Dean Billmeyer plays Bach

Nicholas Halbert

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

Hans Fährmann, Dresden’s organ composer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The German Romantic organ sonata and Hans Fährmann

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The German Romantic organ

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

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

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

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

Organ Sonata No. 1 in G Minor

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Conclusion

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

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

Notes

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

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

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

4. Hennings, page 4.

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

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

7. Böhm, page 323.

8. Böhm, page 323.

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

10. Böhm, page 324.

11. Böhm, page 324.

12. Böhm, pages 324–325.

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

14. Rost, pages 1030–1032.

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

16. Rost, pages 1030–1032.

17. Hennings, page 8.

18. Böhm, page 326.

19. Böhm, page 324.

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

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

22. Ibid.

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

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

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

26. Wagner, page 63.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

34. Hennings, page 8.

35. Hennings, page 8.

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

37. Kocourek, page 1.

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

39. Kocourek, page 5.

40. Kocourek, page 2.

41. Kocourek, pages 2–3.

42. Kocourek, page 3.

43. Kocourek, page 4.

44. Kocourek, page 3.

45. Kocourek, page 4.

46. Hennings, page 9.

47. Hennings, page 9.

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

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

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

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

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

53. Fährmann, First Sonata, page 3.

54. Fährmann, First Sonata, page 8.

55. Fährmann, First Sonata, page 13.

56. Fährmann, First Sonata, page 14.

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

Bibliography

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Sample YouTube recordings of Fährmann works:

Sonata No.1 in G minor, op. 5

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

The University of Michigan Organ Department, School of Music, Theatre & Dance, Ann Arbor, Michigan

James Kibbie

The University of Michigan Organ Department, one of the nation’s oldest, largest, and most recognized programs, is an international leader in the fields of organ, harpsichord, carillon, and sacred music. Its home, the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, is a highly selective professional school offering programs in music, dance, theatre, and musical theatre on a welcoming campus in the culturally rich college town of Ann Arbor. The school combines the rigor of a conservatory with the academic breadth and depth of a major public research university. Students pursue a comprehensive program of performance and study that embraces a liberal arts education and emphasizes innovation and diversity in the arts. The faculty—eminent performers and scholars with a broad range of specializations—share a profound commitment to teaching. The Organ Department’s reputation for fostering talent is evidenced by the number of graduates enjoying careers as recitalists, university professors, published composers and scholars, and music directors of major churches.

Faculty and staff

• James Kibbie, Professor of Organ and Chair; University Organist

• Kola Owolabi, Associate Professor of Organ and Sacred Music

• Joseph Gascho, Assistant Professor of Harpsichord and Early Music

• Tiffany Ng, Assistant Professor of Carillon; University Carillonist; Digital Studies Institute Affiliate Faculty

• Jerroll Adams, University Organ Technician

• Colin Knapp, Organ Conference Coordinator

• Andrew Meagher, Hill Auditorium Scheduling Coordinator

• Distinguished former faculty members include organists Palmer Christian, Robert Noehren, Marilyn Mason, Robert Glasgow, Robert Clark, and Michele Johns, carillonist Margo Halsted, harpsichordist Edward Parmentier, and composers William Bolcom and William Albright.

Guest artists

The Organ Department sponsors recitals, masterclasses, and workshops by leading international artists. Recent faculty residencies have featured Vincent Dubois (Cathedral of Notre Dame, Paris; Conservatory of Strasbourg) and Daniel Roth (Church of St. Sulpice, Paris). Recent guest artists and clinicians include Olivier Latry (Cathedral of Notre Dame; Paris Conservatory), Keith Hampton (Chicago Community Chorus; specialist in the Black Gospel tradition), Jaap ter Linden (Royal Conservatory of the Hague and Amsterdam Conservatory, the Netherlands, early music specialist), Nicole Keller (Baldwin Wallace Conservatory, Berea, Ohio), Jörg Abbing (Hochschule für Musik Saar, Germany), Andrzej Szadejko (Gdańsk Music Academy, Poland), Jaroslav Tůma (Academy of Performing Arts, Prague, Czech Republic), and Jean-Baptiste Robin (Royal Chapel of Versailles).

Degrees offered

• Bachelor of Music in Organ Performance and Sacred Music

• Bachelor of Musical Arts in Organ Performance

• Master of Music in Organ Performance

• Master of Music in Sacred Music

• Master of Music in Harpsichord Performance

• Master of Music in Early Keyboard Instruments

• Master of Music in Carillon Performance

• Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance: Organ

• Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance: Sacred Music

• Doctor of Musical Arts in Performance: Harpsichord

• Dual degree programs with six other University of Michigan colleges and joint degree programs with other departments in the School of Music, Theatre & Dance are also available.

Organ and sacred music

Student career preparation includes development of artistry, technique, scholarly research skills, and the ability to play music of all periods with integrity. Students attain knowledge of specific performance practices, supported by a wide range of courses in repertoire and technique. Hymn-playing and choral accompaniment are pursued with the same seriousness as solo repertoire. Studies in improvisation enable students to develop their creative voices as church musicians and performers. In sacred music, a graded curriculum exposes students to the musical practices of diverse cultures and liturgical traditions. Choral conducting and continuo are offered at both undergraduate and graduate levels.

Harpsichord and early music

Both solo and continuo playing are emphasized for harpsichord students, who also build a strong foundation in historical performance practices. Other early music opportunities include participation in Renaissance Choir, Baroque Chamber Orchestra, and a wide variety of chamber music events. Students have the opportunity to study and perform on period instruments, including those in the university’s extensive Stearns Collection of Musical Instruments. Recent performances include a fully-staged production of Charpentier’s opera La Descente d’Orphée aux Enfers.

Carillon

The carillon program is built on the dual pursuit of innovative artistic excellence and inclusive community engagement and offers one of the only Master of Music in Carillon Performance degrees in existence. Students enjoy frequent performance opportunities and new acoustic and electroacoustic music collaborations, develop socially engaged outreach projects for diverse audiences, and pursue original research in campanology. Alumni hold faculty and performance positions throughout the country.

Organ, harpsichord, and sacred music courses

In addition to studio instruction in organ, harpsichord, and carillon, students elect from a rotating sequence of courses designed to prepare musicians for professional careers as organists, church musicians, harpsichordists, and carillonists:

• Organ Literature: Antiquity to 1750

• Organ Literature: 1750 to Present

• Early Music for Keyboard

• Baroque Organ Music

• Music of the French Baroque

• Organ Music of the 19th Century

• Contemporary Organ Music

• Topics in Historical Performance

• Basso Continuo

• Basso Continuo II

• Advanced Continuo and Partimento

• Organ Pedagogy

• Harpsichord Pedagogy

• Harpsichord Maintenance

• Improvisation I

• Improvisation II

• Contrapuntal Improvisation

• Advanced Improvisation

• Service Playing

• Creative Hymn-Playing

• Blended Worship Music Styles

• Contemporary Issues in Sacred Music

• The Church’s Song: Critical Issues in Hymnology

• African-American Spirituals and Gospel

• Students also find arts leadership development, entrepreneurial opportunities, and grants in the EXCEL Department (Excellence in Entrepreneurship Career Empowerment & Leadership).

Research

Organ Department faculty and students engage in major scholarly and creative projects within the nation’s top-ranked public research university (as recognized by the National Science Foundation in 2018). Recent faculty grants have supported a project to develop applications of data science to performance issues in the Bach trio sonatas; innovations in carillon scholarship, technology-augmented performance, and multimedia publishing; audio and video recordings integrating scholarship and recording on historic instruments; the pioneering of team teaching with architecture; and scholarly publications. Current graduate students are receiving grant support for projects including a series of compact disc recordings of organ music by women composers and research and performance on North German Baroque instruments.

Organs

The University of Michigan recognizes the pipe organ as the only instrument suitable for practice, teaching, and performance of the organ repertoire. Students perform, study, and rehearse on 16 pipe organs on campus, including:

• Frieze Memorial Organ, Hill Auditorium: four manuals, 124 ranks, electro-pneumatic action; Farrand & Votey (1893), Hutchings (1913), Skinner Organ Company (1927), Aeolian-Skinner (1955);

• Marilyn Mason Organ, Blanche Anderson Moore Hall: two manuals, 27 stops, mechanical action; C. B. Fisk, after instruments of Gottfried Silbermann;

• James Walgreen Organ, School of Public Health: two manuals, 12 stops, mechanical action; Orgues Létourneau;

• Organ teaching studios: three manuals, electro-pneumatic instruments by Reuter and M. P. Möller;

• Italian positiv organ: one manual, three stops, mechanical action; unknown 16th-century Italian builder;

• Kistorgel (continuo positiv): one manual, four stops, mechanical action; Henk Klop;

• Portativ organ: one manual, one rank; Wendhack, Redeker & Kreuzer, after a medieval model;

• Practice organs: eight two-manual mechanical and electro-pneumatic instruments by A. David Moore, Aeolian-Skinner, Reuter, and M. P. Möller;

• Students also study and perform regularly on instruments in Ann Arbor churches by Karl Wilhelm, Orgues Létourneau, and Schoenstein.

Harpsichords

• Keith Hill: German double manual;

• William Dowd: Franco-Flemish double manual after Ruckers;

• Peter Fisk: French double manual;

• Hubbard/Eckstein: French double manual;

• Hill and Tyre: German single manual;

• David Sutherland: Flemish single manual;

• William Post Ross: Italian single manual after De Quoc;

• Two Zuckermann kit instruments;

• Randall Scott: clavichord after a 1784 instrument of Christian Gottlob Hübert.

Carillons

• Charles Baird Carillon, Burton Memorial Tower: 53 bells cast by John Taylor & Co., England, 1936;

• Robert & Ann Lurie Carillon: 60 bells cast by Royal Eijsbouts, the Netherlands, 1996;

• Three practice keyboards.

Conferences, competitions, and workshops

The annual Organ Conference, a tradition for almost sixty years, presents recitals, workshops, and masterclasses by international artists and performances by University of Michigan students and faculty. The summer Early Keyboard Institute, presented by University of Michigan faculty and resident artists, provides an intensive six-day experience focusing on harpsichord and fortepiano.

Co-sponsored by the American Center of Church Music, the annual Organ Improvisation Competition has featured finalists from North America, Europe, and Asia. The Schoenstein Competition in the Art of Organ Accompaniment, presented with support from Jack M. Bethards, Schoenstein & Co. Organ Builders, recognizes artistry in the accompaniment of solos, choral repertoire, and hymns.

Recent special events have included the 2018 Annual Conference of the Historical Keyboard Society of North America, with over 70 performances, lectures, and other events on the theme “Kenner und Liebhaber.”

The UM Summer Carillon Series presents leading international recitalists each year. Supported by a UM Bicentennial Grant in 2017, “Resonance & Remembrance: An Interdisciplinary Bell Studies Symposium,” pioneered new directions in scholarly and applied campanology research and technology-augmented performance.

Performance opportunities

Organ students perform for the annual Organ Conference, the bi-weekly Brown Bag Recital Series on the James Walgreen Organ, AGO recitals, and outreach recitals at churches. There are also frequent opportunities to perform with the university orchestras, bands, and choral ensembles. Carillon students perform on the daily recitals at both carillon towers, at student guild recitals, official university events, and during field trips to area carillons. Harpsichord students perform in solo recitals, chamber ensembles, and with the Baroque Chamber Orchestra and Early Music Choir.

International organ study tours

Students in the Organ Department have the opportunity to participate in European study tours to play historic organs, study with eminent artist-teachers, and perform in group recitals. Student expenses are funded in part through fundraising recitals at area churches. During their 2019 tour to the Netherlands and Germany, students studied 13 historic organs by van Covelens, Schnitger, Silbermann, Trost, Ladegast, and Sauer and performed in masterclasses with Pieter van Dijk, Thiemo Janssen, Ullrich Böhme, and Johannes Trümpler.

Application and financial aid

The Organ Department supports students with financial aid packages that reward artistic and academic excellence, while also considering a student’s overall financial resources. Undergraduate applicants are eligible to compete in the annual Undergraduate Organ Scholarship Competition. Master’s students are considered for a variety of scholarships, and nearly all DMA students receive full-tuition fellowships and are also eligible to apply for fellowships to fund research, travel, and performance. For further information and to apply, visit smtd.umich.edu.

Dr. Yumiko Tatsuta Ding is full-time faculty in the music department of Kwassui Women’s University in Nagasaki, Japan, where she also serves as the university organist. She is an internationally active performer, scholar, and educator who was the first Asian female to receive the doctoral degree from the organ department at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music, Bloomington, under the tutelage of department chair, Janette Fishell.

Dr. Tatsuta received numerous international awards and grants, such as the Japanese Upcoming Artist Award (sponsored by the Japanese Government, Agency for Cultural Affairs), for which she was also named as an exchange artist in the United States/Japan friendship program in 2017 and 2018, and was selected as the recipient of DAAD scholarship sponsored by the German government for her graduate study at the Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart.

Yumiko Tatsuta

Introduction

The Phantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H (1900), opus 46 of Max Reger (1873–1916), is one of the composer’s crowning achievements for the organ written during a career that has given us more than 200 organ works that are widely performed. In this article, the author will look at the question of registration for performing opus 46. This will take into consideration the historical registration and components of the Walze (Rollschweller) of the Sauer organ, Opus 650, on which opus 46 was premiered by Karl Straube (1873–1950), a champion of Reger’s music. The author will provide a solution for reproducing German Romantic registration on the Maidee H. and Jackson A. Seward Organ,
C. B. Fisk, Inc., Opus 135, in Auer Hall of Indiana University’s Jacobs School of Music, Bloomington, Indiana, as a model for general solutions on various modern instruments. It is hoped that the solutions and ideas presented will not only promote performance of Reger’s opus 46, but will be useful as well in performing both the remainder of his repertoire and music by such composers as Joseph Rheinberger (1839–1901), Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877–1933), Franz Schmidt (1874–1939), and other members of the German high-Romantic tradition.

Historical registration

Registration of Reger’s organ music has been a controversial issue since the composer did not provide clear indications of what stops he preferred. Another reason is the general lack of familiarity with the German Romantic organ as compared with its French or English counterparts among American organists. In general, Reger provides either dynamic markings (with a wide range from pppp to fff, and Organo Pleno) or rather vague suggestions such as “dunkel” (“dark” in German). He sometimes provides pitch indications for stops, but if one blindly follows the pitch instructions on modern organs, the result will most likely be far from the sound Reger desired. I propose a registration combination based on data¹ that were kindly provided by the German organ builder Christian Scheffler and his colleagues, experts of Romantic German organ restoration, particularly with Sauer organs.²

Phantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H, opus 46, was premiered on Wilhelm Sauer’s organ, Opus 650, built in 1895 for Willibrordi Cathedral in Wesel (Rhein), Germany, where Straube held his first full-time church organist position, starting in 1897.³ The event occurred in summer 1900, several months after the completion of the composition in February of that year.⁴ The specification of the organ is provided in Table 1. (The cathedral was heavily damaged, and the organ was destroyed during bombing raids in 1945.)

The organ features three manuals and pedal, six unison couplers, one octave coupler, one preset piston for reeds, one Rollschweller, one expression shoe for Manual III, and three kinds of preset pistons for mf, f, ff that affect all the manuals and the pedal simultaneously. This specification can be a great guide for recreating the sound of Reger’s music. Moreover, what I consider to be the key to making appropriate registrations and crescendos can be learned by the study of those three preset pistons and in the Rollschweller at each stage. I am grateful to Christian Scheffler and colleagues for their assistance and for providing me previously unpublished information about these registration devices of the Sauer organ.

The components of the Walze (Rollschweller) are provided in Tables 2.1 and 2.2. The levels are numbered from 1 to 73, in the order in which they are added as one turns the Rollschweller.

Tables 3.1 and 3.2 demonstrate the components of the preset pistons. “Werk” indicates manual, and “P” stands for pedal. The principal manual of the organ is Manual I, the bottom keyboard.

Reger’s sound world

In German Romantic organs such as those built by Sauer or Walcker, there are many soft stops of various colors. These would include Voix céleste, Aeoline, Lieblich Gedackt, Geigen Principal, Dolce, Dulciana, Harmonika, Fugara, etc., some of which are not often found in modern American organs or instruments built in different traditions. These stops create a very special quality at the beginning stage of the Walze, and they are the foundational sound of German Romantic organ registration.⁵ As important as they are, the key for reproducing an authentic Reger registration on Fisk Opus 135 lies in finding equivalence for them.

As can be seen from the order of stops being added in the Walze, the Sauer organ offers a wider variety of inflections within the ppp to mp range than it does from mf to fff. From levels 1 to 13, there are only 8′ stops used in manuals and 16′ and 8′ stops in the pedal, and those stops are flutes or strings. From levels 14 to 27, principal stops are introduced, including in the pedal. From level 28, 4′ pitch stops are found. Beginning at level 44, stops higher than 2′ are drawn, including mutations. Level 49’s 8′ Vox humana and level 50’s Oboe 8′ are the first reed stops to be added. From that point, the crescendo is made rather abruptly toward the end, which is level 73, with mixtures and relatively loud reed stops added to each division. In short, levels 1 to 49 cover the range of pppp to mf, and levels 50 to 73 range from f to fff.

As we examine opus 46, the greatest dynamic level short of Org Pl indicated by the composer is più fff, not ffff, while his softest indication is pppp. This tells us that he might have found the range of pppp to mf more important in his music. Moreover, according to Reger’s piano performance reviews, we find many descriptions regarding his frequent use of pianissimo.⁶ Given the nature of his scores, this might seem surprising, but there is clear evidence for this.

In addition to composing, Reger had been an active collaborative pianist since his youth at the conservatories in Sondershausen and Wiesbaden beginning in 1890. At that time, he was mostly playing accompaniment for soloists’ exams or concerts.

After his well-received performance of the premiere of his Violin Sonata in A, opus 41, in Munich in December 1900, the frequency of his activity as a performer gradually increased beginning in 1901, especially after moving to that city. In later periods of his life when he was most active as a performer, the frequency of his piano and conducting performances exceeded one hundred per year.⁷ Therefore, it can be an important key to understanding the performance practice of Reger’s organ music by considering the kind of music making Reger had been engaged in with other instruments.

There are critics who described Reger’s piano performances in a positive light, utilizing terms such as “soft touch,” “a pianist who can draw songs from the piano at his own will,” “thoughtful accompaniment cradles the singer,” and “very sustainable (ausdauernd) touch,”⁸ while others more critically stated “extreme pianissimo,” “because of his almost constant admiration of pianissimo, it was hard to hear the harmonic foundation,” or “we could not hear anything at all no matter how closely we paid attention to, or it was too little and unclear, so the singer’s part was often heard as floating in the air without any harmonic support.”⁹ One notices many pianissimo indications in his compositions both for piano and organ as well as his vocal and chamber music.

As for his conducting, similar opinions are found in the concert reviews such as, “As a conductor, his interpretation is also sensitive and precise. Here again, it is obvious he is fond of that mysterious pianissimo. But this is not because he is seeking for the effect of it, but it is rather something special that is already with his soul.”¹⁰ Or, “The unshakable chamber music performance tradition, whose foundation was established by Bülow, has pianissimo sound quality just as Reger’s characteristic, and it never collapses no matter how flexible it becomes. It resonates soft and sensitive, just as Reger’s daydreaming pianissimo accompaniment.”¹¹

In contrast, descriptions about his f or ff are relatively rare: “It is obvious that Reger is an attractive pianist. His pianissimo has a smell of magic, and his fortissimo is never too loud, but has the power of the orchestra.”¹² Another critic wrote, “All he needs to do is just place his fingers on the keyboard, and then there will be soft and fulfilling sound in the room. In the soft pianissimo, it is as spirited as singing. In the lively fortissimo, there will be a substantial and comfortable sound.”¹³

From noting the frequent appearance of fff in his organ scores among multitudes of written notes, one could be led to a misunderstanding that Reger asks for extremely loud or tutti registrations, but his specialty was creating expressive and tender pianissimos. This would seem to echo the very gradual and colorful range of the initial stages of the Walze, in which a nuanced differentiation of soft dynamics is clearly available.

There is also an interesting description of his piano performance in one of the reviews, mentioning “Reger’s tenderness (zartheit), as he was drawing the Voix céleste sound of the organ from the piano.”¹⁴ From this review, we can assume that Reger was trying to express the Voix céleste or equivalent sound of the organ in terms of volume and characteristic.

Practical suggestions for registration

In light of this knowledge of Reger’s organ sound world, one can apply this to registering an American instrument. C. B. Fisk, Inc., Opus 135 is a worthy model for our discussion.

Although most of the crescendos are considered to have been made with the Walze at that time, I assume there must have been performance assistants to accomplish some of the registration changes, as well. For example, there are numerous places when both of the performer’s feet are completely occupied but the music asks for a crescendo or a decrescendo, as in bar 24 in the “Phantasie” (Example 1).

Dynamics, tempo, and rubato all combine in creating the large-range phrases in this music. A crescendo marking means more than just changing the volume; it means increasing the energy of a phrase, which can be accomplished by accelerating the tempo or including various kinds of accented articulations depending on the musical textures. The same varieties of approaches (tempo ritardando, more over-legato, etc.) can be applied when making a decrescendo, implying the loss of energy. This is accomplished not merely through one dimension, but can also engage several aspects of the music.¹⁵ The organist must employ several different techniques regarding tempo and articulation in addition to simply drawing more sound out of the instrument. Lastly, changing volume alone can be undertaken through a combination of means, including the use of expression shoes, the Rollschweller, or changing manuals.

Also, on the third beat of measure 25, Reger asks for a sudden registration change to ff from the decrescendo in measure 24. In principle, the Walze is a device for making crescendos and decrescendos by rolling it upwards or downwards, so it cannot be used for a sudden registration change such as Reger asks for here. One can assume it was done by a combination button, ff specifically for this case; however, there are also places that the music requires a sudden change to pp or p with a specific indication of coupler(s) off. The instrument on which it was premiered did not have a combination button for this action (with Sauer Opus 650, all six unison couplers are on by level 12 of the Walze). Therefore, there must have been the combined use of the Walze, preset combination buttons, and registration assistants in order to perform the required registration changes.

In correspondence with Christopher Anderson, a noted Reger scholar, he suggested that while Straube could readily play these large-scale works of Reger without assistants, there is evidence that he did indeed work with assistants on occasion.¹⁶ Furthermore, Dr. Anderson suggests that Straube was very much involved in projecting his reputation and abilities for performing this music without registration assistants.

In registering this work on Fisk Opus 135, I decided to use the sequencer in order to reproduce fine-grained differentiations available by means of the sort of Walze found in the Sauer organ, in order best to approximate the sound of the instrument with which Reger would have been familiar. In order to best capture the effect of this now unavailable technology, I used assistants to aid the registrations during my performance. It would be fascinating to perform this work on an instrument with a sophisticated Rollschweller in place.

What follows is the procedure I used to devise my own Walze.

Determine what resources are available on the organ.

In order to produce the Walze crescendo as closely as possible to the original Sauer Opus 650, I needed to determine what equivalent or nearly equivalent stops are available on Fisk Opus 135 and what are not. For this step, Steven Dieck, now president emeritus and chairman of the board of C. B. Fisk, Inc., lent me great support and advice. 

Table of equivalent stops

Manual I (C–f3)

Sauer: Fisk:

16′ Principal—16′ Montre

16′ Bordun —

16′ Gamba —

8′ Principal—8′ Montre

8′ Hohlflöte —

8′ Viola di Gamba—8′ Gambe

8′ Doppelflöte —

8′ Gemshorn—8′ Spire Flute

8′ Traversflöte—8′ Flûte harmonique

8′ Quintatön —

8′ Geigenprincipal —

8′ Gedackt —

5-1⁄3′ Quinte —

4′ Octave—4′ Prestant

4′ Spitzflöte —

4′ Fugara —

4′ Rohrflöte—4′ Chimney Flute

2-2⁄3′ Rauschquinte II —

3-1⁄5′ Gross-Cymbel III —

2′ Piccolo —

Mixture V—Plein jeu harmonique II–VI

Scharf V—Plein jeu VI

Cornett III–V —

16′ Trompete—16′ Trommet

8′ Trompete—8′ Trommet

Manual II (C–f3)

16′ Geigenprincipal —

16′ Bordun—16′ Quintaton

8′ Principal—8′ Principal

8′ Rohrflöte —

8′ Salicional—8′ Viole d’amore

8′ Flûte harmonique —

8′ Spitzflöte —

8′ Harmonika —

8′ Gedackt—8′ Gedackt

8′ Dolce—8′ Flute Celeste

4′ Octave—4′ Octave

4′ Flöte—4′ Hohlflöte

4′ Gemshorn—4′ Violina

4′ Flauto dolce —

2-2⁄3′ Rauschquinte II—2′ Quarte de Nasard

Mixtur IV Mixture IV

Cornett IV —

16′ Fagott—16′ Clarinet

8′ Tuba—8′ Cornopean

8′ Oboë —

Manual III (C–f3, Schwellwerk)

16′ Salicional —

16′ Lieblich Gedackt—16′ Bourdon

8′ Principal—8′ Diapason

8′ Konzertflöte—8′ Flûte traversière

8′ Schalmei —

8′ Lieblich Gedackt—8′ Bourdon

8′ Aeoline —

8′ Voix céleste—8′ Voix céleste

8′ Dulciana—8′ Viole de gambe

4′ Praestant—4′ Dulciane

4′ Traversflöte—4′ Flûte octaviante

4′ Violine —

2-2⁄3′ Gemshornquinte—2-2⁄3′ Nasard

2′ Flautino—2′ Octavin

Harm. aetherea III —

8′ Clarinette —

8′ Vox humana—8′ Voix humaine

Pedal (C–d1)

32′ Contrabass —

32′ Untersatz—32′ Principal

16′ Principal—16′ Montre

16′ Violon —

16′ Subbass—16′ Soubasse

16′ Gemshorn —

16′ Bassflöte—16′ Bourdon (Sw)

10-2⁄3′ Quintbass—10-2⁄3′ Quinte

8′ Oktavbass—8′ Octave

8′ Violoncello—8′ Violoncelle

8′ Gedackt—8′ Bourdon

8′ Viola d’amour—8′ Spire Flute

4′ Flöte—4′ Octave

Cornett III —

32′ Contraposaune—32′ Contre Posaune

16′ Posaune—16′ Posaune

8′ Trompete—8′ Trommet (Gt)

4′ Clairon—4′ Clairon

One will notice that there are a number of stop equivalents missing on Fisk Opus 135 in Auer Hall. To compensate for this, I made some adjustments by using both Swell and Positive expression shoes and using alternative stops case by case in the music.

Apply the stops we have according to the components of the Walze of Sauer Opus 650.

Now we apply the stops one by one with Tables 2.1 and 2.2 (see page 12).

1) Sauer: II/I, III/I, III/II, III/P, 8′ Aeoline (III), 16′ Bassflöte (P); Fisk: II/I, III/I, III/II, III/P, 8′ Viole de gambe (III), 16′ Bourdon (P), both expression boxes shut

2) 8′ Liebl. Gedackt (III); Fisk: 8′ Bourdon (III)

3) 8′ Dolce (II); Fisk: 8′ Flute Celeste II (II)

4) 8′ Gedackt (II), 16′ Subbas (P); Fisk: 8′ Gedackt (II), 16′ Soubasse (P)

5) 8′ Dulciana (III), II/P; Fisk: II/P, 8′ Flute Celeste II (II), open Swell box slightly

6) 8′ Salicional (II); Fisk: 8′ Viole d’amore (II)

7) 8′ Gemshorn (I), 8′ Gedackt (P); Fisk: 8′ Spire Flute (I), 8′ Bourdon (P)

8) 8′ Rohrflöte (II), 16′ Gemshorn (P); Fisk: open Positive box slightly

9) 8′ Spitzflöte (II); Fisk: open Positive box a bit more

10) 8′ Konzertflöte (III); Fisk: 8′ Flûte traversière (III)

For levels 11 through 17, since most of the equivalent stops are missing on Fisk Opus 135, one can open both of the expression boxes up to half to compensate in the crescendo.

11) 8′ Gedackt (I); Fisk: —

12) 8′ Schalmei (III), I/P; Fisk: I/P

13) 8′ Quintatön (I); Fisk: —

14) 8′ Principal (III); Fisk: 8′ Diapason

15) 8′ Hohlflöte (I); Fisk: —

16) 8′ Flute harmonique (II); Fisk: —

17) 8′ Harmonica (II), 16′ Violon (P); Fisk: —

18) 16′ Lieblich Gedackt (III); Fisk: 16′ Bourdon (III)

19) 8′ Principal (II), 8′ Viola d’amour (P); Fisk: 8′ Principal (II), 8′ Spire Flute (P)

20) 8′ Geigenprincipal (I); Fisk: —

21) 8′ Traversflöte (I), 8′ Cello (P); Fisk: 8′ Flûte harmonique (I), 8′ Violoncelle (P)

22) 16′ Bordun (II); Fisk: 16′ Quintaton

23) 8′ Viola di Gamba (I); Fisk: 8′ Gambe

24) 16′ Salicional (III); Fisk: open Swell box slightly

25) 16′ Bordun (I); Fisk: open both boxes slightly more

26) 8′ Principal (I); Fisk: 8′ Montre (I)

27) 8′ Octavbaß (P); Fisk: 8′ Octave (P)

28) 4′ Traversflöte (III); Fisk: 4′ Flûte octaviante (III)

29) 16′ Geigenprincipal (II); Fisk: open Positive box slightly

30) 4′ Flauto dolce (II); Fisk: open Positive box a bit more

31) 16′ Principal (P); Fisk: 16′ Montre (P)

32) 4′ Violine (III); Fisk: open Swell box slightly

33) 8′ Doppelflöte (I); Fisk: open both boxes slightly

34) 4′ Flöte (II); Fisk: 4′ Hohlflöte (II)

35) 4′ Rohrflöte (I); Fisk: 4′ Chimney Flute (I)

36) 4′ Flöte (P); Fisk: 4′ Octave (P)

37) 4′ Gemshorn (II); Fisk: 4′ Violina (II)

38) 16′ Principal (I); Fisk: 16′ Montre (I)

39) 4′ Spitzflöte (I); Fisk: open both boxes slightly

40) 4′ Prästant (III); Fisk: 4′ Dulciane

41) 8′ Doppelflöte (I); Fisk: open both boxes slightly

42) 4′ Octave (II); Fisk: 4′ Octave (II)

43) 4′ Fugara (I); Fisk: open both boxes slightly

44) Gemshornquinte 2-2⁄3′ (III); Fisk: Nasard 2-2⁄3′ (III)

45) 2′ Flautino (III); Fisk: 2′ Octavin (II)

46) 4′ Octave (I); Fisk: 4′ Prestant (I)

47) Quinte 5-1⁄3′ (I); Fisk: fully open Positive box and open Swell box to 90%

48) III Harm. Aetheria (III); Fisk: fully open Swell box

49) 8′ Vox humana (III); Fisk: 8′ Voix humaine (III)

50) 8′ Oboe (II); Fisk: 8′ Hautbois (III)

51) II Rauschquinte (II); Fisk: 2′ Quarte de Nasard (II)

52) II Rauschquinte (I); Fisk: —

53) III Cornett (P); Fisk: —

54) 2′ Piccolo (I); Fisk: 2′ Doublette (I)

55) IV Mixtur (II); Fisk: 2′ Doublette (II)

56) 8′ Trompete (P); Fisk: 8′ Trommet (P)

57) V Mixtur (I); Fisk: II–VI Plein jeu harmonique (I)

58) 10-2⁄3′ Quintbass (P); Fisk: 10-2⁄3′ Quinte (P)

59) V Scharff (I); Fisk: VI Plein jeu (I)

60) 8′ Tuba (II); Fisk: 8′ Cornopean (II)

61) 16′ Fagott (II); Fisk: 16′ Clarinet (II)

62) IV Cornett (II); Fisk: IV Mixture (II)

63) 8′ Clarinette (III); Fisk: —

64) 16′ Posaune (P); Fisk: 16′ Posaune (P)

65) 32′ Untersatz (P); Fisk: 32′ Principal (P)

66) III–V Cornet (I); Fisk: —

67) III Groß Cymbel (I); Fisk: —

68) 8′ Trompete (I) Fisk: 8′ Trommet (I)

69) 16′ Trompete (I); Fisk: 16′ Trommet (I)

70) 32′ Contrabaß (P); Fisk: 16′ Contrebasse (P)

71) 4′ Clairon (P); Fisk: 4′ Clairon (P)

72) 32′ Contraposaune (P); Fisk: 32′ Contre Posaune (P)

73) Octavkoppel; Fisk: Octaves graves coupler

Regarding the couplers, I followed Reger’s original indications in the score, since organs by different builders have different Walze components. The coupler indications included in the Walze vary from instrument to instrument. For example, the Walze components list of the Ladegast organ in the cathedral of Schwerin, Germany, does not have any coupler indications, although one can assume all couplers must have been on from the beginning.17 On the other hand, there may be opposite cases as well.18

Here I provide some excerpts with explanations:

In Example 2, I have marked with red circles the coupler indications (K=koppel) that are designated by Reger. The opening registration includes only the II/P and III/P pedal couplers. At più fff, one adds I/P, following the indication. The Walze levels I chose here are 65, 68, and 72 for each step of greater dynamics, starting from fff to Org Pl. Since Org Pl represents the highest dynamic level in this piece, I applied level 72 for whenever one sees that dynamic level indication. (Level 72 is the second highest dynamic in the Walze, and the highest level 73 is achieved by adding the octaves graves coupler. I have reserved this for the end of the fugue.) Since Reger uses the fff indication frequently, I used level 65 as a guide for level number mapping.

In this section, there are dynamic levels from Org Pl to fff to pppp in four measures. Just as at the beginning, I have set level 65 as fff and level 72 as Org Pl. Since both the crescendo and decrescendo do not have much room for gradual increase or decrease of the sound, I have set the goal for each end first and filled in with the Walze level with most appropriate octave levels (16′, 8′, 4′, 2′). For example, since I wanted to create the softest sound at the end of measure 10 (Example 3), I set level 2 with the Swell box closed. In the beginning of measure 10, there is an indication of ppp with nur 8′, meaning only 8′ pitch stops. So I located level 17 there, which is the highest Walze level without any pitches other than 8′ for the manuals. However, I did not always follow Reger’s octave indications. For example, in the beginning of measure 11, he indicated +4′, but I decided not to follow that immediately since the dynamic gap between level 2 with box closed versus +4′, which is level 28, is too great and sounds abrupt. Instead, I used level 18 in the beginning of the bar, and as I open the Swell box gradually, go to level 28, which is the first level that includes a 4′ stop. Again, the goal of this crescendo is toward fff at the end of the measure, which is level 65, so I tried to fill in the levels between as smoothly as possible by using both logical thinking of octave doubling included in the levels and using my own ears to experiment in Auer Hall through repeated playing.

Regarding the pedal couplers, although I followed Reger’s indications by taking them off one by one toward ppp in measure 10 in the first half of the excerpt, I decided to add III/P once we start the crescendo in measure 11, so the pedal line can also make a crescendo as I open the Swell box. This particular spot in the piece offers several interesting challenges for registration. From the middle of measure 24 to the beginning of measure 25 (Example 4), there is a decrescendo from Org Pl to p in a very short span. This type of crescendo or decrescendo is found frequently in Reger’s music, which can be effectively performed by using the Rollschweller or the Walze concept. For the sake of practicality, instead of using all levels from 72 to 41, I chose nine levels to make it work effectively to my ears. I have located the numbers mostly on beats and more frequently towards the end of the decrescendo.

Other interesting elements in this section are the dynamic, manual, and coupler indications in measure 25. There is +I/P indicated on the third beat, but the same coupler is to be taken off on the next beat. Also, the decrescendo indication is written from p towards the third beat, which is ff. Although they all seem to be Reger’s original indications since this information may be found in the manuscript, first printing, and current edition, after conducting several experiments, I made the decision not to make any specific registration change nor use an expression shoe, but only to create a dynamic change by following the manual change indication.

Conclusion

One of the greatest challenges in performing the organ music of Max Reger is developing an approach to registration. I have focused on this, beginning with a study of a historically informed disposition of the Sauer organ, Opus 650, on which Reger’s opus 46 was premiered. I paid particular attention to the components of the Walze for Sauer Opus 650 as a strategy for registration. This was the key for understanding what the music was expected to sound like.

The characteristic of the crescendo created by the Walze runs through an enormous range of soft registrations from pppp to p, which matched Reger’s own sound world as exemplified by contemporary descriptions19 of his piano playing. The wide variety of soft registrations in this Sauer Walze encourages us to pay close attention to the shaping of Reger’s softer dynamics in all of his organ music, not only opus 46.

Using the dynamic profile suggested by the Sauer Walze, we can begin to imagine how we might register Reger’s organ music on contemporary American instruments. In contrast to the example of the high German Romantic instruments, many American instruments do not have quite the same range of softer stops. It would seem that the breadth of soft stops in these German instruments is greater than what is found in most organbuilding traditions. In the process of providing a model of the Sauer Walze for Fisk Opus 135 in Auer Hall, I undertook certain adjustments using Swell and Positive expression shoes to fill in the gaps to mimic the long, finely graded crescendo from pppp to p. Using this construction and closely reading Reger’s dynamics and coupler indications enabled me to create a reasonable replication of a German Romantic instrument. I hope this exercise will provide a useful approach for others undertaking this extensive work. This approach can also underlie registration interpretations for other works by Reger and potentially other composers such as Franz Liszt, Julius Reubke, and Franz Schmidt, whose music dynamics are indicated in a similar manner and whose music was performed on similar instruments.

Notes

1. Material shared by Christian Scheffler and his colleagues via email, January 5, 2021.

2. Christian Scheffler Orgelwerkstatt website, orgelwerkstatt.de.

3. Christopher Anderson, Max Reger and Karl Straube: Perspectives on an Organ Performing Tradition (Aldershot, Hants, England: 2003), 29–30. 

4. Ibid., 360.

5. Jon Laukvik and Christopher Anderson, trans., Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing, Part 2: The Romantic Period (Stuttgart: Carus Verlag, 2010), 158–159.

6. Kouga Higashiyama, “Study of Max Reger’s Performance Style as a ‘Pianist’ by the Analysis of his Concert Reviews コンサートレビューの分析による「ピアニスト」マックス・レーガーの演奏スタイル研究” (DMA diss., Kyoto University of the Arts, 2018), 52–61. The author identifies the following as his original source: Ottmar Schreiber and Ingeborg Schreiber, Rezensionen, Max Reger in seinen Konzerten, Teil 3 (Bonn: Dümmler,1981).

7. Ibid., 25.

8. Ibid., 43–53. 「柔らかなタッチ」「ピアノから歌を意のままに引き出すピアニスト」「声楽家にぴったりと寄り添う心のこもった伴奏」「とても持続力のある ausdauernd タッチ」.

9. Ibid., 50–53. 「極端なピアニッシモ」「ほとんど絶え間なくピアニッシモを崇拝し続けるせいで和声の土台が聞き取れず」「どんなに注意を集中していても全く何も聞こえなかったり、あるいはあまり に小さく不明瞭で、歌のパートが和声の支えも全く無く、ただただ空中に漂っているように聞こえたりす ることがしばしばあったからだ。」.

10. Ibid., 58. 「今や指揮者としての解釈でも、同様の繊細さや確実さを示している。ここでも、彼がしばしば神秘的なピアニッシモへ没入することを好んでいるのが目立つ。しかしこれは彼が効果を求め ているのではなく、彼の魂に備わった特別な素質なのだ。」.

11. Ibid., 58. 「揺るぎないアンサンブル——ビューローによってその基盤が築かれた——は、そのピアニッシモの音質が既にレーガーの特質を完全に備えている一方で、どれほど柔軟になっても、決し て崩れるような素振りを見せなかった。レーガーのピアノ伴奏の静かな夢想のように、柔らかく繊細に響 く。」.

12. Ibid., 52.   「レーガーが魅力的なピアニストだということは確実だ。彼のピアニッシモの香りには魔力があり、フォルティッシモの力は、騒がしくなることなく、オーケストラの勢いを備えている。」. 

13. Ibid., 52. 「彼はただ鍵盤に指を載せさえすればよい、そうすれば柔らかく充実した音が空間に響く。とても柔らかなピアニッシモでは生き生きと、歌うように。活気のあるフォルティッシモでは満 ち足りた心地よい音が。」.

14. Ottmar Schreiber and Ingeborg Schreiber, Rezensionen, Max Reger in seinen Konzerten, Teil 3 (Bonn: Dümmler, 1981), 330.

15. Jon Laukvik and Christopher Anderson, trans., Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing, Part 2: The Romantic Period (Stuttgart: Carus Verlag, 2010), 258, 289, 304–305. 

16. Email exchanges with Christopher Anderson.

17. Jon Laukvik and Christopher Anderson, trans., Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing, Part 2: The Romantic Period (Stuttgart: Carus Verlag, 2010), 158.

18. The degree to which a Walze or crescendo shoe can be reconfigured after the installation of the instrument may be variable. But for the purposes of this research project, I am working with the Walze list provided to me by the restorer of the instrument in question.

19. Kouga Higashiyama, “Study of Max Reger’s Performance Style as a ‘Pianist’ by the Analysis of his Concert Reviews コンサートレビューの分析による「ピアニスト」マックス・レーガーの演奏スタイル研究” (DMA diss., Kyoto University of the Arts, 2018), 50–58.

Bibliography

Literature:

Alain, Olivier, Masayoshi Nagatomi, and Masayoshi Ninomiya. The History of Harmony. Tokyo: Hakusui Publisher, 1969.

Anderson, Christopher. Max Reger and Karl Straube: Perspectives on an Organ Performing Tradition. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Limited, 2003.

———, ed. and trans. Selected Writings of Max Reger. New York: Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 2006.

Busch, Hermann J. “Die Orgelwelt Max Regers.” In Zur Interpretation der Orgelmusik Max Regers, edited by Hermann J. Busch, 6–28. Kassel: Verlag Merseburger Berlin GmbH, 1988.

Cadenbach, Rainer. Max Reger und seine Zeit. Regensburg: Laaber, 1991.

Falkenberg, Hans-Joachim. Der Orgelbauer Wilhelm Sauer, 1831–1916: Leben und Werk. Lauffen: Orgelbau Fachverlag Rensch, 1990.

Hayashi, Tatsuya. New Harmonies. Tokyo: Altes Publishing, 2015.

von Hase-Koehler, Else. Max Reger—Briefe eines deutschen Meisters: Ein Lebensbild des Musikers und Komponisten. Leipzig: Kohler & Amelang, 1928.

Laukvik, Jon. Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing, Part 2: The Romantic Period. Translated by Christopher Anderson. Stuttgart: Carus Verlag, 2010. 

Piston, Walter, and Mark DeVoto. Harmony. 5th ed. New York: Norton, 1987.

Popp, Susanne, ed. Der junge Reger: Briefe und Dokumente vor 1900. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 2000.

———, ed. Max Reger: Briefe die Verleger Lauterbach & Kuhn, Teil 1. Bonn:
Dümmlers Verlag, 1993.

Reger, Elsa. Mein Leben mit und für Max Reger. Leipzig: Koehler und Amelang Verlag, 1930.

Reger, Max. Beiträge zur Modulations lehre von Max Reger. Frankfurt: C. F.
Kahnt, 1904.

Schreiber, Ingeborg, and Ottmar Schreiber (ed.). Rezensionen: Max Reger in seinen Konzerten, Teil 3. Bonn: Dümmler, 1981.

Stein, Fritz Wilhelm. Max Reger/von Prof. Dr. Fritz Stein. Potsdam: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1939.

Tournemire, Charles. Précis D’éxécution: De Registration Et D’improvisation à L’orgue. Paris: M. Eschig, 1936.

Wünsch, Christoph. Phantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H für Orgel op. 46 von Max Reger. Motivische, harmonische und formale Disposition Festschrift für Susanne Popp. Reger-Studien No.7. Stuttgart: Carus-Verlag, 2004.

Dissertations:

Adams, David. “‘Modern’ Organ Style in Karl Straube’s Reger Editions.” Ph.D. diss., Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, 2007.

Anderson, Christopher. “Reger, Straube, and the Leipzig School’s Tradition of Organ Pedagogy, 1898–1948.” Ph. D. diss., Duke University, 1999.

Harrison, Daniel. “A Theory of Harmonic and Motivic Structure for the Music of Max Reger.” Ph.D. diss., Yale University, 1986.

Higashiyama, Kouga. “Study of Max Reger’s Performance Style as a ‘Pianist’ by the Analysis of his Concert Reviews.” DMA diss., Kyoto University of the Arts, 2018.

Kim, Sung Joo. “Max Reger’s Symphonische Fantasie und Fuge, Op. 57: A Study of Thematic and Harmonic Structure and Issues of Performance Practice.” DMA diss., University of Washington, 2012.

Schaffer, Mark Andrew. “The Use of Variation Principle in the Works of Max Reger.” Ph.D. diss., University of Cincinnati, 1989.

Smith, Jane Ann. “The Relationship of Max Reger’s Beitrage zur Modulationslehre to His Establishment of Tonality in Representative Organ Works.” DMA diss., University of Arizona, 2002.

Journal articles:

Anderson, Christopher. “Max Reger as ‘Master Organist’? What we think and what we know,” RCO Journal 9 (London, United Kingdom: 2015), 18–45. i.rco.org.uk/rco-journal-volume-9-2015.

Bruggaier, Eduard. “Helmut Walcha und Max Regers Orgelmusik: Eine vorsichtige Korrektur.” Ars organi: Internationale Zeitschrift für das Orgelwesen 55, no. 3 (September 2007): 167–179.

Mead, Andrew. “Listening to Reger.” The Musical Quarterly 87, no. 4 (Winter 2004): 681–707.

———. “Cultivating an Air: Natural Imagery and Music Making.” Perspectives of New Music 52, no. 2 (2014): 98–99, doi.org/10.7757/persnewmusi.52.2.0091.

Scores:

Liszt, Franz. Sämtlich Orgelwerke, Band 2. Edited by Martin Haselböck. Wien: Universal Edition, 1984.

Reger, Max, Alexander Becker, Christopher Grafschmidt, Stefan König, and Stefanie Steiner-Grage. Phantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H, opus 46. Stuttgart: Carus, 2014.

Reger, Max, Dean Billmeyer, and Christopher Anderson. An Introduction to the Organ Music of Max Reger. Colfax, NC: Wayne Leupold Editions, 2016.

Reger, Max, and Gerard Alphenaar. Fantasia and Fugue On B-A-C-H. New York, NY: Edward B. Marks Music Corp., 1957.

Reger, Max. Choralfantaseien nach der Reger Gesamtausgbe (Hans Klotz) durchgesehen Von Martin Weyer: mit einer Einführung von Hans Haselböck. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1989.

———. Chorwerke a cappella; revised by Hermann Grabner Gruppenleiter. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel,1961.

———. “Fantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H, opus 46.” Selected organ works. Tokyo: Ongakuno tomo, 1990–1994.

———. Fantasie und Fuge über Den Namen Bach / Fantasia and Fugue On the Name Bach: Opus 46, Organo Solo. Wien: Universal Edition, 1928.

———. Phantasie und Fuge Für Orgel über B-A-C-H, Opus 46: Faksimile des Autographs. Wien: Universal Edition, 1984.

———. Phantasien und Fugen, Variationen, Sonaten, Suiten: I. Edited by Alexander Becker. Stuttgart: Carus-Verlag, 2011.

———. Phantasien und Fugen; Introduction, Variationen und Fuge: op. 73; Introduktion, Passacaglia und Fuge: op. 127. nach der Reger-Gesamtausgbe. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel,1987.

———. Quintett für Klavier, 2 Violinen, Viola und Violoncello, Op. 64. Liepzig: C. F. Peters, 1987.

———. Sämtliche Werke. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1954.

———. Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 132. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf und Härtel,1958.

———. Werke für klavier zweihändig. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1957–1965.

———. Zwei Romanzen, Op. 50, für Violien und Kleines Orchester. Munchen: Hoflich, 2000.

———. Zwölf Stücke. Op. 59, nach der Reger-Gesamtausgbe. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel, 1987.

Schumann, Robert. Werke für Orgel oder Pedalklavier. Edited by Gerhard Weinberger. Detmold: G Henle Verlag 1986.

Tournemire, Charles, and Maurice Duruflé. Cinq Improvisations Pour Orgue. Paris: Durand, 1958.

Unpublished Paper (shared by the author):

Mead, Andrew. “Max Reger and the Art of Variation.” Presented at Indiana University, Jacobs School of Music, Theory Colloquium, 2017.

Online sources:

Nagley, Judith and Martin Anderson, “Reger, Max.” In Grove Music Online, Oxford University Press, 2001–. Accessed August 10, 2021. doiorg.proxyiub.uits.iu.edu/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.23064.

“Curriculum Vitae,” Max Reger Institut, accessed June 20, 2020. max-reger-institut.de/en/max-reger/curriculum-vitae.

“The Circle of Fifth,” Soundfly, accessed August 10, 2020. flypaper.soundfly.com/write/how-the-circle-of-fifths-can-help-your-songwriting.

“Max Reger Chronology,” Max Reger Institut, accessed August 4, 2021, max-reger-institut.de/media/max-regerchronologie.pdf.

“1884/1995 E. F. Walcker & Cie/Eule Organ,” Organ Art Library, accessed August 10, 2021, organartmedia.com/en/callido/83.html#consoles.

Click here for a recording of Yumiko Tatsuta’s performance of Max Reger’s Phantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H in Auer Hall.

Ludger Lohmann

As one of the most renowned organ virtuosos and organ pedagogues Ludger Lohmann has exerted a lasting influence on organ culture. His career as a recitalist, which has brought him to many churches, cathedrals, and concert halls all over the world, started with awards at important international competitions, such as the competition of the German Broadcasting Corporation in Munich 1979 and the Grand Prix de Chartres 1982.

Born in Herne, Germany, in 1954 he studied organ with Wolfgang Stockmeier and harpsichord with Hugo Ruf at Cologne Musikhochschule. While writing a musicological doctoral thesis on “Articulation on Keyboard Instruments of the 16.–18. Centuries,” he received important artistic stimuli from Anton Heiller in Vienna and Marie-Claire Alain in Paris. The dedication to this artistic legacy motivated him to regard his own pedagogical work as equally important in his recitalist career. In more than forty years, first at Cologne Musikhochschule, and since 1983 as professor at Stuttgart Musikhochschule, he has educated numerous talented young organists from all over the world, many of whom are now doing remarkable artistic and pedagogical work themselves. A central concern was always striving for an interpretation of musical works according to the stylistic conventions of the times of their origin, departing from the insights gathered in his doctoral dissertation, which became standard reading, and later broadened by many publications concerning the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Musically they are documented in his numerous CD recordings.

His artistic and pedagogical impact has led Ludger Lohmann throughout the world as guest professor, teacher of masterclasses, and jury member of international competitions. He was part of the organ research project GOArt of Göteborg University as senior researcher. As organ consultant he has led organbuilding and restoration projects in several countries. To honor his manifold activities the British Royal College of Organists awarded him its first honors medal. In 2023 he received the prestigious German “Prize of European Church Music.”

Editor’s note: the scores to works mentioned in this article may be found online for free access.

Max Reger, Zwölf Stücke, opus 59

Reger, Introduction, Passacaglia, und Fugue in E Minor, opus 127

Reger, Fantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H, opus 46

Reger, Organ Sonata No. 2, opus 60

Franz Liszt, Präludium und Fuge über B-A-C-H, S. 260

J. S. Bach, Fantasia and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 542

The sesquicentennial of the birth of Max Reger (1873–1916) has given new life to the reception of his enormous oeuvre. Among the many works of this astonishingly productive composer, only the organ pieces—the number and importance of which are rivaled only by Johann Sebastian Bach’s organ works—have enjoyed a constant presence in public concerts. This fact is not the least due to the efforts of Karl Straube (1873–1950), Reger’s closest friend and arguably his most important advocate during his short life. As the most influential German organ pedagogue of the first half of the twentieth century, Straube motivated generations of the most talented young German organists to become avid Reger performers. Their influence, in turn, can still be felt today particularly regarding certain parameters of Reger performance, since they tended to emulate Straube’s teaching method, which relied heavily on the principle of copying the master, usually starting to learn a new piece by literally copying all indications (fingering, articulation, and phrasing) from the teacher’s personal copy. Thus many details of Straube’s personal performance style, which sometimes are not consistent with Reger’s own indications, are still firmly entrenched in what might be called mainstream Reger performance practice. Straube’s students never, at least not in principle, questioned their validity but regarded them with a kind of Biblical faith, given the fact that Reger always heaped high praise on his friend’s performances of his music.

Straube’s ideas became a second layer of performance indications, sometimes overriding those given by the composer. As the authority that he was in German organ culture, Straube might even have contributed inadvertently or intentionally to the canonization of his ideas. We will never know whether Reger, in cases of conflicting indications, really preferred Straube’s ideas over his own. This must remain in doubt, particularly since Straube did not preserve Reger’s letters from the Weiden years, i.e., Reger’s most productive period regarding organ music, ostensibly because he did not want future generations to get an insight into an intimate exchange touching many aspects of the genesis of Reger’s music—possibly also not due to potential disagreements on matters not only of composition but also of performance practice.

In his monumental doctoral dissertation, “Reger, Straube, and the Leipzig school’s tradition of organ pedagogy: 1898–1948,”¹ Christopher Anderson has described the Straube-Reger relationship with its many positive but also problematic aspects in detail. The new and definitive biography Max Reger: Werk Statt Leben² by Susanne Popp touches this subject only briefly. Some basic problems of Straube’s style of Reger performance have been commented upon by Wolfgang Stockmeier in a volume, Max Reger 1873–1973—Ein Symposion,³ published on the occasion of Reger’s 100th birthday. Some of Stockmeier’s observations will be further developed in the present article, the aim of which is not in the first place to criticize Straube but to point out some very common clichés of present-day Reger performance, some—but certainly not all—of which might have originated in Straube’s practices. These practices can be learned from Straube’s editions of some Reger pieces published during the composer’s lifetime and also from listening to recordings made by some of Straube’s students.

When looking at the editions, some blatant contradictions, particularly regarding dynamics and agogics, can be noted. They expose some fundamental differences of opinion about how to deal with certain musical phenomena like the preparation of a culmination point. Here the name of Hugo Riemann (1849–1919), the most influential German music theorist of the late Romantic period and Reger’s composition teacher, comes into play.⁴ Reger very closely adheres to Riemann’s performance recipes, which can be found in his various treatises,⁵ whereas Straube, while generally being in agreement with Riemann’s theories, sometimes appears to come from a different school of thought. The fact that a performer would change a composer’s detailed performance indications in an edition of his own seems almost unthinkable today, but was all too common a century ago.

Certainly Straube’s aim in the first place was to make some of Reger’s best-known pieces more accessible; he might even have seen a justification for his interventions in Reger’s compositional process, or at least in his way of preparing a final fair copy of his works as the basis for an edition. Reger first wrote the musical text proper in black ink and later added all instructions pertaining to performance in red ink. Of course, it would be naive to assume that the genesis of a piece’s overall musical structure did not already include at least a rough concept of dynamics and movement, but details were probably determined only during this late “red ink stage,” thus easily leading to the impression that they were accessories rather than essential elements of the composition.

As a concert organist who has regularly played Reger’s works all over the world throughout a fifty-year career, I had many opportunities to observe typical problems of the reception of Reger’s music, problems that might have led a majority of colleagues mainly in English- and French-speaking countries to reject this music altogether. According to my experience the single biggest problem, apart from listeners’ difficulties of following Reger’s often over-complex musical textures, is what I would call a lack of coherence. This is first of all due to Reger’s tendency to compose free works like preludes or fantasias in a patchwork style: rather short musical phrases in certain textures are separated from each other by concluding chords. Even when the player goes from one passage to the next in an organic way by letting the listener feel a continuous metrical flow (albeit shaped by rubato twists and turns), the danger is that the piece falls apart, the all-too-frequent “stop and go” effect, tiring the listener and preventing an effective emotional buildup.

“Toccata in D Minor,” opus 59 (Zwölf Stücke), number 5

Looking at “Toccata in D Minor,” opus 59 (Zwölf Stücke), number 5, will illustrate this problem.⁶ The first part of this short tripartite composition consists of only twenty measures that contain, depending on how one counts, between four (in measures 4, 7, 15, and 20) and seven (the additional ones in measures 10, 11, and 12) such subdivisions. If the dynamic culminations in Organo Pleno reached at the end of all of the dynamic waves always starting at ff are any clue Reger would have regarded measure 12 as one of the important breaks in spite of the fact that the sixteenth-note triplet movement continues. Among the four clear breaks, all indicated by a large quarter-note chord, the one in measure 20 is marked by a fermata, the one in measure 4 by a fermata with the word kurz, or short. The other two breaks do not bear any indication. The common way of realizing these four transitions, experienced in dozens of performances by students and competition participants without exception, is holding the respective chords for about two beats instead of one as notated. While this is obviously acceptable for the chords marked by a fermata it is clearly not correct in the other two cases.

Apart from the resulting lack of stringency there is a consequence for the dynamic perception of harmonies, which prevents the buildup of tension as probably intended by Reger. The A-major seventh chord in measure 7 is followed by a D-minor harmony on the next beat, by the way a harmonic concept (a traditional dominant-tonic cadence) that Reger employs in a vast majority of formal transitions, even major ones (see measures 20–21: the B-major dominant seventh chord in measure 20 is followed by an E-minor harmony implied at the beginning of the soft middle section of the piece). Since the A-major seventh chord is in an accentuated metrical position (beat 3), holding it for a half note will inevitably give the ensuing D-minor harmony a metrical accent, particularly if the player gives it a strong dose of initially hesitating rubato, a gradual speeding up, with the aim of making his performance expressive.

Both player and listener are satisfied with an accent on the tonic, which might be the reason for this metrical misreading in the first place. If, however, the A-major chord is given its proper value, the D-minor harmony can be perceived as an upbeat to the much more interesting chord on the following beat 1, which consists of a double suspension (B sharp and D sharp) before an A-major sixth chord, thus keeping up the harmonic tension of the A-major seventh chord in measure 7 by preventing the succession of A major and D minor to be perceived as a definite cadence. It goes without saying that this is extremely consequential with regard to the perception of form, in other words to coherence or a lack thereof. The situation in measure 15 is different but comparable: the F-major 3-4 chord is continued chromatically by the implied bass line of the ensuing broken chords.

The question is why Reger notated fermatas in measures 4 and 20, but not in 7 and 15. The answer for measure 20 is clear: in measure 21 the middle section of the piece starts. In measure 4 the fermata marks an E-major chord that is followed by a new statement of the toccata’s opening passage in A minor, the dominant. This fact gives the E-major chord a higher formal relevance than the chords in measures 7 and 15, but not of the same degree as in measure 20, which is why Reger cautioned the player with kurz in measure 4. Since the opening passage starts on beat 4 (and should consequently be played with an upbeat feeling, not easy to achieve particularly when too much initial rubato is involved, as is very common) the “short” fermata should still allow the listener to perceive the value of the E-major chord as one (quarter note) beat in order to maintain the upbeat feeling for the new beginning. Even in measure 20 it is to be recommended to keep the B-major chord only for one beat (albeit somewhat longer than the E-major chord in measure 4, by means of a larger ritardando preparation) in order to clarify its upbeat metrical position.

This upbeat position, the first of its kind after so many seemingly comparable chords concluding phrases in downbeat positions, is undoubtedly a formal ploy to bridge the most incisive formal transition of the whole piece, another example of Reger striving for formal coherence.

“Benedictus,” opus 59 (Zwölf Stücke), number 9

It should by now be clear that Reger’s notation of transitional places is by no means accidental but highly differentiated and precisely responding to the formal structure. The question is now whether the consequences for the dynamic or metrical perception of harmonies were also on his mind. This can be answered more easily by looking at the equally famous “Benedictus” from the same collection, opus 59, number 9.

This piece is based on two motives, both exposing the interval of a fourth, the second of which outlining the fugue subject (which could easily be sung to “Hosanna in excelsis”) with two ascending fourths, the first with two descending fourths, thus probably meant to be the inverted idea. In its first appearance with the notes D flat, A natural, B flat, F, it enters three times alla stretta, the entrances always coinciding with the fourth note of the preceding entrance. As a consequence the entrances occur on different beats of the first two measures: 1, 4, and 3. The listener might be misled into assuming that the piece is in 3/4 rather than in the 4/4 that Reger notated. Another misunderstanding—this will immediately show its relevance—is that the listener will understand the first two notes as C sharp and A, i.e., a falling major third in A major.

This strange opening has to be viewed in light of Riemann’s teachings. Riemann develops his ideas about the dynamics of phrases, so crucial for his theories, starting with motives of two or three notes.⁷ According to his principles static dynamics are unthinkable: a melodic line always moves either in crescendo or decrescendo. Accordingly a two-note motive can be crescendo or decrescendo.⁸ For a three-note motive there is a third possibility: first crescendo, then decrescendo9 (the fourth theoretically possible variant, decrescendo-crescendo, is not really considered). This is also his favorite dynamic shape for any musical phrase: starting with a crescendo, which leads to a dynamic climax, then relaxation in decrescendo. Though Riemann generally opposes the late Baroque system of metrically oriented accentuation he still maintains the primate of beat one, in his musical examples always placing the dynamic climax on beat one. Hence we may assume that Reger’s dynamic thinking also respects bar lines.

This explains the opening of the “Benedictus.” Reger’s intention probably is to present his central motive in various possible dynamic shapes: the first entrance is thought decrescendo throughout. This can easily be accepted by the listener who de facto hears a falling major third.

The problem here is that the player knows that this interval is supposed to be a diminished fourth, and that the second note is longer than the first, so he will intuitively intend these two notes rather to be felt as a crescendo. In fact a trained ear can identify the player’s respective intention. The motive’s second entrance places the first note in an upbeat position, leading to the second note in crescendo. The third entrance uses still another option: here the dynamic climax is meant to be on the tied-over part of the second note. Since this is not really communicable on the organ Reger employs the swellbox, ending the crescendo sign exactly at the bar line and thus underlining the harmonic tension of the chord on the following beat one, which converts the originally consonant A natural into a dissonant suspension.

According to general compositional principles the moment has come where the composer should change the motive at the very latest: the fourth entrance starts one note higher on E flat, and thus is the loudest entrance. (Note that in the final short part of the piece, in measure 51, the corresponding entrance on the high E flat arrives after the swellbox has been closed, another dynamic-motivic refinement!) Straube¹⁰ displaces the dynamic indications: his crescendo sign starts not on the first note of the third entrance (D flat), but on the second, and continues till the end of the following measure, resulting in a dynamic climax on the first beat of measure 4 on a totally consonant B-flat major chord. He obviously did not see the refinement of Reger’s dynamic strategy and probably also did not understand Reger’s intention to present the motive in three different dynamic versions, an intention very essential to late Romantic musical thinking.

The first appearance in this piece of a solo line on the second manual (measure 8, beat 3) reveals another misreading of Reger’s intentions: Reger continues a diminuendo throughout the first solo notes, which start in a tonality of D major, finishing it on the lowest note of the solo when the tonality has returned to the tonic of D flat (measure 9, beat 4). Straube, however, lets the solo line begin at the end of a diminuendo, which on the first glimpse seems to be more convincing, but Reger’s concept is clearly motivated by considerations both melodic and harmonic and thus certainly more logical from a composer’s perspective.

This excursion into the “Benedictus” was supposed to demonstrate Reger’s refined dynamic intentions and to underscore the importance of playing the transition in measure 7 of the “Toccata” in a metrically correct way. In his edition¹¹ Straube does not add a fermata to the respective A-major chord, but his rallentando covering the first three beats of this measure and the sudden dynamic drop from forte to piano (including switching to another combination and moving back the Rollschweller device quite considerably), which he prescribes, clearly result in an interruption of the metric flow. The same can be said about the transition in measure 13: whereas Reger goes from Organo Pleno to a mere meno ff Straube goes from fff to p. Additionally already in measure 10 he prescribes Sostenuto, eighth note equals 84, and ritenuto in measure 12, thus probably resulting in a tempo only half of the initial eighth note equals 120, which he again suddenly prescribes in the middle of measure 12. This is obviously not the uninterrupted flow of sixteenth-note triplets, which is implied in Reger’s notation, but a clear break.

It might be said in defense of Straube’s apparent handling of these transitions that it separates sections and thus clarifies the structure of the piece very efficiently. However, the question is whether Reger’s way of writing is not structurally clear enough anyway, even considering possible acoustic issues with reverberation, which should be negligible in light of the limited dynamic contrasts, except for measures 20–21.

Looking into a piece by a different composer will show a similar problem. In Straube’s edition of some of the major organ works by Franz Liszt¹² the diminished seventh chord at the end of measure 12 in Präludium und Fuge über B-A-C-H is enlarged from six to eight notes, followed by a manual change,¹³ implying a break between this seventh chord and the ensuing sixth chord of G-flat major. This is a crucial moment in the piece that may be interpreted as a reference to a strikingly similar harmonic adventure in measures 20–21 of Bach’s Fantasia in G Minor, BWV 542i. Since this harmonic progression is a correct but totally unexpected resolution of the seventh chord it is important for the player to present the seventh chord as leading to the following chord. Liszt’s notation of a fermata on the sixteenth-note rest on beat one probably intends to give the listener a moment to digest the surprise, and Bach’s soprano tie across the bar line clearly aims to connect the chords.

It thus appears that Straube’s style of performance had a tendency of accentuating formal incisions of a piece rather than bridging them for the sake of holding together larger sections or the piece as a whole. Whether the motivation for this is purely musical or the result of resignation in the face of technically difficult registration manipulations (some of these self-inflicted by his disrespect for the composer’s dynamic indications) is impossible to decide.

Returning to Reger’s “Toccata in D Minor,” looking at the final two pages will reveal another problem with respect to Straube’s treatment of the musical form, but even more with respect to what might be called the emotional curve. Reger marks the broken-chord passage starting in measure 29 stringendo. The latter continues up to the A-major 6/5 chord in measure 33, which is followed by a dynamic drop to meno ff and an ensuing diminuendo until measure 35. In the middle of measure 35, while the chordal sequence of measures 33–35 still continues for a half measure, Reger turns the diminuendo into a crescendo, thus dynamically bridging the transition to a totally different figurative pattern.

Straube’s concept of the same passages is drastically different. Instead of an accelerando he prescribes an allargando; instead of meno ff plus diminuendo in measure 33 he prescribes pp and then a sudden and quick crescendo starting in measure 36. While on the first glimpse his solution seems to be more convincing than Reger’s rather surprising, in fact counterintuitive one, a second look leads to the conclusion that Reger’s concept might actually be considered artistically superior, at least more interesting, since instead of underlining the formal incisions it rather blurs them, resulting in a far more stringent ending of the piece.

The arpeggiando passage is not majestic (Straube writes sostenuto plus ritenuto) but breathless, the A-major 6/5 chord does not become an opportunity for a satisfied rest (Straube gives it a fermata), but spills over its accumulated energy into the ensuing chordal passage, which because of its falling bass line should rather be diminuendo, during which this energy is gradually spent. Obviously this concept is much more dramatic than Straube’s; it also shows a clear intention to keep the whole third part of “Toccata” coherent.¹⁴

“Kyrie,” opus 59 (Zwölf Stücke), number 7

In replacing Reger’s stringendo of measures 29–33 with sostenuto/ritenuto Straube shows an attitude toward preparing a dynamic climax that is fundamentally opposed to Reger’s own. In fact he seems to adhere to a different school of thought in this respect since he does exactly the same thing in measures 17–18 and 31–32 of “Kyrie,” opus 59, number 7, and in measures 41–46 of “Benedictus,” or in a totally different musical situation, in measures 35 and 98 of the first movement of Reger’s Second Organ Sonata, opus 60, where the crescendo and accelerando of the short transition between what might be called the second and third main thematic ideas is replaced by diminuendo and ritardando, separating the respective sections rather than connecting them as is clearly Reger’s aim.¹⁵ Reger follows his teacher Riemann’s recipe: a crescendo is naturally accompanied by an accelerando (correspondingly a diminuendo by a ritardando);¹⁶ a dynamic climax is reached with an accelerando, holding back the tempo briefly on the climax itself before the energy is released a tempo, the ensuing diminuendo eventually accompanied by a ritardando.¹⁷ Straube’s approach can be found in some late Romantic organ treatises, for example, Karl Matthaei, who states that an agogic dwelling causes an increase of intensity; when playing in forte registration it may even been extended to longer stretches.¹⁸

Perhaps this fundamentally different approach to presenting climactic moments of a composition reveals differences between the respective personalities: Reger’s radical, dramatic pushing forward versus Straube’s more civilized (if not to say more bourgeois), relaxed basking in a glowing Organo Pleno sound.

Passacaglia in E Minor, opus 127, and Fantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H, opus 46

Different opinions about separation/contrast versus blending/overlapping may occasionally work the other way. In measure 64 of Passacaglia in E Minor, opus 127, Reger originally closed a variation in diminuendo and pp and abruptly began the new variation in f, as can be seen in his extant autograph manuscript. The first edition, which was already informed or influenced by Straube’s first performance of this work, commissioned for the inauguration of the world’s then largest organ, built by W. Sauer Orgelbau of Frankfurt/Oder, in the Breslau (Wrocław) Jahrhunderthalle on September 24, 1913, replaces this dynamic contrast by a more modest beginning of the new variation in p;¹⁹ again an example of Straube’s diplomatic mollifying of an emanation of his friend’s more radical personality?

The comparison of autograph manuscript and first edition of opus 127 sheds light on a possible practical explanation of some of the two men’s differing opinions. The original tempo indication for the fugue was quarter note equals 66–84. The first edition indicates eighth note equals 116–132. Though the two indications meet at 66/132 (actually a fairly realistic tempo), the edition’s indication is generally considerably slower. This, however, is not the main point. When listening to performances of the piece it can usually be recognized whether the player feels a quarter-note or an eighth-note pulse, in the latter case resulting in a loss of the dance-like character probably on Reger’s mind, even when there is not a large difference in metronomic tempo. Considering the fact that Straube had to learn this long and difficult piece on rather short notice it may very well be that his studies were in a phase when he was still thinking in an eighth-note pulse, as would be typical for a player facing such a daunting task. The player’s way of thinking will affect the listener’s reaction: thinking in a quarter-note pulse will point his perception toward the larger picture more easily and will consequently lead to a better formal coherence of the piece.²⁰

A comparable problem of learning a difficult piece quickly may have led to two famous instructions Straube used to give his students concerning two short passages of Reger’s “Fantasie” from Fantasie und Fuge über B-A-C-H, opus 46: Straube recommended to play the chordal diminuendo passage from measure 19, beat 4, to measure 20, beat 2, twice as slow as notated, in spite of the fact that Reger, knowing that this would be difficult to achieve, prescribes Vivace assai, and to the contrary, the four final chords (measure 55, beat 4 onwards) twice as fast as notated, which means that the concluding chords of the fantasia, notated in eighth notes, are performed at the same speed as the chords preceding the eighth-note rest (measure 55, beat 3).

As I could observe numerous students (almost without any exception) doing the same at the end of the fantasia without having the slightest idea of a corresponding tradition, my suspicion has grown that Straube’s recommendation was the eventual result of an original miscounting that he codified, possibly as a face-saving ploy. Notwithstanding the possibility that the resulting performance of the fantasia’s end might be considered as more natural than the one indicated by the composer’s notation, a miscounting would be a very human error that can easily happen even to a distinguished musician like Straube.

A similar mistake might have occurred in measure 10 of the “Toccata in D Minor” where Straube suddenly reduces the tempo to almost only fifty percent. The same can be observed in most students’ performances of the second half of measure 14, there (unfortunately) also in an otherwise quite convincing performance by Straube’s famous contemporary Alfred Sittard (1878–1942), who by the way, makes fine distinctions concerning the transitions in measures 4, 7, 15, and 20. He does, however, keep the first fermata quite long so that the perceived note value becomes something like a half note, whereas his A-Major seventh chord in measure 7 can be perceived very well as a quarter note. Otherwise he generally respects Reger’s indications quite precisely; only his phrasing caesurae are rather too long, possibly a reaction either to the large acoustic of Saint Michael’s Church in Hamburg or to the difficulties of handling registration on its huge Walcker instrument.²¹

As can be seen from the example of Sittard’s performance of this ostensibly “small” piece, Reger’s refined dynamic and agogic indications, certainly at least partly conceived with the aim of guaranteeing formal coherence and a stringent emotional curve of the piece, presents the player with many technical and musical difficulties. The changes that Straube made in his edition eliminate some of these difficulties; additionally they are easily acceptable to a musical player or listener. In fact some of them seem to be more natural than Reger’s original indications. The question of whether they are musically superior may have to be answered individually by anybody experiencing the piece. For Reger his friend Straube was the ultimate authority concerning organ performance in general. His belief in his friend’s opinions went far enough to accept Straube’s suggestions regarding questions of composition proper, the most unfortunate example of this being Reger’s Requiem, which remained unfinished. It should not be forgotten, however, that at least during Reger’s lifetime Straube was active and renowned only as an organist, whereas Reger himself had an enormous reputation as an orchestral conductor and as a pianist, particularly in chamber music and Lied accompaniment. Thus we have to accept that his meticulous performance instructions were informed by vast experiences gained during a very busy and successful career as a performing musician, and that these instructions deserve to be taken seriously despite the inherent difficulties.

Reger’s oeuvre is the fruit of a short, busy, and stressful life taken anything but easily. As responsible performers we should honor his efforts with a matching respect for detail.

Notes

1. Ann Arbor (UMI), 1999.

2. Wiesbaden (Breitkopf & Härtel), 2015.

3. Ed. Klaus Röhring, Wiesbaden (Breitkopf & Härtel) 1974, pages 21–30.

4. See “Hugo Riemann and the Development of Musical Performance Practice,” Ludger Lohmann, in Proceedings of the Göteborg International Organ Academy 1994, edited by Hans Davidsson and Sverker Jullander, Skrifter fran Musikvetenskapliga avdelingen, Göteborgs universitet, Göteborg 1995, pages 251–284. Riemann’s ideas are also to be found in Orgelschule zur historischen Aufführungspraxis, Teil 2, Romantik, Jon Laukvik, Carus, Stuttgart, 2000. The respective passages seem to be quite dependent on my Göteborg article.

5. The two most important ones are: Lehrbuch der musikalischen Phrasirung auf Grund einer Revision der Lehre von der musikalischen Metrik und Rhythmik, Hugo Riemann, Breitkopf & Härtel, Hamburg/Leipzig/St. Petersburg, 1884, and System der musikalischen Rhythmik und Metrik, Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, 1903.

6. Since the scores of Reger’s organ works are easily accessible and probably present in many organists’ libraries I have refrained from giving musical examples. The measure numbers refer to the Breitkopf edition, but other editions may as well be used since they differ only in small textual details not relevant here.

7. Lehrbuch der musikalischen Phrasirung auf Grund einer Revision der Lehre von der musikalischen Metrik und Rhythmik, Hugo Riemann, pages 11ff.

8. According to his terminology “anbetont” or “abbetont.”

9. “inbetont.”

10. Zwölf Stücke für die Orgel von Max Reger. Op. 59. Hieraus in Einzel-Ausgabe: No. 9. Benedictus. Im Einverständnis mit dem Komponisten herausgegeben von Karl Straube. Leipzig: Peters 1913; London-Frankfurt-New York: Peters, 1949.

11. Präludien und Fugen für die Orgel von Max Reger, herausgegeben von Karl Straube, Leipzig: Peters 1912, Nr. 1. I thank Mrs. Ursula Wild of the library of the Hochschule für Musik Freiburg for providing me with a scan.

12. Orgelkompositionen von Franz Liszt, herausgegeben von Karl Straube. Band II, Leipzig: Peters 1917, pages 55–56.

13. In the first (1855) version of the piece Liszt also indicated a manual change, the right hand moving to the Oberwerk. This does not necessarily result in a dynamic break since the Oberwerk of the Merseburg organ for which the piece is intended is as powerful as the Hauptwerk. It is also interesting to see that the manual change was omitted in the second (1869) version. Additionally the fact that the lowest note of the right-hand chord has a shorter value than the rest of the chord, allowing the left-hand passage to interfere with it, implies that the manual change was not Liszt’s original intention anyway. Whether Straube knew the first version at all is doubtful, his edition concerns the second version, of course.

14. Reger seems to have liked the effect of overlapping musical passages, as can be seen on a smaller scale, e.g., on the last page of his Second Organ Sonata, opus 60. The numerous entrances alla stretta of at least the fugue subject’s opening motive are rarely marked by the beginning of new slurs. Reger once (measures 87–88) places a new slur on the two notes preceding the first thematic note, and more frequently on the second note of the subject, thus indicating respectively that the subject is prepared by a short upbeat, or that the initial note has the double function of ending the preceding phrase and starting the new phrase. In any case his clear intention is that there should be no break in the legato—as most players would do, reacting intuitively to the notation—in accordance with Riemann’s advice that phrasing does not necessarily have to be shown by articulation, but sometimes only by slight rubato nuances in order not to interrupt the longer legato line in the sense of a Wagnerian “infinite melody:” “Es ist etwas ganz bekanntes, dass die Schlusstöne der Phrasen oder wo die Verkettung loser ist, auch der Motive, zumeist abgesetzt, d.h. nicht in ununterbrochenem Tonflusse zu den Anfangstönen der folgenden Phrasen oder Motive fortgeführt, sondern von diesen durch kleine Pausen geschieden werden. Vielfach sind diese Pausen nicht anders, als durch das Ende eines Bogens oder auch gar nicht angedeutet und müssen also ad libitum, d.h. nach Massgabe des guten Geschmacks, durch Abzüge vom Werthe der letzten Note gewonnen werden; Gesichtspunkte, welche mangels einer Andeutung von Seiten des Komponisten dafür entscheidend werden können, ob man überhaupt die Phrasen- resp. Motivtrennung durch wirkliches Absetzen oder aber nur durch eine unbedeutende Verlängerung der letzten Note bewirkt, werden wir weiterhin kennen lernen.” (Riemann 1884, 145)

This way of indicating what Riemann would call “Phrasenverschränkung” (roughly to be translated as “joining of phrases”) or “Phrasenverkettung” is a bit unusual; Reger almost never uses the more conventional notation of letting two slurs meet on one note.

15. The described handling of this transition is not documented anywhere, but I clearly remember it from a radio recording of the piece by Michael Schneider, one of Straube’s most important students, to which I listened several times years ago.

16. See Reger’s footnote on page 8 (first edition, Aibl, later republished by UE) of the Choralfantasie über Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele, opus 30: “Die < > beziehen sich auf den Gebrauch des Jalousieschwellers; doch kann man auch im Tempo bei < etwas string. u. bei > etwas ritard. (Tempo rubato),” which is the practical implementation of a passage in Lehrbuch der musikalischen Phrasirung auf Grund einer Revision der Lehre von der musikalischen Metrik und Rhythmik, Hugo Riemann, page 11: “Mit dem crescendo der metrischen Motive ist stets eine (selbstverständlich geringe) Steigerung der Geschwindigkeit der Tonfolge und mit dem diminuendo eine entsprechende Verlangsamung verbunden.” Reger’s remark even goes one step further, giving an important hint to situations where no Swell division is at hand: dynamic inflections may be replaced by agogic ones.

17. “Die merkliche agogische Schattirung der Werte, nämlich eine gelinde Beschleunigung im Hineinlaufen in die Schwerpunktsnote, merkliche Dehnung der auf den Schwerpunkt selbst fallenden kurzen Note und abnehmende Dehnung der weiter bis zu Ende folgenden Werte.” Hugo Riemann, System der musikalischen Rhythmik und Metrik, Breitkopf & Härtel, Leipzig, 1903, page 17.

18. “Die agogische Stauung, eine bewußt herbeigeführte Verbreiterung des Grundtempos, bewirkt auf der Orgel, dem Instrument unendlichen Atems, eine Verdichtung der Intensität, welche bei stärker registriertem Spiel sich sogar auf längere Strecken auszudehnen vermag.” Vom Orgelspiel. Eine kurzgefaßte Würdigung der künstlerisch orgelgemäßen Interpretationsweise und ihrer klanglichen Ausdrucksmittel, Handbücher der Musiklehre XV, Karl Matthaei, Breitkopf & Härtel. Leipzig, 1936, page 52. Matthaei was a Straube student; his remarks on rubato otherwise follow Riemann’s teachings.

19. A similar contrast mp–f is to be found measure 80, which in the first edition is changed to the f being prepared by a crescendo ending of the preceding variation.

20. I do not want to address tempo questions in general, which in the case of “Benedictus” would be quite interesting. See my article in the Festschrift for Wolfgang Stockmeier.

21. The recording is accessible on YouTube. It has been described in detail by Hans Martin Balz in an article in Ars Organi 1/2017 (journal of Gesellschaft der Orgelfreunde), pages 50–52. I thank Dr. Balz for providing me with the link.

This article originally appeared in Ars et Usus Musicae Organicae: Juhlakirja Olli Porthanille (Essays in Honour of Olli Porthanille), edited by Jan Lehtola and Peter Peitsalo, Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki, Finland, 2020, and is reprinted here with permission.

Thomas H. Anderson

Thomas H. Anderson, 86, of North Easton, Massachusetts, died December 30, 2023. Born May 25, 1937, in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he met his late wife Susan in Belfast, where they grew up on the same street.

Anderson started working at age 14 as an apprentice pipe maker at an organ pipe manufacturer in Belfast. At age 19, he emigrated to the United States, where he worked at the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Company, Boston, Massachusetts, as a pipe maker. Later he started his own company, Thomas H. Anderson Organ Pipe Company. He traveled around the country working on various projects including the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. In his later years, he traveled to teach others to make organ pipes.

Anderson’s wife Susan died December 31, 1996, almost 27 years before the date of his death; they were married 38 years. They raised four children who survive him: Gail McGill and her husband Mark of Raynham, Massachusetts; Thomas Anderson of Lake Wylie, South Carolina; Cheryl Dekeon of Haverhill, Massachusetts; and Elizabeth Lehr and her husband Donald of Berryville, Virginia. He is also survived by six grandchildren, two step-grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren.

The funeral for Thomas H. Anderson, Jr., was held January 6 at Southeast Funeral and Cremation Services, Easton, Massachusetts, with burial following at South Easton Cemetery. Memorial gifts may be made to Old Colony Hospice and Palliative Care (oldcolonyhospice.org).

Harold Gilchrest Andrews, Jr.

Harold Gilchrest Andrews, Jr., of High Point, North Carolina, died December 3, 2023. He was born March 31, 1932, in Framingham, Massachusetts, and grew up in Centerville on Cape Cod. At the age of eight, under the tutelage of Virginia Fuller, his first piano teacher, Andrews played services at the local Unitarian church. After his 1949 high school graduation, he attended Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Oberlin, Ohio, where he earned a Bachelor of Music degree in organ performance. After college, he served in the United States Army for two years as an organist at West Point. He then moved to Greensboro, North Carolina, playing first at First Friends Meeting House and then at Guilford Park Presbyterian Church. During this same period, he began his long tenure as a professor of organ at Greensboro College, where he remained until 1988. The C. B. Fisk, Inc., organ, Opus 102 (1993), at Finch Memorial Chapel of Greensboro College was donated and installed through his efforts. He also co-founded the Greensboro Chapter of the American Guild of Organists.

Leaving Guilford Park Church, Andrews took the position as organist and master of choristers at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, High Point, where he would spend the next 55 years. While working at St. Mary’s, Andrews completed a Master of Music degree in organ and church music at Oberlin Conservatory and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree from Boston University.

Andrews founded and owned Organ Craft, a local organbuilding company. He built and installed pipe organs all over the east coast, including part of the organ at Christ United Methodist Church in Charlotte and the organ at Guilford Park Presbyterian Church in Greensboro. The organ at St. Mary’s in High Point was also significantly altered over the years by Andrews.

As an organist, he offered recitals in Europe, including at Canterbury Cathedral; St. Paul’s Cathedral, London; Saint-Sulpice, Paris; and Chartres Cathedral. In his retirement, he finished his manuscript for a study of music in the works of William Shakespeare.

Harold Gilchrest Andrews, Jr., is survived by one brother, Robert Francis Andrews. His funeral featuring Gabriel Fauré’s Requiem was held at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, High Point, on January 27. Interment in the church columbarium followed. Memorials may be directed to the music endowment at St. Mary’s Episcopal Church, 108 West Farriss Avenue, High Point, North Carolina 27262.

Charles Edmund Callahan, Jr.

Charles Edmund Callahan, Jr., 72, died December 25, 2023, in Burlington, Vermont. He was born September 27, 1951, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Callahan was a graduate of the Curtis Institute of Music, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and earned graduate degrees from The Catholic University of America, Washington, D.C. He held the Associate and Choirmaster certificates of the American Guild of Organists. In 2014 he was honored with the Distinguished Artist Award of the guild.

Callahan taught at Catholic University; Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont; Baylor University, Waco, Texas; Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida; and the Bermuda School of Music, Hamilton, Bermuda. He served as organist and music director for churches in Pennsylvania, Washington, D.C., New York, Vermont, and his native Massachusetts. Callahan moved to Orwell, Vermont, in 1988.

He was consulted often on the design of new organs and restorations and improvements of existing instruments. His two books on American organbuilding history, The American Classic Organ and Aeolian-Skinner Remembered, became standard reference works on 20th-century American organ history.

Callahan was a prolific composer; his compositions include commissions for Papal visitations to the United States and from Harvard University. His four-movement orchestral work, Mosaics, was premiered at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, Missouri, and other works have been performed at Harvard, Yale, and Princeton universities.

Charles Callahan was laid to rest with his parents in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Memorial contributions in his memory may be made to the music programs at St. Mary’s Catholic Church, 326 College Street, Middlebury, Vermont 05753, or Cornwall Congregational Church, 2598 Route 30, Cornwall, Vermont 05753.

James P. Callahan

James P. Callahan of St. Paul, Minnesota, died December 28, 2023. Born in North Dakota and raised in Albany, Minnesota, he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1964 from St. John’s University, Collegeville, Minnesota, and his Master of Fine Arts degree in piano and a Ph.D. in music theory and composition from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis. In addition, he studied at the Mozarteum University, Salzburg, Austria, and Universität für Musik und darstellende Kunst Wien, Vienna, Austria. His teachers included Anton Heiller, organ; Willem Ibes and Duncan McNab, piano; and Paul Fetler, composition.

Callahan was Professor Emeritus at the University of St. Thomas, St. Paul, Minnesota, where he taught piano, organ, composition, music theory, and piano literature over a 38-year period, retiring in 2006. As an organist, Callahan performed recitals in the upper Midwest, New York, and Austria. His performances appeared on the nationally broadcast radio program Pipedreams. He was instrumental in overseeing the commissioning of the organ for the chapel at the University of St. Thomas, Gabriel Kney Opus 105, completed in 1987. On this instrument he recorded a disc for Centaur, James Callahan: Oberdoerffer, Reger, Rheinberger, Schmidt. He also performed solo piano recitals and made concerto appearances. In addition to his solo performances, he was a member of the Callahan and Faricy Duo piano team, performing throughout the upper Midwest.

James Callahan composed over 150 works for piano, organ, orchestra, band, opera, and chamber ensembles. Cantata for two choirs, brass, percussion, and organ premiered at St. John’s Abbey Church and was performed at the Cathedral of St. Paul in 1975. His Requiem was premiered by Leonard Raver in 1990 at the University of St. Thomas. Callahan’s music was published by McLaughlin-Reilly, GIA, Paraclete Press, Abingdon Press, and Beautiful Star Publishing. Awards included a study grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities and a Bush Artist Fellowship.

Quentin Faulkner

Quentin Faulkner, 80, died December 30, 2023, in Houston, Texas. He was Larson Professor of organ and music theory/history (emeritus) at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, a writer of scholarly books in the areas of church music and J. S. Bach performance practice, the translator of German treatises of the 17th and 18th centuries, and an organ recitalist.

Faulkner earned his undergraduate degree in organ and church music from Westminster Choir College, Princeton, New Jersey, where he studied organ with George Markey and Alexander McCurdy. He received graduate degrees in sacred music and theology from Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, where he studied conducting with Lloyd Pfautsch, organ with George Klump, and liturgics with James White. Faulkner completed his doctoral studies at the School of Sacred Music, Union Theological Seminary, New York City, where he studied organ with Alec Wyton. Each of these schools subsequently awarded him its distinguished alumni award for his contributions to the field of church music. While a student in New York City, he served for three years as assistant organist at the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, during which time he led the musical celebration honoring Wyton at his retirement and was the organist for Duke Ellington’s funeral.

For 32 years Faulkner served on the faculty at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he developed a comprehensive cycle of courses in church music and received numerous teaching awards. He and his colleague George Ritchie were co-coordinators of a distinguished series of organ conferences at the university, each conference with a distinct topic of scholarly investigation and culminating in the first conference held in Naumburg, Germany, at the newly restored 1746 Hildebrandt organ in St. Wenzel’s Church. In 1998 Faulkner was awarded a Fulbright grant to teach as guest professor at the Evangelische Hochschule für Kirchenmusik in Halle, Germany, a position to which he returned for the academic year 2006–2007 following his retirement from the University of Nebraska.

Faulkner’s professional career included both academic and practical pursuits. He was equally respected for his scholarly investigation in the field of church music (Wiser than Despair: The Evolution of Ideas in the Relationship of Music and the Christian Church, Greenwood Press, 1996) and in historical performance practice of the organ works of Bach (J. S. Bach’s Keyboard Technique: A Historical Introduction, Concordia, 1984; The Registration of J. S. Bach’s Organ Works, Wayne Leupold Editions, 2008; Johann Sebastian Bach, The Complete Organ Works, Series II, Volume I, The Performance of the Organ works: Source Readings, Leupold Editions, 2020). He translated historic German treatises into English, and then edited and annotated the translations to make them accessible to contemporary students and scholars (Jacob Adlung, Musica mechanica organoedi, Parts 1, 2, and 3, Zea E-Books, 2011; Michael Praetorius, Syntagma Musicum II: De Organographia, Parts III–V, Zea E-Books, 2014).

Faulkner reveled in working at the intersections of various disciplines, particularly enjoying the interplay of the scholarly and the performing musician and extensively studying the relationships between and among religion, culture, and the arts. He served as a member of the advisory board for the Encyclopedia of Keyboard Instruments for Garland Publishing Co., as consultant for the J. S. Bach Tercentenary publishing project of Concordia Publishing House, as editor for performance issues for the Leupold Edition of J. S. Bach’s organ works, and as a member of the advisory board of the Institute of Sacred Music at Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut. He also led multiple tours of Bach’s Organ World in eastern Germany, sharing his passion and knowledge with participants as they studied, played, and listened to instruments with direct connections to J. S. Bach.

Throughout his career and in retirement, Faulkner remained a performing musician, presenting organ recitals, workshops, and lectures. He and his wife served as church musicians in Dothan, Alabama; New York City; Lincoln, Nebraska; and Greenfield, Massachusetts. He was particularly concerned with music in small churches and wrote numerous practical articles for professional journals, composed anthems for small choirs, and served as a clinician for more than fifty church music workshops in Nebraska. He served the American Guild of Organists on various local and national committees and as its national councilor for education. He was an honorary lifetime member of the Lincoln Chapter of the AGO.

Quentin Faulkner is survived by his wife of 56 years, Mary Murrell (Bennett) Faulkner, three brothers, a daughter and son-in-law, a son and daughter-in-law, and four grandchildren. A memorial service will be held April 20 at Christ Church Cathedral, Houston, Texas. Memorial contributions may be made to the Alzheimer’s Association (Attention: Donor Services, 225 North Michigan Avenue, Floor 17, Chicago, Illinois 60601; alz.org/donate), Church Music Institute (5923 Royal Lane, Dallas, Texas 75230; churchmusicinstitute.org/donate), or the charity of one’s choice.

Brian E. Jones

Brian E. Jones, 80, organist and choir director, died November 17, 2023. A native of Duxbury, Massachusetts, he began piano studies at age eight and discovered the pipe organ soon thereafter. During his first visit to Trinity Church, Copley Square, Boston, Massachusetts, as an eager ten-year-old, he was said to have exclaimed, “I want to be the organist here someday!” Some three decades later, his dream became a reality.

After earning an undergraduate degree from Oberlin Conservatory of Music, Jones landed a teaching position at Noble and Greenough School, Dedham, a post he would hold for the next twenty years. Concurrently he completed the Master of Music program at Boston University. While at Noble and Greenough he conducted numerous choral groups and expanded the music program to include the production of a wide variety of musicals.

Soon after commencing his teaching career, Jones was appointed music director of the Dedham Choral Society, a position he held for 27 years. During his tenure, the group grew in size from 25 to 150 members, expanding their audiences by performing in Symphony Hall and Jordan Hall in Boston. In 1984 Jones fulfilled his childhood dream when he was appointed director of music at Trinity Church, Boston. Over the next two decades he and his choirs produced five recordings, including the Christmas CD, Candlelight Carols. In addition to his work as a choral conductor, Jones enjoyed a solo organ career, performing concerts and dedicatory recitals in churches and cathedrals throughout the United States and England. Upon assuming the mantle Emeritus Director of Music and Organist at Trinity Church in 2004, Jones accepted interim positions from as far afield as Albuquerque, New Mexico. In 2007 a number of former Trinity choir members coalesced to form The Copley Singers under Jones’s direction. This semi-professional group of musicians began performing together several times each year, most notably during the holiday season.

Brian E. Jones is survived by his husband, Michael Rocha, with whom he shared the past 35 years, as well as two children, Eliza Beaulac and her husband, Joe, and Nat Jones and his wife, Kiera; four grandchildren and one great-grandson. A celebration of life is planned for spring. Memorial gifts in memory of Brian Jones may be made to the Parkinson’s Foundation (parkinson.org).

Uwe Pape

Uwe Pape, 87, died August 13, 2023, in Berlin, Germany. He was born May 5, 1936, in Bremen, Germany. In his early life, he studied mathematics, physics, pedagogy, and philosophy at Georg-August-Universität, Göttingen, graduating in 1959, earning a doctorate in computing technology at Technische Universität Braunschweig in 1971.

From 1971 to 2001 Pape was professor of business informatics at the Technische Universität Berlin. He was visiting professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, in 1974 and in 1984–1985; at the University of Maryland, College Park, in 1975; at the University of Texas at Austin in 1976; and at the University of Szczecin, Poland, from 1988 until 1998.

Pape was recognized worldwide for his expertise in pipe organs, especially historic mechanical-action instruments. Pape had his first contact with organbuilding in 1953 at the Liebfrauenkirche, Bremen, where he studied with Harald Wolff and had contact with the organ builder Paul Ott. Pape began to document the organs of the Braunschweig Lutheran Church in 1959. In 1962 he founded a publishing house for works on organbuilding history, which exists today as Pape Verlag Berlin. He became a freelance organ expert for regional churches and foundations in Berlin, Bremen, Lower Saxony, and Saxony. From 1985 to 2016 he led a research project on organ documentation that resulted in an organ database at the Technische Universität Berlin. With Paul Peeters of Gothenburg and Karl Schütz of Vienna, Pape was one of the founders of the International Association for Organ Documentation (IAOD) in 1990. He made significant contributions to the documentation of historic north German organs. Among his many book-length publications is The Tracker Organ Revival in America/Die Orgelbewegung in Amerika, first published in 1978. One of his most recent publications is Organographia Historica Hildesiensis: Orgeln und Orgelbauer in Hildesheim, printed in 2014. For The Diapason, he wrote “Documentation of Restorations,” which appeared in the December 2006 issue, pages 20–22.

Alice Stuart Parker

Alice Stuart Parker, 98, born December 16, 1925, in Boston, Massachusetts, died December 24, 2023, in Hawley, Massachusetts. Having grown up in Winchester, Massachusetts, she graduated from Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1947, having studied organ and composition. After earning a Master of Music degree in choral conducting from The Juilliard School in New York City two years later, she began teaching in a high school. Parker would then study and begin a long collaboration with Robert Shaw and the Robert Shaw Chorale. She would meet and marry one of the chorale’s singers, Thomas F. Pyle, in 1954.

As a composer she would pen more than 500 choral works and arrangements, from choral anthems to cantatas and operas. In 1985 Parker founded Melodious Accord, which presents choral concerts, singing workshops, and other events. The Musicians of Melodious Accord, a 16-member chorus, made several recordings with her. Parker authored books including The Anatomy of Melody in 2006 and The Melodious Accord Hymnal in 2010, both available from GIA Publications. She conducted masterclasses and seminars widely.

Alice Stuart Parker was predeceased by her husband in 1976. Survivors include her sons David Pyle and Timothy Pyle; daughters Katharine Bryda, Mary Stejskal, and Elizabeth Pyle; 11 grandchildren; and six great-grandchildren.

Michael Radulescu

Michael Radulescu, 80, born June 19, 1943, in Bucharest, Romania, died December 23, 2023. He studied organ and conducting with Anton Heiller and Hans Swarowsky in Vienna, Austria, at the Academy (now University) of Music and Performing Arts, where he taught as professor of organ from 1968 to 2008. His career encompassed work as a composer, organist, and conductor. With his debut in 1959 he presented concerts throughout Europe, North America, Australia, South Korea, and Japan. He regularly presented guest lectures and masterclasses in Europe and overseas, focusing mainly on the interpretation of Bach’s organ and major choral works.

As a composer, Radulescu wrote sacred music, works for organ, voice and organ, choral and chamber music, and orchestral works. He was frequently engaged as a jury member in international organ and composition competitions and as an editor of early organ music. Radulescu conducted international vocal and instrumental ensembles in performances of major choral works. As an organist, he recorded among other items Bach’s complete works for organ, without any technical manipulation.

For his musical and pedagogical contributions, Radulescu was awarded the Goldene Verdienstzeichen des Landes Wien in 2005. In 2007 he received the Würdigungspreis für Musik from the Austrian Ministry of Education and Art. In December 2013 Michael Radulescu’s book on J. S. Bach’s spiritual musical language, Bey einer andächtig Musiq: Schritte zur Interpretation von Johann Sebastian Bachs geistlicher Klangrede anhand seiner Passionen und der h-Moll-Messe, focusing on the two passions and the B-Minor Mass, was published. For The Diapason, his article, “J. S. Bach’s Organ Music and Lutheran Theology: The Clavier-Übung Third Part,” was printed in the July 2019 issue, pages 16–21.

Samuel Kummer

Samuel Kummer, 56, born February 28, 1968, in Stuttgart, Germany, died April 23, 2024, after collapsing in the Dresden Hauptbahnhof awaiting a train to travel to Würzburg for teaching duties. He studied church music at the State University for Music and Performing Arts in Stuttgart, developing a broad repertoire in the organ classes of Ludger Lohmann, Christoph Bossert, and Werner Jacob. He developed his skills as an organ improviser, for which he received an award in his Church Music A Examination, with Wolfgang Seifen, Willibald Betzler, and Hans Martin Corrinth. He participated in masterclasses with Marie-Claire Alain, Daniel Roth, Hans Fagius, and Lorenzo Ghielmi. Kummer was a winner of international organ competitions, such as Concours L’Europe and L’Orgue Maastricht in 1996 and the International Organ Competition Odense in 1998.

Since 1998 Kummer had performed in many European countries, Central America, the United States, and Japan. He appeared in venues in Versailles, Brussels, Riga, Cologne, Regensburg, and in concert halls such as the Tchaikovsky Conservatory in Moscow, the St. Petersburg Philharmonic, the Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City, and in Tokyo Opera City at Suntory Hall and Lilia Hall. He concertized at festivals such as the Lucerne Festival, the Styriarte Festival, and Hildebrandt Days in Naumburg. As a soloist he appeared with the Russian State Philharmonic, the Staatskapelle Dresden, and the Dresden Philharmonic. In the summer of 2003 at the invitation of Utah State University, he conducted an improvisation seminar for organists and pianists there.

After seven years as district cantor in Kirchheim unter Teck, Kummer was appointed to the Frauenkirche in Dresden in 2005, where he was heard almost daily until 2022. He initiated several organ concert series regularly featuring the important Dresden organs at the Frauenkirche with its Kern organ, the Hofkirche with its Silbermann organ, the Kreuzkirche with its Jehmlich organ, and the Kulturpalast with its Eule organ.

Beginning in 2007 he taught organ improvisation and organ literature at the Dresden University of Church Music. He recently had been a lecturer for improvisation at the Hochschule für Musik Franz Liszt Weimar and gave masterclasses for organ and improvisation at the Hochschule für Musik Würzburg during the spring 2024 semester. He was a jury member at international organ competitions. Samuel Kummer’s CDs with organ works by Bach and Duruflé as well as Vierne, Symphonie III and Symphonie V (winning a Diapason d’Or award), received praise in national and international reviews, and his performances were frequently broadcast on radio. For his recording of Bach’s The Art of the Fugue, BWV 1080, on the Hildebrandt organ (1746) of the Wenzelskirche in Naumburg, he was awarded the German Record Critics’ Award in 2021, among others. In addition to his arrangements for organ, he intensified his compositional activities in 2016 and performed his own works frequently. Kummer was married to Irena Renata Budryté-Kummer.

—Marko Heese

 

Robert L. Sipe
 

Robert L. Sipe, 83, died May 24 in Dallas, Texas, after a long illness. He was a veteran Dallas organbuilder who over 60 years produced new and rebuilt instruments across the United States. Following pioneering 1950s United States installations by Beckerath and Flentrop, Sipe was the first Texas builder after Otto Hofmann to wholeheartedly embrace neo-Baroque principles of mechanical action, slider windchests, low wind pressures, freestanding encasement, and lean and brilliant sonorities. As a Baylor University student, the Dallas native began helping with organ maintenance, and in 1960 he formed his own firm with Rodney Yarbrough. Their compact two-manual 1962 instrument in St. Stephen United Methodist Church in the Dallas suburb Mesquite, in a free-form concrete building of live acoustics, created a sensation. The following summer, Sipe went on an exhaustive tour of new and old European organs, recording his impressions in a detailed diary.

After Yarbrough’s tragic paralysis in a 1964 traffic accident, Sipe continued on his own, creating church organs in Texas and then beyond, including teaching and practice instruments for Southern Methodist University in Dallas and Texas Christian University in Fort Worth. He took a somewhat eclectic approach to the neo-Baroque aesthetic. For example, larger instruments included more fully developed Swell divisions, and he employed electro-pneumatic action when mechanical action was not physically practical. He was particularly skilled at recycling and revoicing older pipework, and his instruments had a finesse of voicing rare among builders in that style. His influence spread further via colleagues who went on to establish their own organbuilding firms, notably George Bozeman, Roy Redman, and the late Marvin Judy.

By the late 1960s the Aeolian-Skinner Organ Co. belatedly decided it needed to embrace the growing enthusiasm for mechanical-action organs. With a new infusion of money from investor David Knutson, Sipe was tapped to head the tracker initiative, and in 1970 he became the company’s vice president and tonal director. Some mechanical-action organs that ultimately bore the Aeolian-Skinner nameplate were actually contracted by Sipe before joining the firm. The sizable three-manual organ at Zumbro Lutheran Church in Rochester, Minnesota, built in 1968, had a second nameplate citing design, installation and voicing by Sipe. A showpiece for Aeolian-Skinner’s new venture, it was featured on a series of King of Instruments recordings by Robert T. Anderson, professor of organ at Southern Methodist University.

Tracker-action organs were hardly able to save Aeolian-Skinner, which had been in precarious financial condition for years. After the firm shuttered in 1972, Sipe returned to Dallas and resumed building organs under his own name. This third phase of his career yielded notable instruments at Luther College in Decorah, Iowa (1977); Hennepin Avenue United Methodist Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota (1979, with a Bombarde division); the Assembly Hall of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Salt Lake City, Utah (1983); and First Presbyterian Church in San Antonio, Texas (1998). In later years, Sipe collaborated with Allen Organs on some effective mixes of pipes and digital voices.

For all his roots in German and Dutch neo-Baroque aesthetics, Sipe was increasingly fond of Anglican church music, and in later years he became a regular worshiper at Dallas’s Episcopal Church of the Incarnation. The 2012 organ in Northway Christian Church in Dallas is a particularly effective example of the warmer, more eclectic sonic approach of some of his late instruments.

Robert L. Sipe is survived by his son Christopher Sipe, daughter-in-law Alx Nixon, grandson Ilya Nixon-Sipe; daughter Katie Sipe. He is also survived by his former spouse and mother of his children, Susan Sipe.

—Scott Cantrell