, 2, p. 63.

12. Canon at the Fifth from the Goldberg Variations , BGA, III, p. 282.

13. Fugue in C Major, WTC I, BGA, XIV, p. 4.

14. Fugue in E-flat Minor, WTC I, BGA, XIV, p. 34.

Of these themes, the most important and the one that prevails throughout is that from the Musical Offering . It will be remembered that this theme is actually by Frederick the Great and was used by Bach as the basis for the various musical transformations of the Musical Offering . The theme from the Art of Fugue is given less importance. Some themes are highlighted and become the themes for the fugues, a practice similar to that found in Ziehn's Canonical Studies, while other themes from this group of fourteen play a subsidiary role. Only two vocal works are cited, the Mass in B Minor and the chorale Wachet auf from the Cantata No. 140. Themes are combined and their keys are changed to fit Middelschulte's tonal plan. In addition, the BACH theme and the references to Bach's three great cyclic works (the Goldberg Variations , The Musical Offering , and the Art of Fugue ) are symbolic and link the Kontrapunktische Symphonie to Middelschulte's veneration of Bachian contrapuntal mastery.

Bach's cyclic works, the Art of Fugue  and The Musical Offering , served as paradigms for the Kontrapunktische Symphonie, although Middelschulte's composition is on a smaller scale than the Bach works and, for that matter, the Busoni Fantasia as well. In addition, the contrapuntal quodlibet concept or the combination of themes from disparate sources found in such Renaissance works as Heinrich Isaac's Missa Carminum or Jacob Obrecht's Missa diversorum tenorum is used. Middelschulte also at times presents the same theme at different rates of speed, as does Johannes Ockeghem's Missa prolationum. I am not suggesting that Middelschulte knew these Masses, but the similarities in techniques are striking, and Middelschulte was perhaps aware of the Renaissance tradition of quodlibet and mensuration canon through his studies with Commer and Ziehn.

Middelschulte has furthermore employed his most extreme chromatic style as well as the idea of symmetric inversion derived from Bernhard Ziehn. (Example 2) As a result, Middelschulte's organ works are strikingly similar to those by Reger, who likewise combined chromaticism with the procedures of Bach. In a word, the Kontrapunktische Symphonie summarizes Middelschulte's outlook as a composer and relates to Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica. Both build on the "Gothic" idea of complex fugal procedures.20

For Busoni, Ziehn and Middelschulte were the two members of the Chicago Gothic tradition, a tradition that stretched back to the Flemish and German masters of the Renaissance and epitomized in the music of J.S. Bach. It is found again in the music of César Franck and is notable for its use of counterpoint that creates unusual harmonic progressions. Essentially, Busoni held that Ziehn and Middelschulte created dissonant counterpoint that went beyond the restrictions of tonality, thus employing a concept central to the music of Hindemith as well. Although Ziehn was a composer, his music is not on the level of Middelschulte's organ compositions; thus Middelschulte's works and especially the Kontrapunktische Symphonie manifest Busoni's tenets as does his own Fantasia contrappuntistica.

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie does not present the fourteen themes in the order in which they are listed in the preface to the score, but rather treats them in cumulative fashion; thus the introduction presents the B-A-C-H motive to furnish the symbolic context for the entire composition: a celebration of the contrapuntal genius of J.S. Bach.  Emphasis is placed on the B-A-C-H theme as well as the themes from The Musical Offering  and the Art of Fugue . Middelschulte relates these themes in such a way as to show their symbolic implications.

The work begins with an introduction marked recitativo based on the B-A-C-H theme. (Example 3) The dotted rhythms give the impression of a French overture. Toward the end of this section Ziehn's technique of symmetric inversion is evident. This section recurs at the end of the work, creating an arch form. The first fugue uses the theme from The Musical Offering  presented at different rates of speed simultaneously. (Example 4a) This section is derived from the Kanonische Fantasie, where the note values are presented at half the speed and the bass voice is an octave lower. (Example 4b) Fugue No. 2 presents No. 13 from the group of fourteen themes (refer to the list of Bach themes above) as a countermotive. Later, the theme from the Art of Fugue  is combined with the theme from the Toccata and Fugue in D minor . (Example 5)

Fugue No. 3 again emphasizes theme No. 3, derived from the celebrated Toccata and Fugue in D minor . The B-A-C-H and No. 9 themes are present as well, combined with the theme from the Toccata. This fugue ends with a cadenza-like passage based on No. 8 that leads into the next fugue. (Example 6) Various combinations of themes ap-pear in this fugue. Nos. 9 and 10 appear as do Nos. 4 and 3. In all, this fugue employs Nos. 3, 9, 10, 4, 6, 7, 2, and 8. Fugue No. 4 begins with references to the B-A-C-H theme (Example 7) as well as the motives from the Goldberg Variations  and Wachet auf. It should be noted that the motive from the Goldberg Variations  is always treated in combination with other ideas. Also striking in this section is the combination of the themes from the D-minor and E-flat-minor fugues. This fugue presents various combinations of themes not found previously: 11 and 13 and, at the end, 3 and 14. Nos. 10, 12, 11, 13, 1, 3, and 14 appear in this fugue. Because of the slow tempo, this fugue functions as an interlude.

The fifth and final fugue combines previous elements, but it leads to a Maestoso section that harmonizes the theme from The Musical Offering  and is derived from a similar episode in the Kanonische Fantasie (where the harmonization is slightly different). This fugue presents themes 10, 3, 1, and 6; and it ends with a grandiose conclusion with trills in the outer voices. The BACH theme and the theme from the Art of Fugue  are here combined and emphasized both musically and symbolically. (Example 8)

In general, the dominating themes are 1, 3, 6, and 10, while the others are subsidiary. Themes are transposed and combined, sometimes at different rates of speed. As is clear from this discussion, the themes are not presented in the order that they appear in the preface; but, later themes in the numeric order are usually found later in the work. The themes are well known and reflect Middelschulte's knowledge of Bach's keyboard literature. At times, themes are only suggested. This is true, for example, of the Fugue subject in C major from WTC I, which is briefly treated as a countermotive in Fugue No. 2. Likewise, the motive from one of the canons from the Goldberg Variations  always is secondary to some other theme.

The following outline lists the order of the themes in the Kontrapunktische Symphonie:

Introduction: No. 10

Fugue 1: No. 1

Fugue 2: Nos. 2, 1, 5

Fugue 3: Nos. 3, 9, 4, 6, 7, 2, 8

Fugue 4: Nos. 10, 11, 13, 12, 3, 14

Fugue 5: 10, 1, 3

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie, however, is more than a series of Bach quotations, for it has a powerful overall unity. This is achieved through the relationships between the fugues and the general tonal plan. Thus the introduction sets the tone for the work and leads into the first fugue. The first three fugues form a longer section and are marked by increasing rhythmic activity. Fugue No. 3 ends with a sustained toccata-like section that leads into Fugue No. 4. This fugue is in a tranquillo tempo and again strongly refers to the B-A-C-H motive; thus it serves as a slow interlude and a preparation for the fifth and final fugue. It is also notable for the largest number of thematic combinations. The fifth and final fugue, because of its return to a quick tempo and the central tonality of D, represents the climax of the work. As the work nears its conclusion, the tempo moves to Maestoso, as mentioned previously, with a harmonization of the theme from The Musical Offering  and references to the B-A-C-H theme, thus relating to the opening. This final section serves as the coda to the final fugue but also to the work as a whole.

The following shows the connections between the fugues:

Introduction--Fugues 1, 2, 3--Tranquillo Fugue with its BACH reference--Fugue 5 that returns to the tempo and figuration of the first three fugues--Maestoso conclusion.

This suggests that the fugues create longer sections and that there are cyclic references to the B-A-C-H motive which regularly punctuate the work. In one sense, it is possible to look at the work as having four sections: the introduction, the first three fugues, the slow interlude, and the concluding fugue with its peroration. Although the harmonic language is densely chromatic and the tonal references at the local level obscure, the use of D as an anchoring tonality at key spots of the work is structurally important. On the other hand, the most tonally ambiguous sections (built on the BACH motive) occur at the beginning and during the slow fugue. The final cadence of the work can be seen as a slow descent from E- flat to D.21

The term Symphonie, it seems to me, is used in two senses: as an indication of the scope of the work but also to imply that the organ is used in its full symphonic grandeur. As has been suggested throughout this article, there are clear connections between Busoni's Fantasia contrappuntistica and the Kontrapunktische Symphonie. As will be remembered, Middelschulte made an arrangement of the Fantasia and Busoni dedicated the final version of the work to him. In addition, the genesis of the Fantasia occurred during a period when Busoni was in close contact with Middelschulte. Both Busoni and Middelschulte were consummate virtuosi deeply involved with the music of Bach; thus the Fantasia contrappuntistica relates to the Kontrapunktische Symphonie. The parallels between the works can be summarized as follows:

Both reflect Bach's cyclic contrapuntal works: The Musical Offering  and the Art of Fugue .

Both were influenced by the theories of Bernhard Ziehn.

Both use a chromatic language influenced by Bach, Liszt, and Ziehn himself.

Both are based on the cyclic concept of fugues exemplified by the Art of Fugue .

Both use the D dorian mode as a focal tonality.

Both exemplify the aesthetics of the Chicago "Gothic" School.

Conclusion

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie was not Middelschulte's last composition. Middelschulte wrote a set of variations on "The Old 100th" that was completed in Italy before he left for Germany, but is now lost. In addition, he planned or composed a second symphony (probably in the style of the Kontrapunktische Symphonie). There is no indication as to when this work was started or how far it had progressed, though the letter of 1935 mentioned previously refers to it.22

The Kontrapunktische Symphonie is a manifestation of the relationships between and among Ziehn, Busoni, and Middelschulte, but it also reflects the Bach tradition beginning with Mendelssohn and continuing through Thiele and Haupt. It summarizes Middelschulte's lifelong interest in the music of Bach as well as approaches found in his earlier organ compositions. It also mirrors the Chicago-German connection as well as what Busoni termed "Young Classicism," or "the sifting and the turning to account all the gains of previous experiments and their inclusion in strong and beautiful form."23 Furthermore it epitomizes the Chicago "Gothic" tradition, a tradition of exploring recondite chromatic techniques and contrapuntal sophistication. This masterpiece demonstrates Middelschulte's control of the medium of organ composition, but it also suggests his own extraordinary abilities as a performer. It manifests those fascinating techniques evolved by Reger, Busoni, and Middelschulte around the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries that combine chromaticism with the contrapuntal rigor of the incomparable J.S. Bach.

Postscript

Middelschulte, although an important figure in his time, and, I believe, a seminal figure in the development of chromaticism at the beginning of the 20th century, has suffered a curious fate: he is little known in Germany and is largely forgotten in Chicago, where he made his home and taught for many years. A small number of Middelschulte devotees, however, are again bringing the music of this fascinating composer to public attention. A CD appeared in 1999 entitled Brink Bush performs Organ Works of Wilhelm Middelschulte (Volume 1). (This is available at  <www.ohscatalog.org&gt;.)

This CD contains the following works:

Perpetuum Mobile from the Konzert für Orgel über ein Thema von Joh. Seb. Bach (1903). This is based on Bach's "Wedge Fugue" (BWV 548) and is an early work that already shows the line of thought present in the Kontrapunktische Symphonie.

Passacaglia für die Orgel (1896). The BACH theme and the chorale Ein Feste Burg are used in this composition. This early work once more shows Middelschulte's consistency of approach.

Chromatische Fantasie und Fuge für Orgel (published 1922). It is based on original themes but is clearly related to Bach's celebrated Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue.

Drei Studien über den Choral Vater unser im Himmelreich (published 1913)

Kanonische Fantasie über B-A-C-H und Fuge über Themen von Joh. Seb. Bach (published 1906). This, as mentioned in the article, was the model for the Kontrapunktische Symphonie.

Middelschulte consistently used German titles for his compositions and wrote exclusively for organ (with the exception of orchestral accompaniments for the Konzert für Orgel, performed by Middelschulte under Stock with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. These orchestral parts have been lost). He began composing rather late in life, but once he did he employed a complex style that continued to the last of the published works. His entire output can be considered a tribute to J.S. Bach.

At this time Brink Bush is preparing a second CD that will include the Kontrapunktische Symphonie, the full Konzert für Orgel, and the Kanon in F.    

by Enrique Alberto

The name Arthur C. Becker was familiar to the readers of THE DIAPASON in the period of the 1930s to the 60s because of his many articles and frequent notices of his activities. In addition to his accomplishments as an organist and college administrator, Dr. Becker was an able composer who composed much organ and liturgical music for St. Vincent de Paul Church in Chicago, where he was organist and music director from 1918 to 1973. That he was so long associated with this church gave him ample opportunity to create music not only to demonstrate his own virtuosity as an organist but also to support the services of the church.

Background

Arthur C. Becker (1895-1976) was the founding dean of DePaul University's School of Music and served as organist and choirmaster at St. Vincent de Paul Church from 1918 to 1973. Born in Louisville, Kentucky on September 20, 1895, Becker soon evidenced talent for playing the organ. After holding a number of positions in the Louisville area, Becker moved to Chicago in 1918, where he received a Bachelor of Music and later a Master of Music degree from the Sherwood Conservatory. Among his teachers were Wilhelm Middleschulte and Gaston Dethier in organ and Josef Lhevinne in piano. In 1918 Becker organized DePaul University's School of Music and began his position at St. Vincent de Paul Church. In 1922 Becker went to Paris to study organ with Charles-Marie Widor and Marcel Dupré, and composition with Albert Roussel. In 1942 he received an honorary Doctor of Music degree from The Chicago Musical College. Because of his distinguished service, Becker became an affiliate of the Vincentian order in 1964 and was awarded the Via Sapientiae, DePaul University's highest honor, in 1966. He died in 1976, one of the most respected members of the Chicago musical community and the leading Catholic church musician of the city.

In general, Becker's music is conservative, with the strong influence of the French school of the late Romantic period much in evidence. His organ study in France and his composition studies with Albert Roussel fostered a love for the French repertory. In addition, Becker's own manner of organ performance was decidedly in the French tradition.

Sonus Epulantis

The purpose of the present article is to consider the Sonus Epulantis for organ, one of his finest compositions. What I assume to be an earlier work, Prelude to a Sacred Drama (no date), is the basis for Sonus Epulantis. The differences between the two are few: Prelude to a Sacred Drama begins with slightly fuller harmonies, and there are some differences in dynamic indications. Other than these slight details, the two compositions are the same, though the manuscript style for Sonus Epulantis is smaller and neater.

At this time little is known about the date and the reason for composing this work. My impression, as we shall see, is that it is a late work. The title is both curious and enigmatic. The literal translation is "the sounds of one rejoicing." The key to the title's meaning is found within the work itself. There is a musical quotation from the opening of the Gregorian sequence for Easter, Victimae Paschali. The opening lines of the sequence read:

Victimae paschali laudes immolent Christiani. Agnus redemit oves: Christus innocens Patri reconciliavit peccatores.

May Christians bring praise as the sacrificial offering to the Paschal Victim. The Lamb redeems the sheep. Innocent Christ reconciles sinners to the Father.

I interpret the title to relate to this sequence, for the "sounds of one rejoicing" are in truth the sounds of rejoicing at the Paschal feast. Easter, after all, celebrates the resurrection of Christ and the birth of spring. This is, therefore, the most joyful season of the liturgical year; thus Becker's Sonus is actually an Easter work, one that relates the Latin text of the sequence to the title. As far as I know, the title is Becker's own--it neither seems to be quotation or the title of some hymn.

There are two melodic ideas that dominate Sonus: the Gregorian quotation (Example 1), and another short melody that likewise seems to be derived from the Gregorian repertory (Example 2). Thus far I have not been able to identify the Gregorian chant, but I suspect this haunting melody is Becker's own. Does not this melody relate to the work's title? But for a composition that is supposed to be joyful, Sonus is strangely subdued. Again I interpret, but my impression is that Sonus reflects a deeply felt joy, one that is suffused with tranquility and introspection.

Structural features

Let us turn to the work itself. In general, Sonus is marked by linear counterpoint that creates friction between the lines and quartal harmonies. (Example 3)  Peculiar harmonic inflections are also common. (Example 4) The general structure results from the cantus firmus treatment of the two melodic ideas mentioned above. Becker's own melodic idea is presented as an ostinato and becomes the most striking feature of the work. (Example 2)

The work opens with a sustained D in the bass. Quartal harmonies with dissonance are here featured, creating a prelude from mm. 1 to 30. An Allegro maestoso begins at m. 31. Here the ostinato is introduced, with fragmentation and variation. Increasingly chromatic harmonies and active rhythms provide intensity. The texture clears and there is a return to D as the tonal center. At m. 76 the opening of the Victimae paschali is quoted and then treated as a cantus firmus against active figuration. At m. 93 the ostinato is presented against the opening of the Victimae Paschali. A change to 6/4 meter and D major appears at m. 108, introducing a free variant of the sequence and veiled references to the ostinato. At m. 121, D minor returns with active rhythm and a combination of the two melodic fragments. At m. 139, the Adagio tempo returns with the final appearance of the ostinato pattern used as the cadence.

Stylistic features

There are a number of features of Sonus Epulantis that imply it is a later work of Becker's. The harmonies are frequently dissonant. The enigmatic title and the haunting melody used as the ostinato are also unusual. Was this work composed for some special Easter occasion? I rather suspect that it was, for it could well have been featured as an interlude during one of those grand Easter services that Becker was so famous for. Although Sonus Epulantis is carefully composed, it reflects Becker's mastery as an improviser. Each section leads into the next, creating contrast and climaxes but always referring to the two thematic ideas.

The score includes registration suggestions and manual designations and is intended for a large romantic organ of three manuals and pedal. The registrations include both general and specific instructions. For example, the work opens with the registration: Sw: Soft Strings, Gt: Foundations, Ch: Dulciana, Ped: 16¢ and 8¢, and the dynamic is piano. Within the first 15 measures the music crescendos to fortissimo, presuming the use of the crescendo pedal or carefully worked out general and divisional piston changes. Five measures later, the score indicates piano. Later instructions include such indications as "Gt and Sw Full" and "Gt Diapasons to Full Sw," along with crescendo to full organ. The middle section indicates Sw: Diapason and Ch: Clarinet; and later Sw: Solo Stop (Trompette) and Ch: Soft Flutes; later still Sw: Flutes and Strings 8¢, 4¢. Another crescendo in measures 117 to 128 builds to full organ, achieved with the crescendo pedal or numerous piston changes. After a climax on V2 of iv, the piece ends quietly on the Swell Voix Celeste and the Great soft Flute. Performance requirements include a thorough control of legato touch, octaves in the manuals and pedal, brilliant 16-note figuration, and numerous manual and registration changes. Two enclosed divisions are intended.

 

Summary

 

Unfortunately, Becker's music has fallen into oblivion. A concert of his music on the 125th anniversary of St. Vincent de Paul church on November 5, 2000 revealed a composer with a solid technique and profound commitment to religious expression. Of all the compositions on this program, Sonus Epulantis was the most expressive and most beautiful. It reflects the emotions of a man who had lived a long life in church music and wished to express the spiritual satisfaction that life had given him. Its transcendence suggests it was one of the last compositions Becker wrote and that it was a kind of opus ultimum--a final statement of his life and purpose.

Becker bibliography

"Who's Who Among American Organists," The Diapason, October, 1925, p. 10.

"Arthur Becker appointed director of the chorus of the Illinois Club for Catholic Women," The Diapason, July, 1930, p. 46.

"Catholic Church Music: Three New Masses of Interest," The Diapason, August, 1932, p. 23.

Arthur C. Becker, 1/4 page display ad, Concert Management McNab & Gressing, The Diapason, September, 1933, p. 7.

"Arthur C. Becker broadcasts recitals in university course," The Diapason, April, 1936, p. 20.

"Arthur C. Becker, A.A.G.O., dean of the school of music of DePaul University, Chicago, and organist and choirmaster of St. Vincent's Church, completed his thirty-third broadcast of organ music from station WGN . . .," The Diapason, July, 1938, p. 17.

"Becker and School to Mark Anniversary: serves a quarter century," The Diapason, April, 1943, p. 7.

"Dr. Arthur C. Becker on April 5 observed his 36th anniversary as organist and choirmaster of the Catholic Church of St. Vincent de Paul," The Diapason, May, 1954, p. 6.

"Dr. Arthur C. Becker, dean of DePaul University's school of music, is shown at the console of the three-manual Moller organ donated anonymously to the school," The Diapason, April, 1957, p. 1.

"Arthur C. Becker celebrates 40th anniversary," The Diapason, April, 1958, p. 6.

"Dr. Arthur C. Becker will retire as dean of the school of music at DePaul University, Chicago, after 48 years as its head," The Diapason, March, 1966, p. 26.

"Arthur C. Becker celebrates 50 years at St. Vincent de Paul Church," The Diapason, May, 1968, p. 2.

"Arthur C. Becker will observe his 52nd anniversary as organist and choirmaster of St. Vincent de Paul Church," The Diapason, April, 1970, p. 8.

"Nunc Dimittis," The Diapason, April, 1976, p. 11.

Arthur C. Becker Work List

Organ

Brünnhilde's Awakening and Finale from Siegfried-Richard Wagner, arranged for organ by Arthur C. Becker, February 12, 1933.

Four Antiphons of the Blessed Virgin Mary Choral-Paraphrased for Organ (1948?).  Alma Redemptoris Mater, Ave Regina Caelorum, Regina Coeli, Salve Regina. Published by McLaughlin & Reilly Co., Boston, M&R Co. #1590-20, copyright MCMXLVIII.

Miniature Suite for Organ (August 4, 1962), dedication:  "To René Dosogne." I Con Moto, II Moderato, III Moderato, IV Con Moto. Unpublished manuscript.

Music for Low Mass (no date), Suite for Organ. Introit-Effusum est, Offertory-In virtute tua, Elevation-Benedictus-Mass XI, Communion-Religio munda, Post-lude-Alleluia. Unpublished manuscript.

Prelude to a Sacred Drama (no date). Unpublished manuscript. Note: This piece reworked into "Sonus Epulantis" listed below.

Retrospection (February 11, 1969). Unpublished manuscript.

Scherzando (August 22, 1966). Unpublished manuscript.

Second Sonata for Organ (no date), dedication:  "To my friend and colleague Herman Pedtke." I Larghetto, II Lively, III Andante, IV Moderato. Unpublished manuscript.

Sonus Epulantis for Organ (no date). Unpublished manuscript.

Three Sketches for Organ (June 25, 1969). I Andante, II Andante, III Allegro  Maestoso. Unpublished manuscript.

There was also a First Sonata for Organ written in the 1920s. The manuscript for this has been lost. Two of the movements had been arranged for brass sextet. Paean for brass sextet [New York] Remick Music Corp., ©1938. Library of Congress Call # M657.B4 P3. Romance for brass sextet [New York] Remick Music Corp., ©1938. Library of Congress Call # M657.B4 R6.

Organ and Piano

Concert Overture (April 16, 1941). Unpublished manuscript. Probably written for performance with his wife Barbara S. Becker.

Choral

Published Works

Alleluia-Choral Part for the Toccata from Organ Symphony No. 5 by C.M. Widor.  Published by McLaughlin & Reilly Co., Boston, copyright MCMLV.

Ave Maria (early 1930s?), a cappella, Latin. Published by McLaughlin & Reilly Co., Boston, copyright MCMXXXV, "In the Caecilia (June, 1935)."

Creator of the Stars of Night, Sacred Chorus for Mixed Voices, S.S.A.A.T.T.B.B. a cappella, Published by Hall & McCreary Co., Chicago, copyright 1940.

Mass in Honor of St. Vincent de Paul, "Dedicated to my sister Lucile," SSAATTBB and organ, Latin, Boston, McLaughlin & Reilly Co., ©1937. There are also string parts (in manuscript) for this Mass-V1, V2, Vla, VC, DB.

Mass in Honor of the Holy Name, SATB Voices and Organ, Latin, dedication:  "To Msgr. Charles N. Meter, S.T.D., Mus.D., and the Cardinal's Cathedral Choisters, Chicago, Ill." Published by McLaughlin & Reilly Co., Boston, copyright MCMLIX.

Mass "Lord God, Heavenly King," English Mass for Congregation and Choir of Four Mixed Voices with Organ. Published by Gregorian Institute of America, Toledo, Ohio, copyright 1966.

Mass of the Sacred Heart, SATB Voices and Organ with Congregation ad lib. Published by Gregorian Institute of America, Toledo, Ohio, copyright 1966.

One Is Holy, SATB a cappella. Published by McLaughlin & Reilly Co., Boston, copyright MCMLXIX.

Arrangements

Bless the Lord, O My Soul, Mikhail Ippolitov-Ivanov (1859-1935), arranged for S.A.T.B. by Arthur C. Becker. A cappella. Published by GIA Publications, Chicago, copyright 1970.

Come Holy Spirit, Orlando Gibbons, arranged for SATB Voices with Organ. Published by GIA Publications, Chicago, copyright 1970.

The Lord Bless You, J.S. Bach, arranged by Arthur C. Becker. Text: "From the concluding prayer of a Commissioning Service. Freely Translated by A.C.B."  S.A.T.B. a cappella. Published by GIA Publications, Chicago, copyright 1970.

Unpublished Works

Adore Te Devote (no date), for soprano, alto, tenor, bass and organ, Latin.

Ave Maria (no date), SATB a cappella, Latin. (This is different from the published Ave Maria listed above.)

Blessed Be God The Father (October 11, 1969), for mixed voices, 2 trumpets, 2 trombones and organ, English.

Cantate Domino-Come, let us sing to the Lord (no date), SATB and organ, English.

Domine Deus (April, 1958), "To St. Vincent Choir," SATB with organ, Latin.

Have Mercy On Me (May 2, 1967), SATB with organ, English.

I Will Delight in Your Commands (February 4, 1970), SATB and organ, English.

Mass in Honor of St. Barbara (no date), for mixed choir, congregation and organ, "In Memory of my Beloved Wife, Barbara."

Mass (Untitled) (May 20, 1970), "To St. Vincent de Paul Church Choir," SATB with organ, English.

Missa Brevis (no date), SATB, organ (ad libitum), Latin.

O Lord, I Am Not Worthy (May 8, 1966), SATB a cappella, English.

Our Father (December 28, 1965), SATB a cappella, English.

Panis Angelicus (no date), SATB, organ, Latin.

Rejoice unto the Lord (July 17, 1966),  "Respectfully Dedicated to Rev. Charles E. Cannon, C.M., Pastor of St. Vincent de Paul Church, Chicago Illinois," SATB with organ, English.

Yours Is Princely Power (January 4, 1969), Scriptural Response Christmas Midnight Mass, SATB with organ, English.

Arrangements

Agnus Dei, Kalinnikoff, arranged with Latin words by Arthur C. Becker, soprano solo, alto solo, S.S.A.A.

Hymn-Accept Almighty Father, four part chorus of mixed voices.

Hymn-At That First Eucharist, arranged for solo, mixed choir and congregation.

Hymn-Crown Him with Many Crowns.

Hymn-For All The Saints, R. Vaughan Williams.

Hymn-Forty Days and Forty Nights, arranged for 4 voices and organ.

Missa Plebs Dei, David Kraehenbuehl, arranged for 4 voices.

Missa Regina Pacis, Albert J. Dooner, English arrangement of  Latin mass.

Send Forth Thy Light, Balakirev (?), alto solo, SATB solos and mixed choir with organ.

Miscellaneous

DePaul University "Fight Song," Published by DePaul University Press, 64 East Lake Street, circa early 1930s.

by David C. Pickering

David Pickering currently teaches at Salt Lake Community College, Deseret Academy, the Waterford School, and the Day Murray Organ School. Dr. Pickering received the doctor of musical arts degree in organ performance and a master's degree in organ performance and musicology from the University of Kansas as a student of James Higdon. He received his bachelor of music degree in organ performance from Brigham Young University as a student of Parley Belnap and J. J. Keeler.

 

Introduction

The 1930s was a creative era in organ composition, both in Europe and the United States. Frenchman Louis Vierne composed his tonally adventuresome, cyclic Sixième Symphonie in 1930. Fellow compatriot Marcel Dupré's Le Chemin de la Croix (1931) portrayed musically Christ's crucifixion. The innovative Olivier Messiaen used his modes of limited transposition to form the harmonic vocabulary of L'Ascension in 1933-34. German Sigfrid Karg-Elert composed his lengthy and tonally-taxing Passacaglia und Fuge an B-A-C-H in 1932. American Leo Sowerby composed his Symphony in G Major in 1930, which has remained a landmark of American organ composition to the present day.

Many other organ works written by American composers during the 1930s have largely disappeared from the known organ repertory. Leroy Robertson's three organ works--Organ Sonata in B Minor, Fantasia in F Minor, and Intermezzo--join the ranks of those works that never enjoyed wide acclaim. This unpopularity does not prove that Robertson's music is not well written. Like the aforementioned compositions, Robertson's music also employs new ideas. His Organ Sonata was one of few composed during the first part of the twentieth century.1 He also incorporated a Native American melody into the Organ Sonata. This was a revolutionary idea for organ composition during the first part of the twentieth century, showing Robertson's interest in the varied styles of earlier compositions.

The famous French organist and composer Marcel Dupré came into contact with Robertson's organ music on a recital tour in 1939. Dupré wrote to Robertson, "It is a pleasure for me to tell you that I have been very interested by your organ compositions . . . They are very musical and well written for the instrument. I wish to you the success that you deserve with them."2 The success never came, and Robertson's Organ Sonata and Fantasia have never been published,3 while the Intermezzo has been published in a book containing other works by American composers.4 The ignominious state of Robertson's organ music is unfortunate, since his compositional ability and idiomatic writing for the organ have produced solid, musical organ works that deserve wider circulation and recognition.

Biographical Sketch

Leroy J. Robertson (1896-1971) was born and raised in Fountain Green, Utah, a small community about 100 miles south of Salt Lake City. He received his first formal musical training on the violin from E. G. Edmunds.5 Ben Williams, his second violin teacher, was a railroad worker who taught himself how to play the violin from a Sears Roebuck catalogue.6 Robertson attended high school in Pleasant Grove and Provo, Utah, where he played in the orchestra and took courses in music theory. He was allowed to take classes in harmony, music history, and solfeggio at Brigham Young University during his last two years of high school. He also played in the university orchestra and studied violin privately with a Brigham Young University faculty member. Robertson helped support himself in high school by giving violin lessons.

Upon graduation from high school, Robertson met George Fitzroy, a private music teacher in Provo. Fitzroy had just graduated from the New England Conservatory of Music, where he had studied composition with George Chadwick, an acclaimed composer and teacher of the time. Fitzroy gave young Robertson training in analysis and counterpoint and lent him the first orchestral scores that he had ever seen: Mendelssohn's Overture to a Midsummer Night's Dream and the Dvorák New World Symphony.7 Fitzroy eventually persuaded Robertson to go to the New England Conservatory and study composition with Chadwick. Robertson went on to earn diplomas in violin, piano, composition, and public school music from the New England Conservatory in 1923. He then returned to Utah and taught high school music for two years. He began teaching at Brigham Young University in September 1925, where he conducted the university orchestra and taught music theory and violin.

In 1925 Robertson learned that the famous Swiss composer Ernest Bloch was coming to San Francisco to head the San Francisco Conservatory. Five years later, Robertson obtained a leave of absence from his university teaching and studied privately with Bloch in San Francisco from March to June 1930. Robertson also studied privately with Bloch in Switzerland from June to September 1932, soon after receiving his BA and MA degrees from Brigham Young University. Robertson and Bloch developed a close friendship that lasted many years.

After his studies with Bloch, Robertson traveled to Leipzig and Berlin. In Berlin he studied the music of Renaissance composers with the famous musicologist Hugo Leichtentritt from October 1932 to the spring of 1933. Robertson began receiving prizes and awards for his compositions after this period of European study. His Quintet in A Minor for Piano and Strings (1933) received First Prize from among two hundred other submitted manuscripts in a competition sponsored by the Society for the Publication of American Music in 1936.

Robertson began work on his doctorate at the University of Southern California in the summer of 1936, studying first with Arnold Schoenberg and later with Ernest Toch. Robertson continued to build up the music program at Brigham Young University by expanding the theory program and the symphony orchestra. He was catapulted to international fame in 1947 when his Symphony No. 2, subtitled Trilogy, won the Symphony of the Americas Contest sponsored by Henry H. Reichhold in Detroit. Robertson was awarded $25,000 and a premiere of his symphony by the Detroit Symphony Orchestra on 11 December 1947. More than four hundred musicians from seventeen countries entered this contest, including major composers from North and South America.

Robertson became the head of the Music Department of the University of Utah in 1948. He continued working on his doctorate during the summer months, finally receiving the degree in 1953. Robertson's accomplishments as a music department chair included "adapt[ing] the curriculum of study [in the music department] so as to meet national standards."8 He also introduced the bachelor's and master's degrees in music to the university's curriculum. In addition, the University of Utah became the first university in the area to offer the Ph.D. in music. Robertson taught at the University of Utah until 1962, when he retired and served as composer-in-residence until July 1965.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints asked Robertson to head its Church General Music Committee in the spring of 1962, three months before he retired from the University of Utah. He had served as a member of this committee since 1938 and was involved in the compilation and editing of the church's 1948 hymnal. He headed the music committee until 1969. Robertson died of heart failure, a complication of diabetes, on 25 July 1971. Other compositions for which Robertson was well known include: String Quartet No. 1 (1940), Rhapsody for Piano and Orchestra (1944), American Serenade (String Quartet No. 2) (1944), Overture to Punch and Judy (1945), Concerto for Violin and Orchestra (1948), Oratorio from the Book of Mormon (1953), Passacaglia for Orchestra (1955), Concerto for Violoncello and Orchestra (1956), and Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1966).

Leroy Robertson and the Organ

Leroy Robertson's preparation for writing organ music began several years before its actual composition. Around 1926-27, Robertson met a young teenager, J. J. Keeler, a Provo, Utah native who was just beginning organ lessons. Robertson knew of Keeler's interest in the organ and always encouraged him in his organ studies. During Keeler's student years in Provo, Robertson had Keeler play many well-known organ works for him.9 These experiences no doubt allowed Robertson to examine how to write effectively for the organ.

Robertson and Keeler traveled to Europe together in 1932 as Robertson was preparing to study with Ernest Bloch in Switzerland. Keeler went to the Leipzig Conservatory in Germany to study with the famous organist Karl Straube, one of Germany's foremost organ virtuosi of the time who premiered many of Max Reger's organ works. Straube was also the organist at the famous Thomaskirche, where Johann Sebastian Bach had served previously. After Robertson's studies with Bloch, he traveled to Leipzig to see how Keeler was faring.

Robertson stayed in Leipzig for about six weeks, visiting frequently the large churches in Leipzig, the Thomaskirche being his favorite. It was here that Robertson heard Karl Straube, assistant organist Günther Ramin, and Straube's students play the organ works of the great German masters. The church's acoustics, its heroic 1889 Wilhelm Sauer organ, and Keeler's interest in organ music inspired Robertson to compose organ music of his own. He sketched his first organ works, Organ Sonata in B Minor and Fantasia in F Minor, in Leipzig in 1932.10 These works were later completed in Berlin and Provo, Utah during the years 1933-1934.11 The registration indications for Robertson's organ music were prepared with J. J. Keeler's assistance on the 1907 Austin organ in the Provo Tabernacle.12

Organ Sonata in B Minor

The Organ Sonata is composed in three movements entitled Prelude, Scherzo, and Ricercare. Robertson dedicated this work to his wife Naomi. J. J. Keeler premiered the Prelude and Ricercare movements of the Organ Sonata on 1 February 1943 in the Provo Tabernacle.13 The Brigham Young University student newspaper, The Y News, wrote that "one of the most delightful numbers [of the concert] was a[n organ] sonata composed by Professor Robertson, which, according to critics, is virile with energy of the new west."14 Alexander Schreiner, Salt Lake Tabernacle Organist and faculty member at the University of California at Los Angeles, later played the complete Organ Sonata on his fifty-first noon organ recital, which took place on 3 May 1935, in Royce Hall at UCLA.15

Robertson entered the Organ Sonata in B Minor in the Helen Sheets Composition Contest sponsored by the McCune School of Music and Art in Salt Lake City. The work won a prize of $50 and was hailed as the best composition by a Utah composer. The judge for the contest, a prominent California musician, wrote that Robertson's Organ Sonata "was far superior to any other entered . . . and that Mr. Robertson is a serious, splendid musician . . . who should by all means have the prize."16

At Arthur Shepherd's special request, Robertson orchestrated the Organ Sonata in B Minor for strings, woodwinds, percussion, brass, and organ and retitled the work Prelude, Scherzo, and Ricercare on Two Themes.17 This work was first performed for the convention of the Music Teachers National Association held in 1941 at Minneapolis. The Utah Symphony, conducted by Maurice Abravanel, recorded this work in 1948.18 Abravanel thought that this transcription was particularly successful, especially since it was not like other "very popular organ transcriptions of the day that were always very thick and loud, the Robertson score was like chamber music, very delicate and lean."19 Leopold Stokowski, conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, was also interested in having his orchestra perform the Prelude, Scherzo, and Ricercare on Two Themes, but was never able to program it.20

Robertson wrote that the first movement of the Organ Sonata is "in the style of the choral prelude announc[ing] the two chief themes at the outset--the first alone in the pedal and the second in a higher register with a simple alto supplying an obligato [sic]."21 He composed this first melody in B harmonic minor, imbuing it with a brooding, melancholy air (see Example 1).

The second theme is based on a Ute Indian melody in the Phrygian mode.22 Robertson thought very highly of the Native American people and traveled to the Ute and Ouray Indian Reservation several times in the late 1920s and early 1930s. This reservation covers a large area of land next to the Colorado border in eastern Utah. During these visits Robertson transcribed some of their melodies, most of which were associated with the Bear Dance. Robertson had to obtain permission to transcribe these melodies, since the bears and the melodies associated with them were sacred to the Native Americans (see Example 2).23

Robertson's inclusion of indigenous or folk melodies was a common practice among composers in the first half of the twentieth century. Aaron Copland used Mexican folksong in his orchestral work El Salón Mexico (1936), and cowboy songs in his ballets Billy the Kid (1938) and Rodeo (1942), all of which were composed within ten years of Robertson's Organ Sonata.24 Roy Harris, another American composer who was active at this time, used modal melodies to "impart a sense of expansiveness reminiscent of the American West."25 Since Robertson was raised in a small Utah community, it is very probable that his inclusion of the Native American melody was a reflection on his youthful days in Fountain Green, Utah.

Robertson composed the Scherzo in a standard three-section form typical of works in this genre. He opens the movement with an embellished version of the Ute Indian melody accompanied by chords sounding on the offbeat. This theme, combined with the offbeat accompanimental pattern, gives a swing, freedom, and expansiveness of the western United States that Robertson knew from his youth (see Example 3). Robertson presents three additional embellished statements of the Ute Indian melody in the remaining part of the Scherzo's first section.

Robertson presents a major-mode version of the Prelude's first theme in canon at the third between the right hand and pedal at the beginning of the Scherzo's second section. A busy eighth-note accompaniment that begins incessantly on the offbeat is a recurrent motive in this section. Robertson states this theme two other times before reintroducing the Ute Indian melody in the pedal. The third section, marked scherzando, hearkens back to the beginning, with the embellished Ute Indian melody presented in canon.

Robertson's desire to compose a ricercare reflects the neoclassical trend that permeated American music in the first half of the twentieth century. Composers became more interested in musical forms and other elements of composition from the eighteenth century and earlier. Robertson had also studied the music of Renaissance composers during his time in Berlin with Hugo Leichtentritt, and he copied many works of Renaissance composers by hand. The ricercare, an early precursor of the fugue, consisted of several themes that were developed imitatively one by one. The ricercare was used in Renaissance music, so it is likely that Robertson would have studied the ricercares of Renaissance composers as he copied and studied their music in Berlin.

Robertson employs the opening pedal theme from the Prelude and the Ute Indian melody imitatively during the first part of the Ricercare. He proceeds to introduce three thematic ideas successively. Robertson alternates these themes between various voices and often combines one of them with the opening pedal theme from the Prelude or the Ute Indian melody. He concludes the Ricercare with a short Epilogue. He uses the opening theme from the Prelude and the Ute Indian melody as the thematic material for this section.

Fantasia in F Minor

The Fantasia in F Minor was the second of Robertson's organ works to be heard by the public. J. J. Keeler, to whom the Fantasia is dedicated, gave the premiere on 26 November 1934 in the Provo Tabernacle. Robert Cundick, who was later to become an organist at the Salt Lake Tabernacle, recorded the Fantasia in 1955.

Robertson employs a broad tempo, thick chords and flourishes in the first half of the Fantasia that show Max Reger's influence.26 Robertson most certainly heard much of Reger's organ music played while he was in Leipzig, and this could explain why he chose to write in this style (see Example 4).27 After this commanding introduction, Robertson introduces a fugato section containing a four-voice exposition employing real answers (mm. 21-32). This demonstrates his ability to infuse counterpoint with neo-romantic harmonic language. Robertson also states the fugue subject in inversion (m. 34), as well as in the original form. He builds up the fugato to a coda (beginning in m. 53) employing dramatic harmonies. Robertson brings the coda to a tremendous climax that resolves triumphantly on an F-major chord.

Intermezzo

Robertson composed the Intermezzo, his third and final organ work in 1934, dedicating it to Salt Lake Tabernacle organist Alexander Schreiner. The date, venue, and performing artist of the Intermezzo's first performance remain uncertain.28 This work employs a lyrical melody, is composed in a three-part form, and contains a rich harmonic vocabulary. These aspects could lead one to view Robertson's Intermezzo as a small-scale version of the other keyboard intermezzi such as those composed by Johannes Brahms. Robertson draws the Intermezzo to a close in a short coda. Concerning this work's ending, Robertson mused, "all my life I've abhorred the conventional ending."29 He avoids a "conventional ending" by cleverly employing chromaticism to good effect (see Example 5).

Conclusion

Leroy Robertson's three organ works--Organ Sonata in B Minor, Fantasia in F Minor, and Intermezzo--have never enjoyed even limited circulation among organists. This is partly because most of his works have never been published, while some might attribute their lack of renown to the fact that Utah was quite isolated from main American music scene in the 1930s. Whatever the reason, Robertson has composed three fine works for organ that deserve to be better known. His exposure to great organs and organ music in Germany moved him to write serious concert organ music that has enriched the organ repertory.

Robertson was unfortunately not able to write more of this high-caliber organ music. The pressures of university teaching, other commissions, his responsibilities as a father and husband, and his ever-increasing interests in orchestral music provide possible explanations why Robertson did not have time to compose other solo organ works, but the real answer remains unknown.30 It is the author's hope that this study of Robertson's organ music will inspire others to study, perform, research, and write more about it, so that his music will one day merit the acclaim and popularity that it rightly deserves.                

 

Notes

                  1.              Other American composers who wrote organ sonatas during the first part of the twentieth century include James Rogers, Horatio Parker, Felix Borowski, and Philip James.

                  2.              Marian Robertson Wilson, "Leroy Robertson: Music Giant from the Rockies," TMS (photocopy), 251, footnote 17, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

                  3.              The original manuscripts of Robertson's organ works are located in the Manuscript Division of Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. It is the author's hope to have Robertson's organ music published and recorded in the near future.

                  4.              Leroy Robertson, "Intermezzo" in Lyric Pieces by American Composers, ed. Darwin Wolford (Delaware Gap, Pennsylvania: Harold Flammer), 1982.

                  5.              Marian Robertson Wilson, Leroy Robertson, Music Giant from the Rockies (Salt Lake City: Freethinker Press, 1996), 23.

                  6.              Ibid.

                  7.              Ibid., 35.

                  8.              Ibid., 169.

                  9.              J. J. Keeler, interview by author, 21 February 1996, Payson, Utah.

                  10.           Robertson Wilson, Music Giant, 98.

                  11.           Ibid., 103. See also Kenneth Udy, Alexander Schreiner, The California Years (Warren, Michigan: Harmonie Park Press, 1999), 173, footnote 151 for the Organ Sonata's revision date, and J. J. Keeler's verbal program notes (contained on a cassette in possession of the author) 7 September 1988, Salt Lake City, Utah for the Fantasia in F Minor's revision date.

                  12.           Marian Robertson Wilson, phone conversation with the author, February 2001. In determining the registration for a section, Robertson would have Keeler play it with several different registrations. Robertson would choose which registration he wanted. All of the stop names listed in Robertson's organ works are stops found on the 1907 Austin organ in the Provo Tabernacle. For a specification of this organ as it appeared when Robertson's organ works were premiered, please see Appendix 1.

                  13.           Leroy Robertson, program notes from 1 February 1934 concert. Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah. The program notes from the concert simply state, "due to the very recent completion of the Scherzo it has been deemed advisable to defer its performance to a later date."

                  14.           The Y News (Brigham Young University), 8 February 1934.

                  15.           Alexander Schreiner, program from 3 May 1935 concert. Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

                  16.           Tracy Y. Cannon, Salt Lake City, to Leroy Robertson, Provo, 10 January 1936, Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

                  17.           Robertson Wilson, Music Giant, 135.

                  18.           Leroy Robertson, Prelude, Scherzo, and Ricercare on Two Themes, recorded by the Utah Symphony on 20 November 1948. This recording was never released commercially. A copy of this recording is found in the Special Collections, Marriott Library, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, Utah.

                  19.           Robertson Wilson, Music Giant, 195.

                  20.           Ibid., 209.

                  21.           Leroy Robertson, Program notes, 1 February 1936.

                  22.           Marian Robertson Wilson, phone conversation with the author, February 2001.

                  23.           Ibid.

                  24.           Donald Jay Grout and Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music, 5th ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), 778.

                  25.           Ibid.

                  26.           Leroy Robertson, Fantasia in F Minor, verbal program notes given by J. J. Keeler, September 1988, cassette in possession of author.

                  27.           Ibid.

                  28.           Marian Robertson Wilson feels that Alexander Schreiner played the first performance, while Robert Cundick feels that J. J. Keeler did. Keeler worked out the registration of the Intermezzo with Robertson and later played it on recitals, but documentation is lacking as to whether he played the first performance.

                  29.           The Y News (6 November 1936).

                  30.           Marian Robertson Wilson, phone conversation with the author, July 2001.

by Peter Hardwick

Basil Harwood was born on April 11, 1859, at the family estate called Woodhouse, near Almondsbury, Gloucestershire, England. He received an education that was broader than that of most British organists of the day. In his teens, he studied piano with J. L. Roeckel at Clifton College and organ with George Riseley at Bristol Cathedral, then, after attending Charterhouse School, Godalming, Surrey, took theory and composition with C. W. Corfe while an undergraduate at Trinity College, Oxford. The youngest son of a wealthy Quaker banker, after graduation from Oxford and working briefly in the Bodleian Library there, he followed in the footsteps of other well off young British musicians, like Hubert Parry and Charles Stanford, taking lessons in composition briefly at the Leipzig Conservatory of Music, Germany. His professors there were Carl Reinecke (who had been a pupil of Mendelssohn and Schumann), and Salomon Jadassohn (a past student of Liszt), of whom Harwood said "he taught me much."1 He then began his career as a church organist, occupying posts at St. Barnabas' Church, Pimlico, London (1883-87), Ely Cathedral (1887-1892), and Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (1892-1909). His father died in 1907, and, being the sole surviving son, two years later he retired from church work in order to assume responsibility for running the Woodhouse estate, and so as to devote his undivided attention to composition. After his death in London on April 3, 1949, his ashes were buried beneath a memorial tablet in the church where his career began, St. Barnabas', Pimlico, London.

 

By the end of his long life, a significant body of solo organ music had been created, but most of it quickly fell out of fashion after his death. Thanks to Stainer & Bell's 1991 six volume The Complete Works for Organ Solo by Basil Harwood, edited by Kenneth Shenton, organists now have another chance to evaluate this music. Admittedly, some of the pieces have an old-fashioned air, but many of them, arguably retaining a timeless freshness and eloquence, may speak to many of us today.

Prior to examining his output, it might be helpful to mention the backdrop against which the compositions were written. When Harwood began to compose in the 1880s, two main influences were dominant in Victorian organ music. One of these was a home-grown quality, which might take the form of a familiar melodic turn of phrase derived from sources such as popular ballads or hymn tunes, or one might detect an indefinable Victorian atmosphere inherited from one or more of such older contemporary organ composers as Samuel S. Wesley (1810-76), William Best (1826-97), Henry Smart (1818-79) and John Stainer (1840-1901). The other influence frequently found was 19th-century Austro-German style, principally that of Mendelssohn, Rheinberger and Brahms, but also, occasionally, Wagner, Reger, and Karg-Elert.

Furthermore, British organ composers in Harwood's youth tended to write music that fell into two broad genres. One genre appealed primarily to the senses. Pieces in this group might have titles like toccata, postlude, grand choeur and fantasia, and were emotionally highly charged and flashy. Others in this category were in more moderate tempos and were sentimental, with names such as nocturne, andante cantabile, and cantilène. Pieces in the other genre--with such titles as sonata, prelude and fugue, and passacaglia--were more highbrow and reserved in tone. In both genres, but more often in the second, late Baroque or Classical forms and idioms might be blended with more recent features. Many composers did not restrict themselves to writing music in only one of the style groups.

Before he began to compose, the very well educated Harwood had had ample time to become well versed in both the native organ repertoire and in the Continental composers. Perhaps partly because of his upper-class family background, and partly through his being organist in High-Church cathedrals, he adopted a highbrow, stylish, often reserved tone in his music for the instrument.

Harwood established his reputation as a composer of organ music with his very first two works for the instrument, Sonata No. 1 in C-sharp minor, Op. 5, and Dithyramb, Op. 7. While the Sonata bears the hallmark of the composer's individual style, it also shares a number of features found in earlier works in the genre that were popular in Britain, including features of Mendelssohn's sonatas, but especially those of Gustav Merkel (1827-85) and Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901). Harwood's three-movement conception was favored by Merkel and Rheinberger.  Similarly, the contents of various sonata movements by them anticipated the Englishman's: a preludial first movement, marked Allegro appassionato, with affinities to sonata form; mono-thematic, song-like Andante second movement; and Maestoso introduction and con moto double fugue finale. Like Merkel and Rheinberger's sonatas, Harwood's work is pervaded with religious fervor. It calls for a large three-manual Romantic organ with a tuba stop,2 and, to pull it off, requires a first class organist like the dedicatee, Walter Parratt (1841-1924),  whom Harwood admired greatly.

Parratt was the champion of "orthodoxy" and "legitimate organ playing,"3 a school that stressed the playing of works originally written for the instrument, fastidious accuracy of the part-playing, clean phrasing, and simple registration. As a corollary of the "legitimate" approach to organ performance, Parratt argued that those who made the instrument an imitator, "a mere caricature of the orchestra" were corrupt,4 a view that led to heated exchanges in 1891 and 1892 with his chief adversary in this matter, Best.5 He would have approved of Harwood's Sonata, as would Merkel and Rheinberger, who were also not interested in writing for the instrument as an imitator of the orchestra.

The Sonata was completed in 1886, near the end of his tenure of the organistship at St. Barnabas', Pimlico, London, but the young composer, being unknown, had to wait until 1890--by which time he was organist at Ely Cathedral--before he could pursuade Schott to publish the whole work.6 It is still generally regarded as probably his best piece for the instrument, and, until about 1950, was seen as possibly the "finest organ sonata written by an Englishman."7 Was this a reasonable claim? British music critics of the day were not prone to make such extravagent claims for a new, native sonata,8 so one might well ask if there were any grounds for applying "finest" to the work. Probably not, unless one were to add certain qualifications. Thus, it might be tenable to assert that the work was the greatest organ sonata that was endowed with Christian conviction by a native son9 in the last two decades of the 19th century--with Elgar's Sonata in G (1895) possibly being its secular counterpart.

The composition is cyclical, the plainsong hymn tune Beata nobis gaudia,10 which is heard in the first and third movements, binding the work together. In the first movement, following the C-sharp minor first theme and second subject in the relative major, the ancient preexistent theme is heard in the unrelated key of B minor in place of the usual sonata-form development section. The sacred theme reappears as the second fugue subject in the finale, first in E major, then, at the end of the movement, in D-flat major (the enharmonic major form of the work's tonic, C-sharp minor).11 While the five-voice, technically polished, double fugue suffers from being a trifle academic and dull, this may soon be forgotten with the maestoso, fortissimo chordal entry of the Beata nobis gaudia plainsong hymn tune in the manuals, over the first fugue subject in the pedals, at bar 106. Harwood's religous fervor injects into this regal passage, and the coda that follows, such conviction that it is hard to imagine any spiritual person remaining un-moved by such a close.

The satisfaction one may feel from experiencing Sonata No. 1 in C-sharp minor's conclusion is in no small part due to the journey that we are taken on by Harwood. At the outset, he successfully juggles the uneasy mix in the first movement of the predominantly capricious, improvisatory style--that results in several inspired harmonic sparks--with Classical sonata form. Delicately balancing these disparate elements contributes to the troubled, pessimistic, dark mood of the minor-mode opening movement, which leads irresistibly along a Romantic path to the jubilant, brilliant light that shines out in the tonic-major close of the score.

 Dithyramb, Op. 7 (composed 1892; published 1893), was also widely admired12 for many decades after its appearance. In the 19th and 20th centuries, the title "Dithyramb" has tended to be applied to music of a passionate, Dionysian character. Harwood's composition is passionate at times, but not Dionysian. Indeed, it had never been his intention to write a wild "Bacchanalian hymn."13 It was to have been the first movement of a second sonata, with the Interlude, Op. 15, No. 2, and Paean, Op. 15, No. 3, being the second and third movements. On the advice of Parratt,14 the composer published the three pieces separately instead.

As in the first movement of the Sonata, Harwood uses Classical first-movement form loosely in Dithyramb. There is an exposition with motivic, fragmented F major first theme and lyrical, legato second group of themes in D flat (bar 24); a development section (bar 65) which is concerned with the first theme and only one theme of the second group; and recapitulation with second themes now in tonic. The character of Dithyramb, however, is not related to the Viennese Classical molds. Almost Lisztian in character, there are Romantic vascillations between loud bombastic passages, and soft, tenderly prayerful ones, with the transitions often improvisatory recitatives or cadenzas that are studied with fluctuating tempo and dynamic markings. Thick-textured sections are juxtaposed with transparent, the latter with many rests and two-part writing. The work's rich ornamentation, and pianistic passage-work and high tessituras, not features of Sonata No. 1, are prophetic of the composer's manner over the middle years of his career.

At the time of its publication, Harwood announced that Dithyramb was to be the first of Twenty-four Original Compositions for the Organ, and he carried out this goal.  Completed in 1931 and filling 245 pages, the 24 pieces are as follows:

1.              Dithyramb, Op. 7 (1893).

2-7. Six Pieces, Op. 15 (1903).

Communion

Interlude

Paean

Short Postlude for Ascensiontide

Requiem Aeterna

Andante Tranquillo

8.              Capriccio, Op. 16 (1904).

9.              Two Sketches, Op. 18 (1905).

No. 1 in A major

No. 2 in F major

10.           Concerto in D major for Organ and Orchestra, Op. 14(1910).15

11.           Three Cathedral Preludes, Op. 25 (1911).

No. 1 in B flat

No. 2 in E

No. 3 in C

12.           Sonata No. 2 in F-sharp minor, Op. 26 (1912).

1st. mt. Lento ma non troppo

2nd mt. Allegretto serioso

3rd mt. Allegro moderato

13.           Christmastide, Op. 34 (1920).

14.           In an Old Abbey, Op. 32 (1923).

15.           Rhapsody, Op. 38 (1922).

16.           Wedding March, Op. 40 (1924).

17.           Three Preludes on Anglican Chants, Op. 42 (1925).

No. 1 On a Chant by Benjamin Cooke (1734-1793)

No. 2 On a Chant by Matthew Camidge (1758-1844)

No. 3 On a Chant by Lord Mornington (1735-1781)

18.           Voluntary in D flat, Op. 43 (1926).

19.           Processional, Op. 44 (1926).

20.           Three Short Pieces, Op. 45 (1928).

No. 1 in D

No. 2 in A minor

No. 3 in A flat

21.           In Exitu Israel, Op. 46 (1928).

22.           Toccata, Op. 49 (1930).

23.           Lullaby, Op. 50 (1930).

24.           Prelude, Larghetto and Finale, Op. 51 (1931).

Before his death, Harwood wrote five more works. Four of these were published in his lifetime:

Two Preludes on Old English Psalm Tunes, Op. 52 (1932).

I. Salisbury

II. Old 132nd

Two Meditations, Op. 57 (1935).

1. The Shepherd on the Mountainside

2. The Pilgrims nearing the Celestial City

Album of Eight Pieces, Op. 58 (1935).

                  I:              Invocation

                  II:            Eventide

                  III:          Communion

                  IV:          Rest

                  V:            Prelude for Lent

                  VI:          Diapason Movement

                  VII:        Benediction

                  VIII:      The Shepherds at the Manger

A Quiet Voluntary for Evensong, Op. 70 (1946).

The fifth work, Reverie, had been written in 1926 for the Canadian virtuoso organist, Lynnwood Farnam, and was planned for publication in Canada.  It underwent revision in 1931, but remained unpublished until its inclusion in Stainer & Bell's 1991 Complete Works edition. This Reverie and the Sonata No. 1 were the only Harwood works for organ not originally published by Novello.

The composer was at the peak of his career as a Cathedral organist at the beginning of the 20th century, and some regard, with justification, the Six Pieces, Op. 15 (1903) as the high point of his organ output. The collection is a miscellaneous collection stylistically, there being pieces indebted to the Baroque, and others reminiscent of Brahms. Well settled into his organistship at Oxford by 1903, the stops specified in Opus 15 correlate almost exactly with those found on the Christ Church Cathedral Father Willis, four-manual instrument, so there seems no reason to doubt that he wrote with that organ in mind. The Oxford Cathedral instrument was a medium sized British cathedral organ, with 39 speaking stops, half of which were 8-foot stops; only two mixtures, three 2-foot ranks, and one mutation rank.17 Registrations for the Six Pieces, typical of his entire organ output, are mostly of a rather general nature, though there are a few registration features that might be singled out, because they appear in the Six Pieces and in many of the subsequent works. Harwood is precise in his indications as to the manual(s) to be utilized at any given place in a score, but only occasionally indicates where 8, 4, and 2-foot ranks (never mutations or mixtures) should be used. Full swell was marked, and fluctuations in dynamics were indicated by the appropriate symbols, so that he clearly looked for a fair amount of swell-box expression. Solo tuba lines were always indicated, while solos for clarinet and oboe, accompanied unobtrusively on another manual supported with pedal, remained a favorite combination in the ensuing years.

Four of the Six Pieces are based on sacred preexistent melodies. Nos. 1 and 4 are chorale preludes in the Bach tradition at a time when the German composer's music in the genre was not widely known in Britain,18 due partly, perhaps, to their being based on German hymn tunes that were hardly ever sung in Britain. In choosing hymn tunes with which native congregations were familiar, therefore, Harwood improved the chances of his two chorale preludes being appreciated. In No. 1, Communion (On the Hymn Tune "Irish"), the composer places the melody in a slightly embellished form in the soprano, and brief interludes separate the tune phrases. The simple approach is that taken by Bach in his Orgelbüchlein, but, while the hymn tune has Bachian embellishments here and there, Harwood's lower voices are essentially chordal, instead of polyphonic like Bach's. Again, Bach is the distant ancestor of Harwood's Short Postlude for Ascensiontide On the "Old 25th" Psalm Tune, the fourth of the set, in its pervasive counterpoint and presentation of the melody in the soprano in long tones like an ancient cantus firmus, but the rich late 19th-century harmonies and general style are pure Brahms.19

The last two of the Six Pieces are also founded on preexistent sacred themes and are also built on the chorale prelude principle. Harwood had been pleased with the use of plainsong at St. Barnabas, Pimlico,20 and this influence in his formative years led to his using the ancient themes from time to time in his music.  The first occasion was in the Fifth of the Six Pieces, titled Requiem Aeternam, where three musical phrases from the Introit of the Roman Catholic Missa pro defunctis are quoted in the central section.  A reflective work, suitable for performance on solemn occasions such as All Saints' and All Souls' Day, the composer wrote the piece after witnessing a Requiem in the church at Dinant, Brittany, France.21 Later, the composer tried to capture his impressions of this funeral service in Requiem Aeternam, including his recollections of the massive bells producing many harmonic effects in the cavernous Dinant church, and the priest singing the plainsong melody accompanied in unison by a euphonium. Harwood does not follow the centuries old tradition of converting the ancient chant into a barred, metric, tonal version. Instead, he leaves it untouched, to be played senza tempo, in an ethereal, atmospheric setting.22 Encompassing the central plainsong section are a solemn prelude and postlude, which are built over a pedal line that seems to be vaguely derived from the Gregorian chants of the middle. A repeated pedal E-flat resounds like funereal muffled drum beats, and the work closes with a reference to the opening of the Requiem aeternam chant in the tonic E minor. The last of the Six Pieces, the Lenten Andante Tranquillo on the Hymn Tune "Bedford," is, again, based on a Baroque chorale prelude form, but is Brahmsian in idiom.

Interlude, Op. 15, No. 2, marked Lento con espressione, has echoes of Bach and Mendelssohn. It is pervaded with syncopations and grace notes, and features a sweet clarinet solo that is similar in its shapely lyricism to an oboe solo at the end of No. 5. Modest in utterance, this meditation is perhaps as sublime as anything he wrote for the organ.

In Harwood's 19th-century organ music, notably the outer movements of Sonata No. 1, and Dithyramb, the composer demonstrated a taste for brilliance and bravura. The same characteristics are found in the third of the Six Pieces, Paean. Parratt premiered the work at the reopening of the newly rebuilt J. W. Walker organ at York Minster on April 15, 1903, having been handed the manuscript of the as yet unpublished work as he was leaving Windsor for York on the day of the recital. There does not appear to have been an eye witness report of the performance,23 but, when W. Henry Goss-Custard24 played Paean at the dedication of the new Henry Willis 168 speaking stop instrument in Liverpool Cathedral on October 18, 1926, a writer observed that:

In this work many tonal combinations were displayed; contrasts of one department with another; and a gradual working up of tone towards the exciting finale, until the cathedral was ringing with joyful sound; when, suddenly, the ear was arrested by a new tone. The mighty tuba magna, with its colossal and glorious voice, was heard for the first time.25

 

In 1949, Harwood's head boy chorister and soloist between 1900-02 at Christ Church Cathedral, recalled the composer playing Paean, which was composed in 1902, from manuscript.  "One could hardly imagine that such a quiet and gentle person," who was affectionately nicknamed "Billy" behind his back by the boys in the choir, "a shortish man with sandy-coloured hair, a well-kept beard and a sprightly walk . . . could have produced and performed [as he did] such fiery music for the organ." He remembered Harwood more for his "reverent and devotional playing . . . his humility and charming old-world courtesy."26 This observation sums up fairly well Harwood as an organist. Despite the difficulty of a number of his organ works, it should not be assumed that this was a reflection of the composer's own technical prowess.  Not a virtuoso, "Harwood was apt to be uneven though on occasions he could be very fine."27 From innumerable instances in the oeuvre, and because he was a cathedral organist where such ability is a sine qua non, one might guess that he was an excellent improviser.

In loose sonata form, Paean is characterized by the Harwoodian liking for chromaticism,28 in both terms of extensive modulation and coloring of common chords with chromatic embellishing tones. Like Wagner, however, he often accentuates the great moments by a return to diatonicism,  as, for example, at the triumphal start of the Brahmsian first theme at the beginning of the piece, the recapitulation (bar 89), and its last appearance at the entry of the solo tuba at the close of the coda (bar 162). Symphonic in concept, Paean  ideally calls for a Romantic, orchestral organ such as most British cathedrals possessed at the time of its composition. 

Capriccio, Op. 16 (1903) was perhaps an expression of the composer's romantic feelings towards the dedicatee, his wife of four years, Mabel Jennings, who was, incidentally, an accomplished pianist and composer.29 The high flown, agitated, troubled  atmosphere of the D minor thirty-second-note manual broken chords, to be played Tempo irresoluto, over a slower-moving pedal line in the opening and third sections, perhaps recapture the din of the mighty bells reverberating around the Dinant church mentioned above. Are these sections the outcome of Harwood's poetic improvising? Certainly this would account for the dramatic surprise at the end of the opening section, a quasi cadenza (bars 30-35). The passage passionately rises sequentially, stringendo, from the home key of D minor to a fortissimo tonally ambiguous pivot chord, which may be either seen as the supertonic chromatic ninth chord with the root omitted, or the dominant minor ninth with the root omitted in A major (the dominant of the D major next section). This dramatic effect finds release, after a general pause, in a lyrical, sunny, joyous, slower second section. After a return to the D minor flurry of the opening, Harwood's calm after the storm is a peaceful F major chorale prelude setting of Orlando Gibbons' hymn tune Song 13 .

Although Harwood was a church organist for less than a third of his long life, in his music for the instrument he never seems to have left the cathedral organ loft, at least in spirit. This may be seen in the Three Cathedral Preludes, which illustrate Harwood's church service prelude style at it best, it might be argued. Their composition was the result of his happy associations with southwest England. Born on the family estate in Gloucestershire, the composer's association with the Three Choirs Festival was lifelong, especially the Gloucester Festival, where first performances of several of his major choral works were given.30 In 1911, as a token of respect and gratitude for their friendship and assistance in his career, Harwood dedicated the Three Cathedral Preludes to the three Cathedral organists of the day, A. Herbert Brewer of Gloucester, G. R. Sinclair of Hereford, and Ivor Atkins of Worcester, respectively, There is nothing programmatic in them,31 except that they convey the impression of a cathedral organist improvising in a dignified, spacious building before a service.

No. 1 in B-flat is a microcosm of Harwood's peaceful, reflective type of prelude. Example 1 shows the theme on which the piece is based as it is enunciated at the outset.  The composer's musical fingerprints here include a) triplets within the duple meter; b) expressive use of dissonance, as, for example, the suspension in bar 3 (F suspension in the solo clashing against G flat in the accompaniment), and cross relations in bars 3 and 4 (involving E naturals and E flats). (See Example 1.)

Two other characteristics of the first Prelude might be pointed out. First, there is extensive chromatic coloring. See, for instance, the use of the minor triad on the subdominant in a major key in bar 10, and the quite Wagnerian serpentine, chromatic unaccompanied solo cadenza at bars 12 and 13, marked with a series of indications for tempo and dynamics (poco accel. a piacere; rall. e dim.; lento; pp). Second, a keen sense of effective organ sonorities. In Example 2, a Brahmsian sense of nostalgia, and autumnal coloring, is partly the result of the low tessitura of all the parts, with crossing of hands and the final chord's top voice being played by the right foot.

The second of the Three Cathedral Preludes is also peaceful and reflective in atmosphere. The third gradually rises to a resounding fortissimo close. Like the first two, the principal theme of the last Prelude is heard at the start, and there follow several variations on the material, which are interspersed with bridge passages that continue to develop the theme. Harwood builds up from a restrained start to a coda in which he releases a torrent of noble, grandiose emotion that rises to a tense, forceful climactic close.

To believe that the Sonata No. 2 in F-sharp minor, Op. 26 (1912), dedicated to Harwood's predecessor at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, Charles Harford Lloyd, was composed for the thirteen-stop, three-manual instrument built by Bishop and Son for Harwood on his retirement home at Woodhouse defies reality, despite words to that effect printed in parenthesis under the title in the score.32 The lush harmonies and melodies, romantic moods, and symphonic demands of this sonata ideally call for a four-manual instrument along the lines of the Christ Church Cathedral organ, with which he was very familiar. The work, in four movements, the last two played without break, show his characteristic fondness for triplets and grace notes, which had first appeared in Dithyramb. What is new for Harwood in Sonata No. 2, especially in the monothematic sonata form first movement, though cropping up also in the other movements, are perhaps an excessive use of pianistic features associated with Chopin and Schumann, such as complex ornamental filigrees and extended right-hand octave passage-work. These, and Chopinesque frequent detailing of tempo changes that Harwood calls for in the shaping of phrases, may be seen in Example 3.

Other features of the work are the Romantic yearning in the Brahmsian first movement, the gentle, transparent-textured second movement, an Allegretto serioso scherzo in 7/4, and the slow fourth movement, Arietta. This last movement is placid except for a turbulent cadenza near the end, may remind one of the Brahms of the late Intermezzi, in the tonic major.

Eight years passed before the next organ work appeared. This was Christmastide, Op. 34, a fantasia written for the reopening of the Gloucester Cathedral organ in 1920.33 A large-scale programmatic piece that depicts parts of the Christmas story, the score is interspersed with Biblical and liturgical quotations. The first half, in which the text "What joy shall be in the midst of affliction"34 is expressed, is newly composed.  The start of the second half is based on the plainsong Sarum Sequence for Christmas Day, much of which is unmetered, like his treatment of the plainsong in Requiem Aeternam, Op. 15, No. 5. The close of the work is based on the Office Hymn for Candlemas. There are the usual Harwood musical fingerprints. For example, there is writing for the instrument along lines similar to that of the contemporary symphony orchestra--fondness for soloing of melodies played on oboe and clarinet stops, and dramatic shifts in dynamics, sometimes involving crescendos achieved by skillful manipulation of the swell box, and, at climaxes, sometimes involving judicious use of the tuba stop. Another characteristic of the composer in Christmastide is the classical balance in the tonal scheme. He modulates from minor at the start to major half way through--F minor; B-flat minor; A-flat major; F major; B-flat major; F major--the music mirroring the uncertainty of the Old Testament prophecy of Christ's coming giving way to New Testament joy when the Messiah is born.

In an Old Abbey was first conceived for cello and organ in 1919, then arranged for cello and piano, before being finally arranged for organ in 1923.  The dedication of the organ version, to Henry Ley, Harwood's friend and successor at Christ Church, Oxford, suggests that perhaps the "Abbey" the composer had in mind is the medieval monastery priory that became Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, in the 16th century.35 Perhaps he is inviting his listener to envisage the sturdy Norman arches, the fan tracery of the choir vault, and lovely stained glass of the east-end rose window of an ancient church of which he is very fond, Oxford Cathedral?  Be this as it may, there is nothing archaic in the music:  this is late Victorian soiree music.

A sentimental, idealistic mood characterizes In an Old Abbey. Sentimentality pervades the introduction (bars 1-14), which opens in the "wrong" key of E major (the work is in E-flat). Expressiveness in these opening bars is achieved mainly by means of embellishing tones and a chromatic, modulating, developing sequence. In bars 1 and 2, the sequential phrase features the major common chord on the flat submediant in the major key, approached by, and resolving to, the dominant seventh chord in E major. The next step of the sequence, in C-sharp minor, is approached by means of a common-tone modulation. Finally, after several more steps in the evolving, chromatically unstable sequence, tonal bearings are finally established, and expectations are aroused, with dominant preparation beginning at bar 7. The noble principal melody is long (bars 15-30) and, reflecting its cello origins possibly, is wide-ranging, with big romantic leaps. Harwood yanks one from the E-flat of the main theme to the opening B major of the middle section (bar 31) by means of another common-tone modulation, and follows this almost immediately with another abrupt modulation using the same technique in moving from B major to B-flat minor (bar bar 33). In the 1920s, the composer's pursuit of new chromatic colorings led to tolerance of greater, fleeting dissonances that are usually explained by his emphasis of horizontal consideration, of voice leading, rather than vertical outcomes. Such is the case at bar 35, where B-natural, C-sharp, G-sharp and both E-natural and E-sharp, collide simultaneously.  Similarly, at bar 60, there is a harsh crunch when E-flat, C-natural, D-natural, and F-natural are heard together.   Direct quotations and reminiscences of the work's introduction and principal theme, replete with suspensions, appoggiaturas, and upper and lower neighboring tones, make up the nostalgic coda of In an Old Abbey.

The inception of Rhapsody took place when Harwood was examining at the Royal College of Music, London, in 1922 with Walter Alcock (1861-1947)   and Parratt.  Themes that were used by the composer in the examinations were incorporated into the work, and it was dedicated to Alcock, who was already known for his magnificent performances of Harwood's organ music.36 Although a follower of Brahms in style, he does not follow the German's sonata form of the two famous piano Rhapsodies, Op. 79, as Harold Darke had done in his organ Rhapsody, Op. 4 (1908). Nor is there any apparent indebtedness to Herbert Howells' three organ Rhapsodies, Op. 17 (1919), which are loose in form but centered around one principal theme.  Instead, Harwood casts his work in the style initiated by Liszt's 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies (1846-86) that was more commonly adopted by a number of European composers for subsequent 19th- and early 20th-century rhapsodies.37 Thus, Harwood's is in a loose, episodic form; has exaggerated mood contrasts; and quotes a preexistent theme, an untitled  hymn tune by Thomas Tallis.38 Written only four years after the conclusion of the terrible loss of life in World War I, one might hypothesize that Harwood's Rhapsody is an elegy for that carnage. Harwood avoided talking in public about his music, and we know nothing of his thoughts on the matter.  In any case, the work is funereal. A section near the beginning labeled Funeral March returns for a lengthy development later.  Tallis' solemn hymn tune appears in a dignified, forceful manner in the second of three trio sections, with Joseph Addison's text, "When, rising from the bed of death," inscribed parenthetically under the melody in the score, and this melody reappears in the final bars of the piece. Although Harwood's craftsmanship is as fine as ever, one may wonder if it is,  in fact, an artifice, a collage of six unrelated melodies used by the three examiners at the Royal College in 1922.  This impression may be felt, for instance, when, near the end, out of the blue, a three-voice fugal exposition emerges on a thematic idea not heard before.

Among the people that Harwood met at the regular concerts and soirees held at his country home of Woodhouse shortly after 1909, was a highly gifted, young, likable pianist and organist named Douglas G. A. Fox. Shortly after completing distinguished studies by means of organ scholarships at the Royal College of Music College and Keble College, Oxford, Fox tragically had his right arm amputated just above the elbow in a battle in France in late August, 1917, during World War I. For this cocourageous musician, Harwood composed Voluntary in D-flat for left hand and feet.39

Among the remaining Harwood compositions for the instrument, it is harder to find works that rise above the bland.  Was the well of inspiration running dry? Whether or not this is true, one may detect with assurance a change in Harwood's style at this time.  Following the general trend in British organ music in the 1920s, and starting with the Three Preludes on Anglican Chants, he returned to the simpler, less chromatic voice leading of the First Sonata.

This may be seen in the Album of Eight Pieces, which were written between November, 1934, and March, 1935. Programmatic, technically easy miniatures, at the top of each, the title and a line or two from a hymn points to what Harwood is portraying. No. 3, Communion On a French Hymn Melody, cites the opening lines, "Therefore we, before Him bending, this great Sacrament revere," of the fourth verse of Thomas Aquinas' hymn text "Now, my tongue, the mystery telling" and is a chorale prelude on the hymn tune Grafton. First, the preexistent melody is presented in straightforward half and quarter notes as a baritone solo for the left hand, with equally unembellished right-hand and pedal accompaniment. Then the preexistent theme is soloed, slightly ornamented, in the treble register. It is in this varied treatment of the theme that Harwood rises, perhaps, above the average. Here, he captures  exquisitely the Holy Communion sentiments associated with the text and melody, not the least through frequent expressive use of dissonance--appoggiaturas, suspensions, and chromatically inflected tones either singly or in combination--and eloquent little melodic twists in the soprano line. In No. 6, Diapason Movement, we catch a glimpse of the old noble, ebullient side in Harwood's response to the opening line of Henry F. Lye's hymn text based on Psalm 103, "Praise, my soul, the King of heaven," which he achieves without any reference to John Goss' famous hymn tune usually associated with this text. As with No. 3, though the mood in No. 6 is different, there are the same fleeting dissonant crunches created mostly by bold suspensions, appoggiaturas, and numerous cross relations. Unlike the third work, however, chromatic coloring is achieved quite frequently through secondary dominants and common-tone modulations.

The organ pieces of the later years have occasional moments of intuitive truth such as one may detect in Diapason Movement of the Album of Eight Pieces. By and large, though, Harwood, now over seventy years old, was unable, or unwilling, to break free of his Victorian/Brahms roots. Unfortunately, this left his last music sounding dated, at a time when the works of post-Victorians, such as Herbert Howells and Percy Whitlock, were emerging.           

 

Notes

                  1.              Lancelot G. Bark, "Basil Harwood, 1859-1949," The Musical Times, XC (May, 1949), 165.

                  2.              Harwood's sole registration indication in the whole work is for a tuba on the last page of the score.

                  3.              Walter G. Alcock, The Organ (1913), p. 101.

                  4.              Walter Parratt, Music in the Reign of Queen Victoria (1887), Vol. 2, p. 604.

                  5.              Recorded by Henry C. Lahee, The Organ and Its Masters (1902), pp. 219-22. See also W.T. Best's letter of May, 1892, printed as "Organ Arrangements," in The Organ, I (July, 1921), 58-61.

                  6.              In 1887, Schott published the middle movement under the title Andante Pour Orgue.

                  7.              Lancelot G. Bark, op. cit.

                  8.              See William S. Newman, The Sonata Since Beethoven (2nd edition, 1972), pp. 575-92.

                  9.              His use of a preexistent hymn tune here was the first of a number of times that he quoted hymn tunes in his organ works.

                  10.           The melody is from a Constance Psalter titled Psalterium Chorale, printed at Mainz, Germany, in 1510. See Hymn 185, The English Hymnal (1933).

                  11.           Harwood was clearly attracted to hymn tunes old and new. He wrote a number of them--the best known being Thornbury--and was editor of The Oxford Book (1908), he quoted them in several of his organ works.

                  12.           Henry Ley, Harwood's successor as organist at Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford (1909-1926), said that Elgar much admired the work and wished to orchestrate it. See William H. Harris, "Basil Harwood--1859-1948 (sic)," English Church Music, XXIX, No. 2 (June, 1959), 44.

                  13.           Wilfrid Mellers, "The IAO Jubilee at York," The Musical Times, CIX (October, 1978), 886.

                  14.           Henry Ley, "Basil Harwood, 1859-1949," English Church Music, XIX, No. 3 (July, 1949), 40.

                  15.           Omitted from this discussion, because it is not for organ solo. The work was performed at the Three Choirs Festival at Gloucester that year with Harwood as soloist. For an account of it, see [no author] "Dr. Basil Harwood's New Organ Concerto," The Musical Times, LI (October, 1910), 641. The score calls for an orchestra of strings, brass, percussion, harp and celesta, but no woodwinds. Harwood does not write for soloist and orchestra as protagonists, as is usual in the genre, but requires both entities to play almost the whole time. There is a glissando on the pedals.

                  16.           The last work published in his lifetime.

                  17.           For the complete specification, see Andrew Freeman, "Organs of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford," The Organ, XI (July, 1931), 35-42.

                  18.           Nicholas Temperley, Music in Britain: The Romantic Age 1800-1914 (1981), p. 448. As late as 1922, Ivor Atkins, "British Organ Music," The Musical Times, LXIII (October, 1922), 685, asserted that Bach's chorale preludes for organ appeared to have been "practically unknown to all but the most adventurous of Bach's English followers."

                  19.           Over fifty years later, Healey Willan was still composing organ chorale preludes like these in his three sets of ten Hymn Preludes.

                  20.           A Tractarian parish built on the edge of the parish of St. Paul's Church, Knightsbridge, London, and consecrated in 1850.

                  21.           R. Meyrick Roberts, The Organ at Liverpool Cathedral (1926), pp. 36-37.

                  22.           George Oldroyd (1886-1951) was to follow this approach for his Three Liturgical Preludes (1938) and Three Liturgical Improvisations (1948).

                  23.           Vernon Blackburn, "York Minister," The Musical Times, XLIV (May, 1903), 302, appends Parratt's program, but no critical commentary.

                  24.           Organist of Liverpool Cathedral (1917-55).

                  25.           R. Meyrick Roberts, The Organ at Liverpool Cathedral (1926), pp. 36-37.

                  26.           Claude Williams, "Basil Harwood 1859-1949," English Church Music, XIX, No. 3 (July, 1949), 41.

                  27.           Bark, op. cit., p. 166.

                  28.           See C.V. Stanford, Interludes: Records and Reflections (1922), p. 96.

                  29.           Harwood was to dedicate Wedding March to Mabel. It was written in 1923 and revised for their twenty-fifth wedding anniversary the next year.

                  30.           They included Inclina Domine (1898), Love Incarnate (1925), and Ye Choirs of New Jerusalem (1928).

                  31.           Such as was the case with Richard Hall's Three Cathedral Voluntaries (1936), which bear the sibtitles York, Ripon and Durham.

                  32.           For the instrument's specification, see Kenneth Shenton, "The Organ Music of Basil Harwood," The Organ, LXX (October, 1991), 208.

                  33.           The work was, according to the note in the score, "composed for the reopening of the organ at Gloucester Cathedral, 1920." However, the Cathedral Organist, Herbert Brewer, to whom the work is dedicated, played Harwood's First Sonata at the dedication service on November 19.  See [no author] "Gloucester Cathedral Organ," The Musical Times, LXI (December, 1920), 825. William Faulkes (1863-1933) had composed an organ piece along similar lines in 1907, Fantasia on Old Christmas Carols, Op. 103. Faulkes' style is fairly unsophisticated, and he focuses on three carols, rather than mainly reflecting on Biblical texts, like Harwood.

                  34.           The text is not, in fact, a part of the Bible, but a prefatorial phrase provided by the translators of the King James Version (1611) for 28 Isaiah, IX.

                  35.           There is no evidence, however, that Harwood had any specific church in mind.

                  36.           Harris recalled Alcock playing "magnificently" the Sonata No. 1 around 1900 at Holy Trinity Church, Sloane Street, London. See William H. Harris, "Basil Harwood--1859-1949," English Church Music, XXIX, No. 2 (June, 1959), 44.

                  37.           For example, Vaughan Williams' orchestral Norfolk Rhapsody No. 1 (composed 1905; published 1925).

                  38.           No. 92, The English Hymnal (1906), which Vaughan Williams had used for his Fantasia on a Theme by Thoms Tallis (1910; revised 1925) for strings.

                  39.           For a full obituary tribute to Fox, see David Willcocks, "Douglas Fox," Royal College of Music Magazine, Vol. 74, No. 3 (October, 1978), pp. 119-21.

by Mickey Thomas Terry

Contrary to popular belief, there is a substantive body of African-American classical music. This music draws upon a wealth of influences which are not just limited to Negro spirituals and jazz. The same can be said for the organ literature of African-Americans. Of the 332 entries listed in Paula Harrell's 1992 dissertation "Organ Literature of Twentieth-Century Black Composers: An Annotated Bibliography," only 74 are based on spirituals.1 In fact, African-American organ literature draws upon a multitude of influences which include spirituals, melodies of African origin, general protestant hymnody, German Protestant chorales, plainchant, as well as original composer themes. A few organ compositions have even been inspired by musical themes, individuals, and historical events associated with the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s and 1970s.2

Regarding the composers, several have had extensive training
and expertise in the field of composition.  Many of these, at one time or another, have been the
recipients of prestigious music fellowships3 and/or composition awards.4

As is the case with a large segment of 20th-century organ
music, African-American organ literature has been influenced by neo-classical
as well as symphonic organ composition styles.  The composers who have written utilizing a neo-classical
idiom include, but are not limited to, such names as George Walker (b. 1922),
Ulysses Kay (1917-1995), and Mark Fax (1911-1974). In terms of symphonic
writing for the instrument, there is, for instance, the music of Thomas H. Kerr
(1915-1988), William B. Cooper (1920-1993), Eugene W. Hancock (1929-1994), and
Adolphus Hailstork (b. 1941). Some composers such as Noel Da Costa (b. 1929)
and David Hurd (b. 1950) display a diversity of stylistic influences in their
compositions.

Much of the literature for the instrument represents a
varied number of compositional forms such as sonata, fugue, rondo, theme and
variations, as well as free form. There is also a considerable body of
literature for organ and other instruments which encompasses everything from
concerti with orchestra to chamber music.5 Before embarking upon a discussion
of the literature and its composers, it is necessary to provide some background
into its history and to discuss the nature of a few deterrants to performance.

The accessibility of music scores is perhaps the central
problem regarding the performance of this music. The reason for this is because
the vast majority of this literature, with few exceptions, remains
unpublished.6 Much of it exists only in manuscript form, the legibility of
which could itself constitute a deterrent to performance. Most of the scores
may be obtained directly either from the composers or their estates. The fact
that a large segment of this music remains unpublished has no bearing on its
quality, for the quality of the music is equal to much of that which already
appears in print, and in several instances, exceeds it. The lamentable truth of
the matter is that bias and negative racial stereotyping of black intellectual
capacity have been at fault.7 In the past, music publishers generally displayed
little interest in publishing the classical works of African-Americans,
Hispanics, women, or anyone who was not traditionally considered to be a part
of the male-dominant social mainstream. Since that time, music publishers have
slowly, but surely, begun to express an interest in publishing the works of
women and a handful of minority composers;8 however, for many years, this was
not the case. Much of this music went virtually unnoticed and unperformed. This
was even true for Thomas Kerr's AGO prize-winning composition Arietta, the
latter of which was once published commercially, but is currently unavailable
in print.9 It is for this reason that a survey, however succinct, is not only
desirable, but necessary. Although it is not feasible in the scope of a single
article to provide a comprehensive survey of African-American organ literature,
it is nonetheless possible to provide a brief, informative overview of a select
opus belonging to an equally select cadre of composers from this group.

For the purpose of this article, the composers discussed are
divided into two general styles of organ composition: symphonic and
neo-classical. Brief composer biographical sketches accompany a selective opus
listing. For each composer, a few measures from one or more compositions have
been extracted which reflect the wide variety of thematic sources and stylistic
influences from which these pieces are derived. We will start with the symphonic
compositions of Thomas H. Kerr, Adolphus Hailstork, and William B. Cooper.

Thomas H. Kerr
(1915-1988) served on the music faculty of Howard University as Professor of
Piano from 1943 until his retirement in 1976. An alumnus of the Eastman School
of Music, Kerr graduated with highest honors and was later awarded an M.M.
degree from the same institution. Kerr became the recipient of a Rosenwald
Fellowship in Composition (1942) and was subsequently awarded First Prize in
the Composers and Authors of America Competition (1944). In addition to his
recital activity, he was presented twice as a concerto soloist with the
National Symphony. Kerr's contributions to musical literature have been in the
area of piano, voice, chorus, woodwind ensemble, and organ. Although primarily
trained as a pianist, Kerr became masterfully familiar with the organ and its
resources, thus enabling him to write most effectively for the instrument.

Here, two of Kerr's compositions have been selected. The
first example is the theme from the Concert Variations on a Merry Xmas Tune,
which is based on the Christmas carol "Good King Wenceslas." (Example
1)

Another popular Kerr composition,  Anguished American Easter-1968, is a brilliant set of theme
and variations based on the Easter spiritual "He 'rose." Written upon
hearing news of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Kerr completed the
original manuscript in 10 days. It is dedicated to Dr. King's memory. (Example
2)

Organ Compositions (Published Scores)

Arietta [1957]-[Now out-of-print]

(Unpublished Scores)-[selected]

Anguished American Easter-1968 (Dedicated to the Memory of
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Concert Variations on a Merry Xmas Tune ("Good King
Wenceslas") [Revised 1969]

Thanksgiving-1969 (Somber Variations on Handel's "Thanks
Be to Thee")

Suite Sebastienne: (Theme and Cantus, Frolicking Flutes,
Miniature Antiphonal on a Pedal Point, Fugato and Toccata, Trio, Allegro
barbaro, Reverie, Toccata-Carillon) [Revised 1974]

Adolphus Hailstork
(b. 1941) received his degrees from Howard University (B.M. degree) under Mark
Fax, and at the Manhattan School of Music (B.M. and M.M. degrees) under
Vittorio Giannini and David Diamond. He later received a Doctorate of Music in
Composition from Michigan State University where he was a student of H. Owen
Reed. Hailstork pursued additional study with Nadia Boulanger at the American
Institute at Fountainebleau. Currently, he is serving as Professor of Music and
Composer-in-Residence at Norfolk State University in Norfolk, Virginia. Among
his composition awards are the Ernest Bloch Award for Choral Composition
(1972), the Belwin-Mills Max Winkler Award (1977), and First Prize in the
Virginia College Band Director's National Competition (1983). In addition to
organ works, Hailstork has written for chorus, voice, various chamber
ensembles, and band.

Hailstork's fiery Toccata on 'Veni Emmanuel' is based on the
Advent plainchant known in English as "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel."
(Example 3)

Organ Compositions (Published Scores)

Suite for Organ: (Prelude, Andantino, Scherzetto, Fugue)
[Hinshaw Music, Inc., Chapel Hill, NC, 1975]

 (Unpublished
Scores)

First Organ Book-Eight Short Pieces for Organ: (Who Gazes at
the Stars [1978], Toccata on "Veni Emmanuel"
style="mso-spacerun: yes">  [1983], Prelude and Postlude on
"Shalom Havayreem" [1983], Prelude on "We Shall
Overcome"  [1983], Prelude and
Scherzo on "Winchester New" 
[1983], Prelude and March in F [1983], Prelude on "Veni
Emmanuel"  [1983])

Prelude [1967]

Andante [1967]

William B. Cooper
(1920-1993). Born in Philadelphia, Cooper received his B.M. and M.M. degrees
from the Philadelphia College of Performing Arts and a Doctorate of Music from
Columbia Pacific University (California). In 1988, he was awarded a Doctorate
of Sacred Music (honoris causa) from Christ Theological Seminary in Yonkers,
New York. Cooper pursued additional music studies at the School of Sacred Music
of Union Theological Seminary (New York), the Manhattan School of Music, and
Trinity College of Music (London). He not only served on the music faculties of
Bennett College (Greensboro, North Carolina) and  Hampton University (Hampton, Virginia), but taught 26 years
in the New York City School System. Cooper also served as Minister of Music at
historic St. Philip's Episcopal Church (1953-1974) and St. Martin's Episcopal
Church (1974-1988) in Harlem. His musical output, which is considerable,
includes works for organ, voice, chorus, solo instruments, orchestra, and
ballet.

Here, three of Cooper's compositions are cited for their
thematic diversity. The first of these, Cooper's Meditation on 'Steal Away', is
based on the Negro spiritual bearing that name. (Example 4)

The theme of Cooper's Lulliloo-Ashanti Cry of Joy is African
in origin, being based on an Ashanti tribal melody. (Example 5)

Based on a melody from the shape-note hymnal Southern
Harmony is Cooper's Pastorale. (Example 6)

Organ Compositions (Unpublished Scores)-[selected]

Peaceful Warrior [1961]

In the Beginning-Creation [1962]

Diferencias con Quattro [1962]

Meditation on "Steal Away" [1964]

Poem II-To the Innocents [1967]

Rhapsody on the Name FELA SOWANDE [1968]

Pastorale No. III [1973]

Jesu, Joy of Our Desiring (Air) [1978]
style='mso-tab-count:1'>               

Toccata on "John Saw" (The Holy Number) [1978]

Concerto for Cello and Organ [1979]

Symphony No. II for Organ [197-?]

Lulliloo-Ashanti Cry of Joy [1981]

Spiritual Lullaby [1981]

Paraphrase on "Everytime I Feel the Spirit" [1985]

The African-American organ compositions which have been
selected for their neo-classical influence are by composers George Walker and
Mark Fax.

George Walker (b.
1922). A native of Washington, D.C., George Walker was a piano child prodigy.
He attended Oberlin Conservatory (B.M. degree), and later, the Curtis Institute
of Music (Philadelphia) where he received the Artist Diploma. He also pursued
study at the American Academy at Fountainebleau (1947) where he was a student
of Nadia Boulanger and Robert Casadesus. At the age of 23, he won the
Philadelphia Youth Auditions and played the Rachmaninoff Third Concerto with
Eugene Ormandy conducting the Philadelphia Orchestra. In 1956, Walker became
the first African-American to receive a Doctorate of Music at the Eastman
School of Music. For years, he concertized as a piano virtuoso under the
Columbia Concert Artists and National Concert Artists Management. Walker later
headed the Music Department at Rutgers University. He was also the recipient of
several prestigious awards and fellowships such as a Fulbright, Guggenheim, and
Rockefeller. With many compositions to his credit--works for piano, voice,
chorus, chamber ensembles and orchestra--the Three Pieces for Organ constitute
his only contributions to the instrument to date.

Originally conceived as a movement from a Protestant organ
service, Walker's Chorale Prelude on Jesu, wir sind hier (also known by the
title Herzliebster Jesu) is based on the German Protestant chorale. (Example 7)

Organ Compositions (Published Scores)

Three Pieces: (Elevation, Chorale Prelude on "Jesu, wir
sind hier,"  Invokation)
(M.M.B. Music, 1991)

Mark Fax (1911-1974)
was a native of Baltimore. He received his B.M. degree in Piano at Syracuse
University, graduating with highest honors. He was subsequently awarded a M.M.
degree in Composition from the Eastman School of Music where he was an Eastman
and a Rosenwald Fellow. Fax joined the faculty at Howard University in 1947
where he served as Professor of Composition. He later became Assistant to the
Dean of Fine Arts prior to his appointment as Acting Dean of Fine Arts. He was
later appointed as Director of the School of Music. Fax composed for many
musical media including piano, chorus, chamber ensemble, orchestra, and has
three operas to his credit.

In the example, Fax mixes elements of neo-classicism with
influences of the Black Church. The first movement of his Three Pieces for Organ
is based on a Negro spiritual. (Example 8)

Organ Compositions Unpublished Scores)-[selected]

The Pastor [1944]

Prelude and Chorale [1952]

Variations on Maryton [1960]

Three Pieces: (Free, Hauntingly [1963], Allegretto [1965],
Toccata [1966])

Three Organ Preludes: St. Martin [1964], Crusader's Hymn
(Offertory-Transposed to A Major), St. Anne [Fragment, 1964]

Two Chorale Preludes: Crusader's Hymn [1964], Kremser [1968]

Postlude on "I'll Never Turn Back" [1972]

Noel Da Costa (b.
1929) was born in Lagos, Nigeria. He later moved to Jamaica where he lived
until the age of 11, at which time he came to the United States. He received a
B.A. degree from Queens College (City University of New York) and was awarded a
M.A. degree from Columbia University. While still in graduate school at
Columbia, Da Costa became the recipient of the Seidl Fellowship in Music
Composition. He later studied with Luigi Dallapiccola in Florence under a
Fulbright Scholarship (1958-61). Currently, Da Costa holds the post of Associate
Professor of Music in the Mason Gross School of the Arts in Rutgers University
where he has taught since 1970. His musical output consists of a large variety
of compositions which include music for piano, solo instruments, chamber
ensemble, voice, chorus, orchestra, as well as five operas.

Exemplifying Da Costa's stylistic diversity are two
examples, the first of which is the theme from Da Costa's Variations on
'Maryton', based on the English hymntune known as "O Master, Let Me Walk
with Thee." (Example 9)

A second example of a composition based on a melody of
African origin is Da Costa's Chililo: Prelude for Organ after an East African
Lament, which is based on the Mozambique ceremony of lamentation. (Example 10)

Organ Compositions (Unpublished Scores)

Maryton (Hymntune and Variations) [1955]

Generata (for solo organ and string orchestra) [1958]

Chililo: Free Transcription for Organ [1970]

Chililo: Prelude for Organ after an East African Lament
[1971]

Triptich for Organ (Prelude, Processional, Postlude) [1973]

Spiritual Set for Organ (Invocation, Affirmation, Spiritual,
Praise) [1974, Publ. by Belwin-Mills (unavailable since 1986)]

Ukom Memory Songs (Organ and Percussion) [1981]

The Straube Tradition

by William Eifrig

A manner of performance depends upon at least one of three possible means for its continuation. First, the originator of the performance tradition leaves to posterity an edited or annotated edition of the musical work in question. Second, that originator engenders a progeny of students who continue the tradition and may be expected to pass on to their students the manner of performance they have learned from "the master." Or, third, the means I undertake here, one of those students provides the annotations and commentary which represent  the original ideas once or twice removed from their origination.

 

I am a student of two organists who were pupils of Karl Straube, the academic colleague of Max Reger at the Leipzig Conservatory and performer of most premieres of Reger's organ music.  In 1951-55 at Valparaiso University my teacher was Heinrich Fleischer, who had been one of Straube's last students.  In a Fulbright year 1957-58 I studied in Detmold, West Germany, with Michael Schneider, perhaps Straube's most renowned successor. It was as student of the former that I studied the Reger Toccata and Fugue in d/D.

Straube made Reger's music famous and established a tradition of playing Reger's organ music that had the composer's approval. I understood the changes to the printed score in the Peters edition Nr. 3008a made by Fleischer when instructing me to be "in the   Straube tradition." Had Fleischer been the only organ teacher to have made these changes, claiming "the tradition" as his authority, we might think it merely idiosyncratic. However, when I studied with Schneider I again encountered the "Straube tradition," for  Schneider's students, too, altered the printed edition in matters of tempo, dynamics, and registration--in the same details that I had learned. Schneider's students agreed that the alterations to the printed score represented to German organists in the later 20th century the way in which Reger, influenced by Straube's recommendations, intended the Toccata and Fugue to be performed.

To my knowledge Straube never published an edited or annotated edition of the Toccata and Fugue, though he made heavily annotated editions of 17th and 18th century organ music in the series Alte Meister. While I taught my students many of the works of Bach, Reger, and David as I had learned them with Fleischer and Schneider, I realize now, in retirement, that I never taught op. 59, nr. 5 & 6. Recently a student at Valparaiso University, a student of one of my colleagues, performed the Toccata and Fugue exactly according to the printed Peters edition, and I resolved, with no intention of faulting a quite musical performance or questioning in any way collegial pedagogy, that I would take the third mode of communicating the tradition to the student and her teacher as well as to others at Valparaiso University. Their reception of my communication went beyond courtesy, encouraging me to make this commentary more widely known. Thus  I present it here in the hope that knowledge of the Straube tradition for performing these Reger works will have value for New World musicians who, perhaps schooled in other traditions, may be unaware that the printed page in at least this instance is insufficient evidence of the composer's intentions.

At least I shall rest easier in retirement having made an attempt to hand on a tradition that was in turn handed to me early in my life. If Straube is the father of the tradition, and Fleischer is the son, then I am a grandson and you may become a great-grandchild!

                  In my commentary I refer to Edition Peters Nr. 3008a, the first volume of the Zwölf Stücke, op. 59, pp. 20-30. Since Heinrich Fleischer was always a meticulous annotator of printed scores, his own as well as those belonging to his students, I am confident that I have accurately described the "son's" instructions still clearly visible in my undergraduate copy.

Toccata in d, op. 59, no. 5

Vivacissimo stands but a crescendo with boxes followed by a quick diminuendo happens in the first measure.  Before the change to Man. I the boxes open. The first note A of the scale at the end of measure 1 is changed from 32nd rest to a 16th A to make this like the scales at the ends of measures 5 & 6.

At the fourth beat of measure 3 a ritenuto begins and the (kurz!) on the third beat of measure 4 is eliminated.

The fourth beat of measure 4 is a tempo and the dynamics of measure 5 parallel those of measure 1.

The first three beats of measure 7 are rall.

Beat 4 of measure 7 is a tempo and the ff is modified by beginning with closed boxes; the crescendo then happens before the pedal entrance in measure 9.

The last 8th of measure 9 begins a rit. to the third 8th of measure 10.

The 32nd run up to G# has the marking Sostenuto and the first chord of beat 3 is played as if a 16th followed by a 16th rest.  This articulation is imitated at the downbeat of measure 11 when only the tied As and the pedal G are held while the other notes are lifted before the downbeat.

Measure 11, fourth beat is ritenuto through beat 2 of measure 12.

Beat 3 of measure 12 is Vivace, boxes closed then opened. This passage begins on Swell moving to Great on the third triplet 16th A of beat 4, measure 13.

Measure 14 beat 4 is rit. and beat 2 of measure 15 is a tempo, boxes closed beginning on Swell moving to Great on the last note of measure 15 (F#).  The boxes open and the Crescendo pedal is used to complete the crescendo in measure 19.

The slurs printed for measures 16 & 17 are countermanded by strong articulations of the sixth and eighth 8th notes of measure 16 and the second, fifth and seventh 8ths in measure 17 right hand; fourth, sixth and eighth 8ths in left hand measure 17. The brillante passage is legato through the ritenuto that begins beat 2 measure 19.

Measure 21 is, of course, a new registration but piano so that the ppp of measure 23 is audible.  The Un poco mosso of the printed score is not cancelled but the Straube instruction Tranquillo is added.  My memory is that the tempo here is very moderate!

The fermata and rit. as well as (kurz!) in measure 25 are operative.

Vivacissimo stands and again the boxes start closed, open for the crescendo as well as the change of manual, the Great entering left hand sixth 8th measure 26, right hand first 8th measure 27.

Measure 28 second 8th begins a ritard. until measure 29.

Measure 29 is Sostenuto and the rolled chords are played as if notated in equal 64ths, the final top note leading metrically evenly to the next pedal tone. Stringendo applies with no slowing until the high B-flat of measure 30.

In measure 30 the fermata remains while the (sehr kurz) is cancelled.  The effect is that of a rush to the B-flat, a poising aloft and then an extremely fast rush downward (quasi Prestissimo assai) to the pedal G-flat.

                  Measure 30 beat 4 is again Sostenuto and the chord tones are rolled evenly as 32nds, holding the harmonic tones while releasing the non-harmonic.

The Straube alterations of page 24 are the boldest, departing from the printed instructions radically.

The sempre stringendo that is printed becomes ritenuto molto, beginning especially with the high B-natural.  Beat 2 measure 33 has an implied fermata.

The tempo marking for measure 33 beat 3 is no longer a tempo but Adagio and  meno ff is changed to a piano registration of soft Swell in the left hand and a Great solo flute (probably coupled to Swell) for the right hand.  This quite slow passage begins with the boxes closed.  They open a little at beat 4 measure 34 and close down again beats 3 & 4 measure 35.

The last beat of measure 35 is ritenuto and dim.

The downbeat of measure 36 is yet in the ritarded Adagio, but the C# (second note in the right hand) begins the Più Andante of the last measures.  The registration change to begin the crescendo is made during a slight break between measures 35 & 36, but the tempo change waits for the second note of measure 36.

Measures 36 & 37 observe the printed stringendo e sempre crescendo until the molto rit. beat 3 measure 37, by which time the Crescendo pedal has been opened wide.  These measures are strongly articulated by breaks alternating between pedal and hands.  In the pedal every G# is separated from the preceding A with an easily audible break.  In the hands beats 3 measure 36 and 1 & 3 measure 37 are similarly articulated.

Straube calls for the final measure to be played Grave.

NB.  The Adagio/piano of measure 33ff. balances and answers the Tranquillo  moment of measures 21-25. The Più Andante of measure 36 restores faster motion but never returns to the Vivacissimo of the beginning.

Fugue in D, op. 59, no. 6

Straube made fewer changes to the printed score of the Fugue, mostly refinements of printed tempo markings.  The continuous crescendo of the piece and its increasing tempo are not altered in any way. The printed score indicates that by the augmentation of the theme at the bottom of page 29 the tempo has almost doubled. The effect is that the augmented theme on page 29 is in the same tempo as the beginning of the Fugue on page 25.  To control the increasing tempo from the beginning it is better to hear/think the quarter-note motion rather than the half-note beat implied by the metric signature and the metronomic markings. My memory again is that the tempos are appreciatively slower than our later 20th-century sense of motion; when I revisited this piece at the rededication of the Reddel Memorial Organ at Valparaiso in 1997 I found that setting the metronome two to four numbers lower than the printed score seemed appropriate.

The beginning according to Straube is Andante Tranquillo (half-note equals approximately 52).

Fleischer called for added stops with each entrance of the theme on the first page, boxes opening after the soprano entrance in measure 11 and closing back before the pedal entrance in measure 17. The addition of stops continues where appropriate and the left hand changes manuals beat 2 measure 22, the right hand joining it on the sixth 8th of measure 26.

Boxes open during measures 29 & 30 making a creascendo to measure 31 which Straube characterizes as Più Tranquillo. The inverted theme in measure 34 can be soloed by the right hand while the left maintains alto and tenor on the secondary manual. With the pedal entrance measure 37 the alto and tenor remain there. The theme in measure 40 3rd beat can again be soloed (a trio!).

Measure 44 Straube calls Un poco più mosso and both hands come to the Great.

The bass notes of measures 46 & 47 are taken by the left hand--a bit of stretch, but it can be done;  the thematic entrance in the pedal is then clearer.

Measure 54 according to Straube is played Allegro Moderato. Fleischer soloed the theme in the left hand on the Great, returning to the secondary manual beat 2 measure 57. The left hand again solos beat 3 measure 60 and the right hand joins it on the Great beat 3 measure 63.

Because the Valparaiso University organ in 1952/53 was quite inadequate to the task of creating a continuing crescendo, Fleischer had me return to the secondary manual beats 3 & 4 measure 66 so that the theme in measure 67 could again be on the Great. The                              right hand returned to the Great at measure 71 with the alto theme and soprano counterpoint and the Crescendo pedal was used measures 74-78 (Crescendo Pleno).

The thematic entrance in the soprano, beat 2 measure 77 is marked by a caesura before D, violating the printed slur.

Caesurae can be used effectively in measures 82 & 83 between soprano and alto/tenor.  Caesurae can also effectively mark the sequences in the soprano of measures 85 & 86.

The approach to the downbeat of measure 87 is intensified by added notes.  The tenor D in measure 86 is held throughout (and ties into the alto D of measure 87) and to the final 8th G is added a B, so that the final 8th in the left hand is a full G major triad, which resolves to the F# of measure 87 with an added A. Meanwhile the final 8th of the alto in measure 86 continues the G of beat 4 while E is sounding and the downbeat of measure 87 adds both F# and A making a complete D major chord in the right hand.                

In measure 87 a strong articulation of the pedal low A is made the more emphatic if the soprano and tenor ignore the dot of their first notes and play as if written: quarter (printed and added notes) followed by an 8th rest.  This allows the alto theme to get our attention and marks at the same time the stretto entrance in the soprano on beat 3.

The printed assai stringendo, molto rit., Org. Pl., and Adagio/sempre Org. Pl. are operative.  It is imperative, however, that the player control the tempo so that the deceleration beginning measure 92, working against 90 measures of acceleration, leads continuously into the Adagio lest the final chords seem to the listener half-notes rather than the prescribed (albeit ritarded) quarter-notes.

 

The coupling of the Toccata and Fugue has become standard performance practice, but the player does this remembering that Reger's score treats them separately as Stücke 5 & 6 of op. 59. The Straube tradition joins them as a pair in what the 19th and 20th centuries have imagined to be a classical baroque manner.  An 18th-century performer, though, was probably never constrained to perform as pairs pieces that were published as pairs.  Bach's great G minor Fantasia need not always be followed by that energetic but less profound fugue.  Reger's Toccata in d is also probably greater than the Fugue in D and can stand alone quite successfully.        n

 

William Eifrig is Professor Emeritus of Music at Valparaiso University. He studied with Marjorie Jackson Rasche, Heinrich Fleischer, Robert Noehren, Michael Schneider, and Marilyn Mason. After 38 years of teaching at Valparaiso he has retired to desert quiet in the Southwest.