Felix Hell new CD

Jennifer Lucy Bate, 75, born in London, UK, November 11, 1944, died March 25. She was the daughter of H. A. Bate, organist of St James’s Muswell Hill from 1924 to 1978. An international concert organist, she was considered an authority on the organ music of Olivier Messiaen, having befriended him within the last twenty years of his life as his organist of choice. In 1986, she gave the first British performance of his Livre du Saint-Sacrement at Westminster Cathedral and later made the world premiere recording of the work under the personal supervision of the composer, winning the Grand Prix du Disque. He also endorsed her earlier recordings of all of his other organ works. Bate owned scores that contain many personal markings and references made by Messiaen. In 1995, Bate opened the Messiaen Festival at l’Église de la Sainte Trinité, Paris, France, where his complete organ works were performed and recorded. Among numerous awards for her CD were the Diapason d’Or (France) and Preis der Deutschen Schallplattenkritik (Germany).

Bate performed and recorded a broad repertoire spanning several centuries, including English organ music, the complete organ works of César Franck, and the complete organ music of Felix Mendelssohn. A frequent performer at organ festivals, she often played works written for her. She also presented numerous masterclasses and lectures. She was instrumental in the formation of the annual Jennifer Bate Organ Academy, a course for young female organists, and she was the lead patron of the Society of Women Organists.

Bate was briefly married (as his second wife) to George Thalben-Ball. She received an honorary doctorate from the University of Bristol in 2007. In 1990, Bate was recognized with the Personnalité de l’Année award by the French-based jury, only the third British artist to achieve this distinction, after Georg Solti and Yehudi Menuhin. In 1996, Bate was granted honorary citizenship of the Italian province of Alessandria for her services to music in Northern Italy over 20 years. In 2002, she was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, and in 2008 was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

In 2011, M. Frédéric Mitterand, minister of culture and communication, awarded Jennifer Bate the rank of Officier de l’ordre des Arts et des Lettres, stating that this honor is awarded to renowned artists and writers who have promoted French culture throughout the world. Subsequently, President Sarkozy appointed Jennifer Bate to the rank of Chevalier in the Ordre National de la Légion d’Honneur, stating that this honor was awarded in recognition of her skill as an organist and her contribution to making Olivier Messiaen’s organ works more widely known throughout the world. She received both awards in 2012.

 

Marillyn Ila Freeman, 85, musician and teacher, died March 24. Born in Marion, Wisconsin, February 23, 1935, she grew up in New London and Appleton, where she began playing the organ for local church services at the age of twelve. She graduated from Appleton High School in 1953 and the Lawrence College Conservatory of Music, Appleton, earning a degree in music performance in 1957. While at Lawrence, she met her future husband Ralph Freeman, and they were married in 1958. Following graduation Freeman taught music at Lawrence and worked in the president’s office at Princeton University, eventually returning to Wisconsin and settling in Green Bay, where she taught piano and played organ in the Moravian church.

In 1965 the Freemans moved to Neenah where a year later she began a 54-year career as organist for St. Paul Lutheran Church. In addition to playing organ and piano, as director of music ministries she planned worship services, directed youth choirs, accompanied the adult Sanctuary Choir, presented church musicals, and guided the church in purchasing a new Dobson organ in 1986. She earned an associate certificate of the American Guild of Organists in 1995 and an associate in music ministry certificate in 2000.

Throughout her career Freeman continued to teach piano and organ, organizing piano recitals, judging piano competitions, and mentoring young musicians in the Fox Valley. She was a member of the Fox Valley Music Teachers, a member of the Sigma Alpha Iota International Music Fraternity, served as treasurer of the North Eastern Wisconsin chapter of the American Guild of Organists, and was active in the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada. For many years she and her husband Ralph, a pianist, violinist, and published author of hymn texts, performed organ and piano duets each August as part of the Lunchtime Organ Recital Series in the Fox Valley region.

Marillyn Ila Freeman is survived by her husband Ralph Freeman, five children: Rebecca Freeman (Stephen Fusfeld) of Neenah; Jennifer Timm (Terry) of Neenah; Robert Freeman (Robin) of Darien, Illinois; Jon Freeman of Whitefish Bay; and Paul Freeman (Nicole Berman) of Stow, Massachusetts; twelve grandchildren, and several great grandchildren.

Memorial gifts may be made to the music ministry program at St. Paul Lutheran Church, 200 N. Commercial Street, Neenah, WI 54956, or to either the Melanoma Research Fund or the Surgical Oncology Outcomes Research and Awareness Fund at the University of Wisconsin (supportuw.org/give).

 

Josephine Lenola Bailey Freund, 90, died February 8 in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. A lifelong musician, she was a professional organist for almost 70 years and taught piano and organ. She performed organ recitals and directed choirs throughout the United States, as well as in Swaziland and Papua New Guinea.

Josephine Bailey was born April 8, 1929, in Indianapolis, Indiana. She began piano lessons at age six and started studying organ at age thirteen. Among her first professional jobs were playing the organ to accompany silent movies and substituting as an accompanist and organist in local churches.

Following graduation from high school in 1946, Bailey attended Wittenberg College, Springfield Ohio, later transferring to Peabody Conservatory of Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. There she earned a teaching certificate in organ and bachelor’s and master’s degrees. In 1952, she was the first female graduate of Peabody to earn a master’s degree in organ performance.

During the 1950s Bailey played at various churches in Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia, including serving as music director for First Baptist, Washington, D.C., which President Truman attended; and St. Anne’s Episcopal Church, Annapolis, Maryland, where she was honored to play for a royal visit by Elizabeth, the Queen Mother. From 1956 until 1961, she was associate professor of music at Longwood College, Farmville, Virginia. She was also organist of First Presbyterian Church, Farmville, and taught music in local public high schools.

In 1963, Bailey became the first full-time director of music at Trinity Lutheran Church, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. She later returned to Indianapolis to teach in public schools and was the organist and assistant choir director at First Presbyterian Church. In the early 1970s, she moved to East Lansing, Michigan, to work on her doctorate in music theory at Michigan State University. She also was associate professor of music and organist and choir director of Martin Luther Chapel at Michigan State. It was there that she met her future husband Roland Freund who was an Australian agricultural missionary working on his master’s degree. They married in July 1971 and moved to the Highlands of Papua New Guinea.

In 1976, the family moved to Carlisle, Pennsylvania, where Josephine taught piano and was organist at Grace United Methodist Church. The family spent 1982–1984 working on a U.S. AID and Penn State University project in Swaziland, Africa. There she taught music in several schools and directed the largest choir in the country for a performance of Brahms’s Requiem.

Upon returning to Carlisle, Josephine Freund served as organist and choir director at St. John’s Episcopal Church and Gettysburg College Chapel. She was adjunct professor of organ for Dickinson College and an active member and officer of the Harrisburg Chapter of the American Guild of Organists. Freund played her final organ recital in 2010, but continued to teach piano and organ and to substitute and support church services, weddings, and funerals for a few more years. She was a lifetime member of the national honors fraternity for women in music, Sigma Alpha Iota.

Josephine Lenola Bailey Freund is survived by her husband, Roland Paul Freund of Carlisle; her nephew, Matthew Freund of South Australia; and her son, Colonel Ernie Freund, daughter-in-law Megan Sayler Freund, and granddaughters, Amelia Rose and Adelaide Pearl, all from Burke, Virginia.

Funeral services were held February 15 at Trinity Lutheran Church, Camp Hill, Pennsylvania. Memorial contributions may be made to Residential Hospice, 100 Sterling Pkwy #110, Mechanicsburg, PA 17050 or the Traditional Music Fund at Trinity Lutheran Church, 2000 Market Street, Camp Hill, PA 17011.

 

Eleanor Marie Fulton, organist and music educator, died February 23 in New Haven, Connecticut. Born August 9, 1939, in Morristown, Tennessee, she earned her Bachelor of Arts degree from Bennett College, Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1961, and continued her education at the Manhattan School of Music, New York City; the Haydn Conservatory, Eisenstadt, Austria; and the University of Ghana’s International Center for African Music and Dance.

She served as the longtime organist and director of music for Center Church on the Green, New Haven, and was a music teacher for New Haven Public Schools, director of the New Haven Children’s Chorus, assistant organist and director of Christian education for Battell Chapel, Yale University, New Haven, consultant to the New Haven Symphony Orchestra, and a private piano and music instructor. She was the featured performer on a CD released by Raven, performing on the 1971 Beckerath organ of Dwight Chapel, Yale University, with works of Bach, de Grigny, and Mendelssohn (Eleanor Fulton, Organist: Dwight Chapel, Yale University, OAR-810).

 

Odile Pierre, French liturgical and international concert organist, professor, and composer, died in Paris, France, on February 29, shortly before her 87th birthday. Born in Pont-Audemer (in Normandy) on March 12, 1932, she decided to become an organist at age seven, inspired by a recital by Marcel Dupré on the Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. Ouen Abbey in Rouen. After taking lessons with Madeleine Lecoeur, organist at St. Nicaise Church in Rouen at age fifteen, she served as organist and choir director at the St. Martin Church in Barentin (in the Seine-Maritime region of Normandy). From 1950 to 1952, she studied harmony with Albert Beaucamp and organ with Marcel Lanquetuit at the Rouen Conservatory. She then entered the Paris Conservatory, where she was awarded first prizes in the classes of Maurice Duruflé (harmony), Noël Gallon (fugue), Norbert Dufourcq (music history), as well as organ and improvisation with Marcel Dupré and Rolande Falcinelli. At the age of 23, Odile Pierre became the youngest Marcel Dupré student to win a first prize in organ and improvisation at the Paris Conservatory. She won this prestigious prize the same year as Éliane Lejeune-Bonnier (1921–2015), with the unanimous approval of the jury, which included Jeanne Demessieux.

From 1955 to 1957, Odile Pierre officially substituted for Jean-Jacques Grunenwald, then organist at Saint-Pierre de Montrouge Church in Paris. She then studied organ performance with Fernando Germani at Saint-Cecilia Academy in Rome and at Chigiana Music Academy in Sienne, and with Franz Sauer at the Mozarteum in Salzburg. In 1969, she succeeded Jeanne Demessieux as titular organist of the gallery organ of the Madeleine Church and remained in this post until 1979. By coincidence, on the day after she died, Olivier Périn began his functions as the official assistant to François-Henri Houbart, her successor at the Madeleine.

Well known for her mastery of organ repertoire from early to contemporary masters, Odile Pierre performed at least 2,000 concerts throughout the world, including appearances in Japan, Korea, the Philippines, Canada, Iceland, Russia, Germany, Turkey, Italy, Spain, Austria, and the former Czechoslovakia, including twelve tours in the United States and six in Asia. In 1977, she represented France at the Third International Organ Congress in Washington and Philadelphia. She performed organ concertos under the direction of conductors such as Lorin Maazel, Pierre Dervaux, Antoine de Bavier, and Georges Prêtre.

Odile Pierre recorded for RCA, Mitra, Motette, Festivo, Editions Lade, and IFO. At least two of the recordings were made at the Madeleine Church in Paris: Camille Saint-Saëns’ Preludes and Fugues (1972, RCA LSB 4088) and The Great Romantic Toccatas (1978, RCA/RC 8108). In 1991, she recorded (for SCD 814) Jean-François Muno’s reconstitution of Jean de Joyeuse’s 1694 organ at the Auch Cathedral, which she had inaugurated in 1988 with André Isoir. Her Poetic Symphonic Organ Music (Vierne, Debussy, Duruflé, and Odile Pierre) on the Cavaillé-Coll of the Trinity Church in Fécamp and at St. Godard in Rouen (1988, MP/FR 51190 C) calls upon her Normand origins; her record of Widor, Vierne, and Guilmant at the Orléans Cathedral (1993, Motette 11251), reminds us that she lived nearby, in Tigy, in the Loiret department, at the end of her life.

As professor, Odile Pierre taught organ and music history at the Rouen Conservatoire from 1959 until 1969 and then organ and improvisation at the Paris Regional Conservatoire from 1981 until 1992. Among her students were Michael Matthes, Léon Kerremans, D’Arcy Trinkwon, Kristiyan Seynhave, David Di Fiore, and Lionel Coulon (titular organist at the Rouen Cathedral since 1992, he substituted for her at the Madeleine for four years). In 1991, she gave organ classes at the Scuola Internationale d’Alto Perfezionmento Musicale in Perugia, Italy, and gave masterclasses in numerous colleges and universities. She also served on the juries of international organ competitions. In 1977, she was appointed as a member of the Commission on Organs in Paris.

Her organ works were published as early as 1955: Chorale and Fugue on the first antiphon of the Second Vespers for Christmas (1955, Procure du Clergé), and Chorale and Four-Voiced Fugue (1955, republished by Europart-Music in 1988), Four Pilgrimages at the Virgin Mary for four hands, opus 1 (Leduc, 1988), Variations and Fugue on three Christmas Carols (Leduc, 1990), The Martyr of St. Thomas Becket, op. 4 (Bergamo, Carrara 1994), Chorale and Fugue on the Name of Charles-Marie Widor, op. 5 (Mayence, Schott, 1994), and Canonic Variations and Fugue on Two Christmas Carols from Naples, op. 6 (1955). Her edition of some of Alexandre Guilmant’s organ works was printed by Bornemann in 1983 and 1984. In addition, she wrote about Marcel Dupré’s improvisation exams in 1953 and 1954 (Leduc, undated). Odile Pierre received three awards for her contributions to French culture: Officer in the French Legion of Honor, Commander in the French Order of Merit, and the Silver Medal of the City of Paris.

Odile Pierre is survived by her husband, the historian Pierre Aubé.

—Carolyn Shuster Fournier

 

Philip Astor Prince, 89, of New Haven, Connecticut, died February 5. Born January 5, 1931, in Evanston, Illinois, Prince attended the Taft School before entering Yale University with the Class of 1952. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Latin, subsequently studied musicology in the Yale Graduate School, but completed a Master of Music degree from the Yale School of Music in organ performance under H. Frank Bozyan in 1959. Prince was drawn to the Anglo-Catholic liturgy celebrated at Christ Church, New Haven, and became associated with the music program there, succeeding Richard Donovan as organist and choirmaster in 1966. He became respected among colleagues for his English-language arrangements of Gregorian chants and psalmody and for his hymn accompaniments.

Prince published scholarly articles on Max Reger’s organ music (see “Reger and the Organ,” The Diapason, March 1973) and a performing edition of a sonata da chiesa of Johann Gottfried Walther. He also taught organ students at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, where he served as university organist for nearly 30 years and played annual recitals. In 1988, he joined the choirs of St. Mary Church, New Haven, and the St. Gregory Society and continued singing with them well into his 80s. Prince became an associate fellow of Ezra Stiles College in 1974. He was a longtime member of both Mory’s and the Elizabethan Club in New Haven, and the American Guild of Organists and Association of Anglican Musicians. Prince was a supporter of the Yale swimming team, and for many years he refereed at swimming matches and tournaments.

"There is no shortage of organists who make their instruments roar; and while her power was never in question, 
Demers made the instrument sing.” (Peter Reed, Classical Source.com, England, 2016) 

With playing described as having “bracing virtuosity” (Chicago Classical Review) and being “fearless and extraordinary” (Amarillo-Globe News), organist Isabelle Demers has enraptured critics, presenters, and audience members around the globe for her entrancing performances. Her 2010 recital for the joint International Society of Organbuilders-American Institute of Organbuilders convention so enchanted the audience that she “left the entire congress in an atmosphere of ‘Demers fever’.” That same year, her recital at the national convention of the American Guild of Organists, in Washington, D.C., was received with great acclaim not only by critics, who deemed it “one of the most outstanding events of the convention” (The American Organist), but also by the standing-room-only audience, which called her back to the stage five times.

She has appeared in recital at the cathedrals of Cologne and Regensburg (Germany), the ElbPhilharmonie (Hamburg), St. Paul’s Cathedral, Westminster Cathedral, Westminster Abbey, and the Royal Festival Hall (London), the Royal Opera House of Muscat (Oman), Melbourne Town Hall (Australia), Auckland Town Hall (New Zealand), as well as major universities and concert halls in the United States, among them Davies Hall (San Francisco), Disney Hall (Los Angeles), the Kimmel Center (Philadelphia), the Wanamaker Organ (Philadelphia), Yale University, the Eastman School of Music, Benaroya Hall (Seattle), Spivey Hall (Georgia), and the Spreckels Pavilion (San Diego).

Ms. Demers is in continual demand by her fellow colleagues as witnessed by repeat performances for regional and national conventions of the American Guild of Organists (Minneapolis, 2008; Washington D.C., 2010; Hartford, 2013; Austin, 2013; Indianapolis, 2015; Houston, 2016), the joint convention of the American Institute of Organ Builders and International Society of Organbuilders (Montréal, 2010), the Royal Canadian College of Organists (Toronto, 2009; Kingston, Ontario, 2016), and the Organ Historical Society (Vermont, 2013 and Minnesota, 2017).

Her debut recording on Acis label was met with critical acclaim. On a recent broadcast of Pipedreams, radio host Michael Barone featured the Fugue from Reger's Opus 73, describing it as "a masterful score, here masterfully played," and Isabelle Demers as, “definitely a talent to watch, to hear.” The RSCM's Church Music Quarterly awarded the “exciting, expressive and successful” recording its highest recommendation for its “profound and searching” performances. Fanfare Magazine proclaimed the “superbly produced” and “clear, tightly focused” recording as a “brilliantly played program.” Her second disc, featuring the organ works of Rachel Laurin, was released in June 2011, and her recording of Max Reger’s Seven Chorale-Fantasias in November 2012. Her fourth CD, Bach, Bull, and Bombardes (Pro Organo), was released in May 2013, and includes works of Bach, Bull, Reger, Widor, Tremblay, Mendelssohn, Daveluy, and Thalben-Ball. She also appears as solo organ accompanist in a recording of Maurice Duruflé’s Requiem with the Baylor University Choir, recorded at Duruflé’s church, St. Étienne-du-Mont, in Paris. Her latest CD, recorded at Chicago’s Rockefeller Chapel, was released in January 2020, and includes works of Reger, Laurin, Dupré, Mendelssohn, Tchaikovsky, and Macmillan. 

A native of Québec and a doctoral graduate of the Juilliard School, Dr. Demers is the newly-appointed Associate Professor of Organ at McGill University (Montréal, Québec). She was formerly the Joyce Bowden Chair in Organ and Head of the Organ Program at Baylor University (Waco, Texas). 

Isabelle Demers is represented in North America exclusively by Phillip Truckenbrod Concert Artists, LLC. 
www.concertartists.com
E-mail:  [email protected]
Phone: 860/560-7800
10 Abbott Lane, Dearborn, MI 48120-1001

Colin MacKnight

Colin MacKnight is a C. V. Starr Doctoral Fellow at The Juilliard School, New York City, where he also received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees. He is in the studio of Paul Jacobs and is working on his dissertation entitled “Ex Uno Plures: A Proposed Completion of Bach’s Art of Fugue.” He currently serves as associate organist and choirmaster at the Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, Long Island.

A frequent competition prizewinner, MacKnight holds the Fellow and Choirmaster certificates from the American Guild of Organists (having won the prize for top score for the latter) and is a member of The Diapason’s “20 Under 30” Class of 2019. Upcoming performance highlights include recitals in Ingelheim, Germany; Kingston, Jamaica; and at Saint Matthew’s Cathedral in Washington, DC. Colin MacKnight is represented in North America by Karen McFarlane Artists, Inc. For more information, media, and a calendar of performances, visit colinmacknight.com.

“Miss no opportunity to practice on the organ; there is no instrument that takes such immediate revenge on the impure and the careless, in composition as well as in the playing, as the organ.”¹ This description from Schumann was likely referring to the organ’s ability to execute—one might even say affinity for—complex counterpoint. It is only fitting then that his only organ work would be a set of six fugues on Johann Sebastian Bach’s surname, a homage to music’s greatest contrapuntist, one of Schumann’s principal influences, and the composer who dominates the organ repertoire to a degree that no other composer dominates any other repertoire. Schumann stated, “What art owes to Bach is to the musical world hardly less than what a religion owes to its founder.”² He also acknowledged the influence that Bach exerted on his own music; Schumann’s compositional style was unusually motivic, and he attributed his disdain for what he called “lyric simplicity” to his study of Bach and Beethoven.³

In German musical parlance, B is B-flat and H is B-natural, allowing one to turn Bach’s surname into the motive B-flat, A, C, B-natural. By composing a set of fugues based on the theme
B-A-C-H, Schumann was participating in a long tradition of composing pieces (particularly for the organ) that include the B-A-C-H motive.

This tradition began with Johann Sebastian Bach himself and continues to the present. Two notable examples of Bach encrypting his own name occur in the Toccata in F Major for organ, BWV 540i (in transposition), and Contrapuncti 8, 11, and 14 of Die Kunst der Fuga, BWV 1080. Felix Mendelssohn was the next composer of a substantial body of organ music to encrypt the B-A-C-H motive into one of his pieces. In measure 56 of the first movement of his Sonata IV in B-flat from the Six Organ Sonatas, op. 65, he prominently includes the B-A-C-H motive in the pedal, transposed down a whole-tone (Example 1).

Schumann was close friends with Mendelssohn and even wrote a glowing review of the organ sonatas in his journal, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, so Mendelssohn’s encryption may not have been unnoticed by him. Perhaps it is not coincidence that Schumann composed his set in 1845—the year in which Mendelssohn’s organ sonatas were published.⁴ In addition to Mendelssohn’s organ sonatas, Mendelssohn’s Six Preludes and Fugues for Piano, op. 35, and Three Preludes and Fugues for Organ, op. 37, were almost certainly strong influences on Schumann’s B-A-C-H fugues.⁵

Schumann was, however, the first composer to write a large work based on this theme. This proved to be influential; other composers who would later write substantial organ works based on B-A-C-H include Franz Liszt (Prelude and Fugue on the Name B-A-C-H, S. 260, versions of which exist for piano and organ), Sigfrid Karg-Elert (Passacaglia and Fugue on B-A-C-H, op.150), Max Reger (Fantasy and Fugue on the Name B-A-C-H, op. 46), Ernst Pepping (Three Fugues on B-A-C-H), etc. Schumann’s set is the longest of these works.

The year 1845 is often called Schumann’s contrapuntal year because of his and Clara Schumann’s intense study of counterpoint, resulting in such compositions as the Six Studies in Canonic Form, op. 56, and Four Sketches, op. 58, both for pedal-piano; Six Fugues on B-A-C-H for organ, op. 60; and Four Fugues for piano, op. 72.⁶ During this year of “Fugenpassion,”⁷ to use Schumann’s own term, they studied Friedrich Wilhelm Marpurg’s Treatise on the Fugue and Luigi Cherubini’s A Course of Counterpoint and Fugue.⁸ Schumann also studied counterpoint intensely from 1831 to 1832 under Heinrich Dorn and from 1836 to 1838, a period which yielded more contrapuntally complex and rich works such as Kreisleriana.⁹

Schumann finished the first fugue on April 7 and the second on April 18.¹⁰ Soon after the second fugue was completed, a rented pedal-piano arrived at the Schumann house.¹¹ This would have been a useful tool for composing the Sketches, Canonic Studies, and Fugues, but, surprisingly, this is also around the time Schumann began to eschew the use of the piano as a compositional tool.¹² Perhaps, then, the pedal-piano was mainly used to assist in pedal-writing.

After the second fugue, progress on the set slowed for a variety of reasons including illness, work on the latter movements of the Piano Concerto in A Minor, op. 54, and organization of an orchestral concert series in Dresden.¹³ By the end of September, Schumann had drafted the third, fourth, and fifth fugues¹⁴ and in late November, Schumann completed the set.¹⁵ The influence of the B-A-C-H project can also be seen on his next opus, Symphony No. 2 in C Major; the second trio of the scherzo uses a theme beginning with the B-A-C-H motive, and the adagio contains a fugato (Example 2).¹⁶

Schumann’s set of six fugues is in many ways similar to and likely inspired by Bach’s The Art of the Fugue since both are thorough explorations of the contrapuntal potential of one musical idea. Schumann was, however, somewhat disdainful of The Art of the Fugue for being excessively cerebral.¹⁷ Part of this is probably due to what Schumann may have perceived as a lack of variety in The Art of the Fugue. Since The Art of the Fugue is based on a single subject and the Schumann B-A-C-H fugues are only based on a motive, Schumann has considerably more flexibility in his thematic material. (Interestingly, this is not unlike Bach’s use of the B-A-C-H motive in The Art of the Fugue. In Contrapunctus 8, the motive is masked with repeated notes and inversion; in Contrapunctus 11, he un-inverts it but retains the repeated notes. It is not until Contrapunctus 14 that Bach plainly reveals the motive, a technique of which Schumann surely would have been proud.)

Schumann, like Bach, derives several distinct fugue subjects from the B-A-C-H motive. The first, third, and sixth fugues, for example, all plainly feature the motive as the main substance of the subject. The fifth fugue, however, treats it just as the starting point for further elaboration. The fourth fugue also uses the motive overtly but changes its contour by leaping down a sixth from A to C, instead of up a third. By modifying and developing the theme, Schumann reveals and incorporates one of his favorite compositional genres: the character piece. John Daverio describes this important difference between fugues and character pieces by saying, “If the essence of a fugue is a fixed subject, then that of the character piece is the transformation of an eloquent motive.”¹⁸ By combining elements of these two genres, Schumann is not just taking a neo-baroque diversion but is “updating” the fugal form to include the most modern musical trends.

Each of Schumann’s fugues also has specific tempo and dynamic indications to contrast the movements. The work is framed by two large accelerando, crescendo fugues; the second fugue is a virtuosic allegro; the third, serene and lyrical; the fourth, a more austere study; and the fifth, a charming scherzo. In this way, the work is not just a compilation of fugues but also a suite of complementary movements. Schumann also provides tonal variety by including G minor and F major movements into an overarching B-flat major—something The Art of the Fugue does not do despite its much greater length. Additionally, there is greater variety of texture in Schumann’s set than The Art of the Fugue. Schumann is not averse to devolving to homophony as he does in all but the third fugue. He also frequently composed in what looks like a “lazy” five-voice texture by writing five-voice expositions but not maintaining a strict five-voice texture (until the last fugue). This is, however, more likely another attempt at textural variety than contrapuntal ineptitude on Schumann’s part; by moving the bass line between the pedal and left hand, he is varying the sound and texture even while maintaining the same number of voices.

As previously stated, the first fugue is an accelerando, crescendo fugue. The quintessential example of this, and likely inspiration for Schumann, is the first movement of Mendelssohn’s Sonata No. 3 in A Major from his Six Organ Sonatas, op. 65. Schumann’s subject comprises two bars, the first of which is the B-A-C-H motive plainly stated, and the second of which includes the B-A-C-H motive in retrograde in its first, second, fifth, and sixth pitches (Example 3). At the point at which Schumann indicates to begin crescendoing and accelerating, he combines the B-A-C-H motive (or a variant thereof) in the pedal with a two-voice stretto of the diminished form of the subject in the manuals (Example 4).

The piece builds to a very exciting homophonic climax, particularly when the performer has accelerated enough (Simon Preston starts at 92 beats per minute and comes close to doubling the tempo, reaching 168 beats per minute at the fastest), with double-pedal before a five-bar coda that returns to a polyphonic texture, although without the B-A-C-H subject. Because of the lower register and reduction in texture, it is not uncommon to decrescendo through the coda, even though this is not indicated in the score.

The second fugue is the allegro movement and the most unabashedly virtuosic. It is also the only fugue in a triple meter, a trait of which Schumann takes full advantage through the use of hemiola. Its subject begins with a quick dotted B-A-C-H before beginning a sequence that is almost certainly taken from the fugue from Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor for organ, BWV 565. Schumann would have known this work from Mendelssohn’s famous Bach recital at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig, which he enthusiastically reviewed in his Neue Zeitschrift für Musik (Examples 5 and 6).¹⁹

In measure 48, Schumann combines the subject with its augmentation in the pedal. Then in measure 74, there is a rest for performer and listener alike when Schumann quietly strettos the augmented B-A-C-H motive with occasional interruptions from the BWV 565 motive. (These fragments of the BWV 565 motive make the connection to Bach’s fugue even more obvious.) This motive gradually takes over the texture while crescendoing until the piece devolves into a virtuosic toccata, complete with double-pedal, arpeggios, octave doublings, and no hint of B-A-C-H. He then briefly alludes to the quiet B-A-C-H stretto passage again—this time with neighbor-tones on the B-flat—before a passage of triumphant homophony. There is one more fugal interruption before the chorale-style writing returns and a hemiola passage with sforzando chords every two beats. The movement ends with a coda over a B-flat pedal that continues to use the BWV 565 motive while eschewing the B-A-C-H motive, a final confirmation of this fugue’s inspiration.

The third fugue is the only one that is entirely quiet; there is a piano indication at the beginning with the description “Mit sanften Stimmen”—with gentle stops—and no further performance instructions. This is the only fugue that begins in two voices with the counter-subject present from the beginning. It is also the simplest and technically easiest fugue. The B-A-C-H theme only occurs in one form, and the emphasis is on lyricism rather than intellect or virtuosity. It is also the only fugue in a minor key, G minor, but ending in a tranquil G major.

The fourth fugue is the most austere and perhaps the least accessible of the set. This is clear from the outset when Schumann uses a jagged version of the B-A-C-H motive; instead of an ascending minor third between A and C, he writes a descending major sixth, meaning the subject outlines a pungent diminished octave. This is one of Schumann’s cleverest techniques: to utilize the B-A-C-H motive as a collection of pitch classes with no specific contour rather than a traditional theme with a set shape.   

Schumann further adds to the complexity and austerity of this movement by introducing the retrograde of B-A-C-H for the first time and immediately combining it with the subject’s normal form. The retrograde form of the subject almost always has staccato markings on the first and third notes to draw attention to itself, retrograde being among the more obscure contrapuntal techniques (Example 7).

This movement continues to use retrograde pervasively and eventually transitions into loud chordal writing with flashy pedal scales. Like the second fugue, it alternates between passages of strict counterpoint and homophony. The passagework and homophony bring what was an ascetic contrapuntal exercise—perhaps worthy of Schumann’s own questionable criticism of The Art of the Fugue—to a dramatic and exciting close. The climax in measures 96 to 99 is particularly thrilling and one of the highlights of the whole work, as if to apologize for the trials through which he has just put the listener.

As an additional conciliatory gesture, Schumann placed his charming scherzo-fugue next. The presence of a scherzo—an unusual template for a fugue—in this set is further proof that Schumann conceived this set as a suite of complementary pieces and not just miscellaneous movements based on the same theme. The fifth fugue is the only movement in F major and the shortest of the set. This movement’s subject begins with a fleeting B-A-C-H that sounds almost like a perfunctory after-thought—or pre-thought. It is a refreshing relief after the previous four movements which all employ the B-A-C-H motive so plainly.

Nevertheless, the scherzo is still a contrapuntal tour de force. It includes augmentation, inversion, retrograde, and retrograde augmentation, and combines the augmented form of the subject with the original form and the augmented retrograde form with the plain retrograde, an astonishing amount of artifice for a movement of less than three minutes. The technique, however, never hinders the charm. This fugue demonstrates well Schumann’s outlook on fugal composition: “Anyway, this will always be the best fugue the public for instance regards as a waltz by Strauss—in other words, where the artificial rootage is covered like the roots of a flower so that we can see just the flower.” For Schumann, artifice and contrapuntal ingenuity were always subservient to beauty and emotion.²⁰

The sixth and final fugue, the longest of the set, is another accelerando, crescendo fugue. It is also the only double fugue in the set, giving it more in common with the first movement of Mendelssohn’s Sonata No. 3 in A Major, op. 65, which, as previously mentioned, is also a crescendo, accelerando, double fugue. The three-bar subject begins with the B-A-C-H motive and ends with a short descending scale that is the source of the second subject. The first section also prominently features a five-note motive as a counter-subject, beginning in measure 16. This motive, intentionally or not, sounds like a quotation of the main motive in Bach’s chorale prelude on Valet will ich dir geben, BWV 736. The descending scale that closes the first subject becomes the second subject in measure 58 and begins a new section that is marked Lebhafter and più forte. This section does not use the B-A-C-H motive but instead develops the second subject, including stretto and inversion, and uses the same five-note countersubject.

In measure 95, Schumann finally combines the subjects and countersubject signaling the third and final part of this fugue, the only instance of strict five-part counterpoint in the entire set (Example 8).

The strict counterpoint continues until measure 116 when Schumann switches to grand, fortissimo, chorale writing with a few quasi-contrapuntal interruptions. The homophonic texture allows him to compose abrupt and distant modulations that are unusual in strict fugal textures: most notably, the modulation to G major in measure 139 and back to B-flat in measure 142. As in the second fugue, Schumann eventually eschews the B-A-C-H motive (after measure 144 in the sixth fugue), choosing instead to close the entire work not with either of the subjects but with the counter-subject.

As previously mentioned, Schumann “updates” the fugal form by incorporating elements of the character piece, which he does by developing and transforming the B-A-C-H motive. By examining the different transformations of B-A-C-H, as well as other motives, one can see certain relationships between movements beyond the obvious thematic unity of a monothematic work. Specifically, the movements can be organized into three related pairs: movements one and four, two and three, and five and six.

The first fugue is related to the fourth by merit of the fact that it utilizes a countersubject, itself derived from the B-A-C-H motive, which prominently features leaps of sixths, the same interval that is so characteristic of the fourth fugue’s subject (Example 9). 

While this relationship by itself may seem somewhat tenuous, Schumann retroactively confirms it with what is probably the most shocking harmony of this fugue: the false ending at measure 60, in which an F dominant-seventh chord resolves to a secondary-dominant ninth of the subdominant. What sounds like a dramatic change in register is actually the jagged contour of the fourth fugue’s subject in the soprano! The soprano and tenor lines also continue to prominently feature leaps of sixths through the coda of this movement (Example 10).

The second and third fugues are also connected by an allusion in the second fugue to the third fugue’s subject. In measure 48 of fugue two, the B-A-C-H motive appears in the pedal in augmentation with three extra notes that together with B-A-C-H will form the third fugue’s subject (Examples 11 and 12).

Just like in the first fugue, the relationship between fugues two and three may seem weak, but Schumann once again confirms it by developing the tail of the third fugue subject in the tenor and bass voices later in the second fugue (measure 135) (Example 13).

The connection between the fifth and sixth fugues is perhaps the most obvious. The fugue subject of fugue five has a five-note figure that occurs in the second (C, B-flat, A, B-flat, C) and third (G, F, E, F, G) measures of the subject (Example 14).

Schumann later inverts this theme, so it also occurs in an up-down shape. The inverted form of this motive (the aforementioned quotation of Valet will ich dir geben, BWV 736) then becomes the countersubject to the final fugue and is combined with both of the last fugue’s subjects. It is introduced in the first exposition in measure 16 and is combined with both subjects in measure 95 (see Example 8).

On the surface, nothing could have been more conservative in nineteenth-century music than a set of six fugues for organ. Further examination reveals, however, how progressive Schumann’s B-A-C-H fugues were. They were likely the first set of pieces to be based entirely on Bach’s name, they constitute a complementary “suite” of fugues—not just a collection of movements—and there are connections and developments between the movements that foreshadow Brahms’s developing variation. Schumann himself wrote, “I worked on this set for the whole of last year in order to make it somewhat worthy of the exalted name it bears; [it is] a work that will, I believe, long outlive my other works.”²¹ His prediction that his reputation would be based largely on these fugues did not prove to be accurate, but it was surely right of him to hold them in such high regard.

Notes

1. Helga Scholz-Michelitsch, “Robert Schumann and the Organ,” trans. Susanne Weber, The Franz Schmidt Organ Competition, http://orgelwettbewerb.kitz.net/Franz-Schmidt-OrganCompetition/Robert_Schumann.html. 

2. Eric Frederick Jensen, Schumann (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 145.

3. Ibid., 145–146. 

4. Scholz-Michelitsch, “Robert Schumann and the Organ.”

5. John Daverio, Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age” (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 308.

6. Daverio, Robert Schumann, 306.

7. Ibid., 307. 

8. Scholz-Michelitsch, “Robert Schumann and the Organ.”

9. Daverio, Robert Schumann, 306.

10. Ibid., 307.

11. Ibid.

12. Jensen, Schumann. 284.

13. Daverio, Robert Schumann, 307.

14. Ibid.

15. Ibid., 308.

16. Jensen, Schumann, 289.

17. Ibid. 144.

18. Daverio, Robert Schumann, 309.

19. Scholz-Michelitsch, “Robert Schumann and the Organ.”

20. Ibid.

21. Daverio, Robert Schumann, 308.

Bibliography

Daverio, John. Robert Schumann: Herald of a “New Poetic Age.” New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Jensen, Eric Frederick. Schumann. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

Scholz-Michelitsch, Helga. “Robert Schumann and the Organ.” Translated by Susanne Weber. The Franz Schmidt Organ Competition. http://orgelwettbewerb.kitz.net/Franz-Schmidt-OrganCompetition/Robert_Schumann.html.

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