INTRODUCTION Given the renowned clarity of the pipework and THE ORGAN OF ST BAVO, HAARLEM voicing of the organ, I began to ruminate upon I am so thrilled that my tenth disc for if the Reubke Sonata on the 94th Psalm had Signum has coincided with the remarkable been formally recorded on disc at St Bavo. organ and building of St Bavo, in the Dutch Though the work was written in 1857 for the city of Haarlem. Ladegast organ in Merseburg Cathedral, with the 1 Chaconne, from Partita No. 2, BWV 1004 (arr. Messerer) [14.24] changes and enlargements made to the organ Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) The Church and the history of its 1738 Christian of St Bavo, coupled with the clarity and style 2 Toccata & Fugue in F Major, BuxWV 157 [4.55] Muller organ is very well documented, with of voicing, this seemed to be an exciting new Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) composers such as Mozart, Handel and possibility. We have been unable to unearth Mendelssohn all having played the instrument. I a recording of the Reubke (on a professional 3 Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659 [5.42] cannot add anything germane that is not easily label) and so it was decided to build a programme Johann Sebastian Bach discovered online regarding the organ of St around this masterpiece. A few compromises Bavo, however, I would like to provide a brief had to be found as occasionally the compass 4 Trio Jesus Christus Unser Heiland, BWV 688 [3.55] insight into the composition of the repertoire of the organ did not provide enough notes Johann Sebastian Bach for this disk. and as St Bavo does not enjoy a Barker lever system to help with the weight of the action, 5 Sonata in D Minor, Op. 65 No. 6 [15.30] It is well known that the organ case of St Bavo playing with the keyboards coupled together Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) is perhaps the most photographed in the (In the Reubke) provided quite a challenge 6 Sonata on the 94th Psalm [25.40] world and with good reason. However, no in terms of weight of the keys! The acoustic Julius Reubke (1834-1858) photograph can prepare you for the shock of of St Bavo is also perilously lively, and tempi the grandeur of the case as you enter the had to be very carefully judged to balance Total timings: [70.08] Church and turn the corner into the nave from clarity against drama. the kitchen street entrance. The scale of the case seems bigger and more imposing than Having settled on this masterwork it seemed to you could imagine in a photograph and its make sense to me keep the entire programme JOSEPH NOLAN sheer magnificence is breathtaking. Germanic, with the Bach Chaconne in D Minor THE GREAT ORGAN OF ST BAVO (arranged by the French organist Messerer) an excellent vehicle to display the many colours www.signumrecords.com - 3 - of St Bavo. More traditional stop combinations Abbreviations and acronyms obsess modern In 1951 the first edition of The Record Guide conductor, Liszt the pianist, led the way, are provided for in Bach’s Nun Komm Der life. But they’re nothing new. The choral societies (Sackville-West, Shawe-Taylor) acknowledged promulgating Bachian aesthetic for the common Heiden Heiland BWV 659 and the wonderful and concert rooms of Victorian and Edwardian ‘his organ works and church cantatas [to] good. Spanning his life, Bach’s keyboard trio, Jesus Christus Unser Heiland BWV 688. England didn’t have their ‘Tchaiks’ or ‘Rachs’ show a passionate and brooding imagination output was copious. Music for private, public Buxtehude’s organ works (Danish/German) are – but they had ‘The Three Bs’, a tag, coined of a highly individual order’, an opinion or pedagogical use, universally destined if eminently suitable to this organ and his Toccata by the German Peter Cornelius in 1854, referring consolidated and expanded in the decades at the outset confined to the locale of his and Fugue in F major BuxWV 157 is a splendid, to Bach, Beethoven and Berlioz. Appropriating since. By way of footnote, the Russian Romantics appointments – for ‘Bach and his fellow and compact, example. it, von Bülow hallowed the ‘Holy Trinity’ admired and championed his ‘freshness’ – organists and cantors belonged to a closed dimension with which many are still familar: Taneyev, Glazunov, Esipova, Prokofiev (the latter society [not to the “larger world” of the “great It seemed very fitting to include what many ‘Bach, the Father, Beethoven, the Son, Brahms, transcribing the D minor Prelude and Fugue centres of Europe”]. His reputation as an critics consider Mendelssohn’s finest the Holy Ghost’. Quartet players, naturally Bux 140 for piano, programming it in Chicago organist was widespread, but it was a masterpiece for the organ, his Sonata No 6 enough, assume another primacy: Beethoven, in 1922). Undated, the Toccata in F, Bux 157, provincial fame, far removed from the European in D Minor. These variations, based on the Brahms, Bartók. Organists similarly: Buxtehude, is exultant and extrovert – an improvisatory reputation that Handel enjoyed’ (Max Graf, Lutheran Chorale Vater unser im Himmelreich Bach, Bruckner. prelude, contrasting running ‘Italian’ semiquavers Composer and Critic, 1947). BWV 416, require an organ with stops of great and ‘French’ dotted-rhythms, preceeding a beauty and balance, but with clarity, depth Buxtehude of Lübeck was the man who, in 1705, rigorous four-part fugue. Journeying ‘a whole world of the deepest and magnificence when required. the young Bach walked nearly five-hundred thoughts and most powerful feelings’ (Brahms), kilometers to hear. His contemporaries and To 19th century middle-Europe Bach was the the Chaconne in D minor crowning the Second The organ of St Bavo is a marvel set in one successors thought of him principally as an Parnassus, the ‘pictorial musician-poet’, of the Partita for solo violin, BWV 1004 (1720, published of the prettiest small cities in Europe. It was instrumental composer, the defining voice of age. Worshipped by Beethoven (1801) – ‘first 1802) takes the form of a variation cycle on an a privilege to be permitted to record on this the 17th century German organ, Quantz in father of harmony’. Monumentalised by Weber eight-bar theme, changing from minor to major instrument and my most grateful thanks are 1752 ranking him among those early Northern (1821) – ‘a Gothic cathedral dedicated to in the middle. Helga Thoene’s theory, proposed extended to the generous custodian of the organ, Europeans working ‘on the improvement of the arts’. Deified by Schumann (1840) – in a 1994 paper (Johann Sebastian Bach: Mr Anton Pauw. musical taste [who] wrote almost as the first ‘unapproachable, unfathomable’. The Bach Ciaconna – Tanz oder Tombeau), that the the most tasteful pieces of their time’. His Awakening was a peculiarly German/Anglo-Saxon movement may have been intended as an Joseph Nolan sizeable vocal catalogue coincided with the affair. It elevated one man’s genius. It gave ‘epitaph in music’ on the sudden death in rise of the Protestant ecclesiastical cantata, the Baroque Romantic pertinence. It made July 1720 of Bach’s first wife, Maria Barbara, but it wasn’t until the early 20th century that History acceptable to programme. Sailing by incorporating an array of Christian symbols, its importance began to be properly recognised. the flag of German fugue, Mendelssohn the chorales and cryptograms, has provoked heated - 4 - - 5 - debate. Henri Messerer (1838-1923) – ‘one D minor canto fermo melody (1529) fragmentised universally esteemed as Mendelssohn’ – Charles well thought-out works’ (letter, 28 March of the many church musicians of Alsatian on pedals. ‘Christ Jesus, our Redeemer born,/ Coventry, friend and Bachian, delighted to 1884). Schumann, mentally prostrate in origin who populated Parisian and provincial Who from us did God’s anger turn,/Through His have signed such a starry Victorian idol, paid Dresden, Clara on hand, waxed lyrical. ‘Only the tribunes and chapels during the 19th century’ sufferings sore and main,/Did help us all out £60 for the privilege, selling the collection other day we became quite absorbed in your (Patrick Geel) – was for fifty years titular of hell-pain’ (Charles Sanford Terry, 1921). to 192 subscribers at a guinea a copy. Those organ sonatas, unfortunately only at the [?pedal] organist of Saint-Charles de Marseille. Intimate who subscribed included William Sterndale piano, but even without the title page we confession and bronzed challenge, grace In keeping with his predecessors, contemporaries Bennett of the Royal Academy of Music, John would have known they were by you. And yet and gloire, distinguish his ‘Cavaillé-Coll’ and successors – Beethoven, Spohr, Weber, Goss, Organist of St Paul’s Cathedral, and, you are always striving to advance still transcription, a homage of regal spirit. ‘La Schumann, Brahms, Bruch, Reger – Mendelssohn, waiting in the wings, an otherwise unknown more, and for this reason you will ever be an musique de Dieu ...’ pianist and organist, master of the majestic eighteen-year-old eking out chapel experience example to me. These intensely poetical new and the modest, married Classicism and in Liverpool, W T Best – the ‘greatest English ideas – what a perfect picture they form in Jesus Christus Unser Heiland, BWV 688, comes Romanticism, in the process ‘singlehandedly organist of the second half of the 19th every sonata! In Bach’s music I always imagine from the Clavier-Übung Part III, the so-called [averting] the history of organ literature century’ (William A Little). him sitting at the organ, but in yours I rather German Organ Mass, published at Bach’s from a course of utter decadence’ (Eugene think of St Cecilia touching the keys […] expense in September 1739.