Wandering through classical music

There are two complete recordings of the 20 sonatas and the collections of shorter pieces, one by Wolfgang Rübsam on 8 Naxos cd's (very good), and by Rudolf Innig on DG (12 cd's), which could potentially be even better (haven't heard it yet).

There's also an old vinyl edition - the first complete one -which has been transfered to cd recently, with 3 English organists playing english cathedral organs. I wouldn't recommend that one: the playing is very uneven and mostly not very ideomatic.

50m and Parla!

Thank you both for the extensive information! Now, the difficult question. I'm not ready to buy the complete organ works. So, which one or two CDs of the organ music would you recommend for starters?

Chris

@parla:

Parla, I DO think Rheinberger's best organ works can compete with Franck's in terms of quality. It's just some historic injustice that needs to be corrected.

For too long we've seen a predominance of French romantic organ music in the programmes of Organ recitals. Everyone wants to play Franck, Widor and Vierne, even if (as is mostly the case) the organ isn't really suited for the job. Because the french organ masters thought of the organ as a one person orchestra, they were very inventive in emplying colorful registrations and varied sounds, making their works accessible even for people who hated organ music because of its abstractness and monumental inaccessibility. That also causes their music to be highly specific about the choice of registers and thus, unfit for most non-french-romantic organs.

So we've come to a point now where even the most insignificant farts by 2nd rate composers like Guilmant are being revered, programmed, played and recorded. While most pre-Reger german romantic organ music still waits to be rediscovered. And ironically, the german romanticists were far less picky about their instruments and registrations. They didn't think of the organ as a one-man orchestra either - their ideas about the instrument were far more linked to the original purpose of the organ, in the renaissance and baroque periods. To me, that's a more "pure" and idiomatic approach.
So it's much easier to get a Rheinberger sonata sound well on an all-purpose organ than, say a Widor symphony.

As an organist, I often play music by german 19th century composers like Rinck, Hesse, Merkel, Robert Führer, Moritz Brosig, Theodor Kirchner, E.F. Richter, Paul Claussnitzer, Max Gulbins and Otto Dienel, to mention only a few - to most people completely unknown - names. They're not all masterpieces, far from that. But sometimes the question whether it fits in the liturgy or not is more important than the musical quality.

Which leads to the biggest prejudice about the german romantic organ music between Mendelssohn and Reger: that it's all academic, bone-dry and boring. One scholastic fugue after the other.
This can be true in some cases. Merkel is a good example of a composer whose music CAN be inspired and interesting, but mostly isn't. All these composers had a great traditional technique, both instrumental and compositorial, and when inspiration was lacking, it was easy for them to fall back on their knowledge of traditional forms and produce something that's "correct" in the formal sense, but which lacks originality and musical value.

But with composer like Rheinberger, even his small trifles - the organ trios, characteristic pieces and other "small change" is alway rich in melody and harmony and so well written for the instrument that it almost "plays itself".

Which brings us to the comparing Rheinberger to Franck. Yes, I admit that it's comparing apples to oranges. And that it's hard to compare Franck's slim, economical output of 12 masterpieces (there isn't a single weak piece among those) to the vast library that Rheinberger left. And yes, not all of R.'s sonatas are equally inspired and valuable. But the best among them (just to mention a few: the 7th, 8th, 10th, 14th, 16th, 17th and 19th) are absolute masterpieces, and I dare say that a piece like Rheinberger's 10th sonata in b minor is as good as Franck's Pièce Héroique (also in b minor...) It's just written in a completely different style.

@Chris:

Great to see you're interested!
My two absolute favorite Rheinberger sonatas are the 10th and the 14th. The 10th I played last year in a concert, the 14th is still "under study".

The 10th is a dark, brooding piece, in which a sombre prelude and fugue leads - via a lighter middle movement, a theme with variations, to a dramatic fantasie and finale. The fantasie contains one of Rheinberger's most beautiful melodies. A sweeping broad tune that strangely enough reminds me of Elgar.

The 14th in contrast is written in the most radiant C major possible. Specially the opening Prelude is an amazing piece, which incorporates elements of Bach in a modern harmonic idiom. I consider this sonata as a whole to be one of the most monumental pieces ever written for organ. It's like music cut out of a block of granite. Manly, muscular, unsentimental.

So I'd say Wolfgang Rübsam's Naxos cd with the sonatas 14, 15 and 16 could be a good buy. The 15th and 16th are wonderful pieces too, and it's value for money at almost 80 minutes of music.

Rübsam's 10th is coupled with the 11th and the set of little Organ Trios Op. 189. I'm not a big fan of the 11th, but it contains the (in)famous Cantilene, undoubtly Rheinberger's most popular piece.

In Innig's set, the 10th is coupled to the 9th, and the 14th shares a cd with the 12 Monologues (nice but the 15th and 16th sonata offer more musical value).
Also, I think Innig plays the first movement of the 14th too fast. It's a virtuoso performance but there's none of the majestic grandeur, which I associate with this piece.
I think Rübsam's mostly slower tempi fit the character of the music better.

So I'd say if you wanna try something cheap at first, go for the Rübsam cd of sonatas 14-16 at first, and if you like it, get the cd with sonatas 10 and 11.

EDIT @Parla:
I wouldn't recommend the first sonata. It's a rather dull piece, which shows little of the mastery of the later sonatas. The cd with the 19th and 20th on the other hand offers the "ripe" Rhenberger, and specially the 19th is wonderful. Still, if I were Chris, I'd go for the Naxos cd's at first. The fact that they're only half the price (or less) than the MDG's could be a tiebreaker too.

It's interesting to note - since you mentioned the first sonata - that these early pieces (together with the 2nd, 3rd and 4th) probably were written before Rheinberger thought of his "master plan" of writing 24 sonatas in every major and minor key. They're stylistically different from the rest too.

There doesn't seem to be a pattern in the choice of keys, at least I can't see any. Do you think there's a reason why he saved c# minor, E major, F# major and Bb major for the last 4?

I already mentioned my own project of stepping in old Otto's footsteps and writing my own cycle of 24 sonatas, to be published at IMSLP. I tend to complete them, though - and not to drop dead after the 20th. ;)
I'm following a strict pattern, though. The first 5 sonatas (the 5th still being incomplete) are written in b minor, F major, b flat minor, E major, a minor... what key will the 6th be in?

50m: Wow! thank you so much for that incredibly thorough and interesting reply. And thank you too Parla, I see scope for some interesting discussion here. But before I enter into that (!) I think I'll take your advice and buy two inexpensive Naxos discs with 10/11 and 14-16 Sonatas.  The organ Rübsam uses at Fulda Cathedral sounds interesting too. I notice that the organ was rebuilt by the firm of Rieger but with some pipework from Sauer. (Parla, you will probably remember some previous discussion about the Sauer organ in Berlin Dom).

Like both of you, I think the organ works of Franck are all (or amost all) masterpieces.  I'm also very much interested at the moment in Messiaen's organ music. I've recently bought the complete works with Olivier Latry at Notre Dame. These seem to be wonderful performances to me. And the BBC Music Magazine's free CD last month was a performance of La Nativité du Seigneur, recorded by Naji Hakim on Messiaen's own instrument at La Trinité. The differences are interesting. One thing that strikes me particularly is the balancing of the inner voices in Messiaen's massive chords and chord progressions. It sounds to me that, generally these inner voices are much better balanced in the Latry recordings, to the benefit of our hearing of the harmonic structure. How is this achieved: is it purely a function of the instrument chosen?

Could one of the reasons that French organ music seems to predominate in recitals perhaps be that the works of Franck, Widor and Vierne do lead on to Messiaen and beyond (Hakim has written some interesting music) whereas there are fewer obvious successors in the German school?

Anyway, looking forward to an exploration of Rhenberger. And Naupilus you are right: too much music to explore, and this Forum is also bad for the bank balance.

Chris

PS: your next sonata: E flat major?

My musical journey is rather convoluted. My parents enjoyed light classics, but my first dalliance was with T Rex and Bowie in the early 70s. Then punk changed everything. I became a prolific record buyer and gigger; a few raucous and exciting years seeing The Clash, Buzzcocks, Stranglers et al. By 1980 I'd moved into heavy metal/hard rock: Sabbath, Maiden, AC/DC, Aerosmith, Rush. But, at the same time, I was enjoying classical music in a big way thanks to Papa Haydn. I chanced upon a TV concert of his Trumpet Concerto and Symphony 104, and found the music so wonderful and uplifting that I went straight out and bought the LPs. I was soon listening to the likes of Bruckner, Shostakovich, Bartok and Hindemith.

I met my wife in '86 and we attended many classical concerts in London. I barely went to a rock gig for 17 years. From 2000 I began listening to music from my youth again, as well as new metal, punk and indie, and for several years I reviewed for indie music websites in my spare time. In the last few years I've seen such diverse acts as Rammstein, Deep Purple, Blur, Kings of Leon, Green Day, Arctic Monkeys, Muse, Radiohead, Sex Pistols and Arcade Fire. Next week I'm taking my son to see Marilyn Manson - again. I also take him to the Proms. When driving, I think nothing of switching from a Metallica CD to Radio 3 or vice versa. I have an extensive rock CD collection, but it's still smaller than my classical collection.

Recent purchases I particularly enjoyed include Coleridge-Taylor's 'Hiawatha' on Argo, the complete Langgaard symphonies (Dacapo), Butterworth's 'Banks of Green Willow' etc. (Decca), Philip Glass's Concerto Fantasy for Two Timpanists and Orchesta (Orange Mountain Music), Poulenc's secular choral music (Hyperion) and some delightful Bruch chamber music (cpo).

Sibelius's symphonies are recommended, but I would also fly the flag for those of Carl Nielsen, Joonas Kokkonen and Rautavaara. As far as British music goes, I have a particular fondness for Malcolm Arnold, Arthur Bliss and Delius. For something a little thornier I highly recommend Ligeti's string quartets (Sony) and Ge Gan-Ru's string quartets on Naxos, which I hope will be part of a complete cycle. 

I guess, 50m, your last two sentences do make more sense now and I can converge. However, I believe Widor and Vierne are not that "minor" composers for the Organ literature and Franck is one of a kind.

Parla

Hi 50milliarden! I own very little organ music, so would love to hear what some of your favorite albums are (if you would be so kind). Off the top of my head, I own a Christoph Eschenbach album which includes Saint-Saens', etc. on Ondine and a recently acquired (but not yet listened to set) of Karl Richter which I believe includes some of him playing the organ....will have to double-check. I have heard good things about the organ playing of Olivier Latry and borrowed a copy of "Midnight at Notre Dame" from a library.  Any help would be appreciated! :--)

Best wishes (and may the muse be with you whilst you're composing),

Petra