The Walcker organ – built in 1900 – has a pneumatic tracker action and a great variety of tonal colors. While not as versatile as the organs of the French romantic school, it has a number of modifications over the basic baroque organ of Bach’s day. While Mendelssohn loved baroque organs, he wrote his six organ sonatas in a more advanced style that perfectly fits this organ design. Mendelssohn was the first to unite sonata form with the Protestant chorale in his organ sonatas. He saw the entire cycle as one cohesive work, with the individual sonatas representing the different movements of one massive sonata. Although he composed them in a different order, he arranged the six works of the cycle with a key sequence of f-c-A-B flat-D-d (with the lower case denoting the minor keys and the caps the major).
The first sonata is a the longest of all at over 15 minutes. It has four movements on a large scale, blending the choral with sonata movement structure. The second sonata has no chorale and starts with two slow movements. It’s primary theme is a fugue. The third and fourth sonatas are in major keys and highly contrasted with one another. The fourth takes the form of a four-movement classical piano sonata. The fifth is the shortest of the six and again begins with two slow movements and a chorale. The final sonata uses a Luther chorale “Our Father who are in in heaven” for an overall theme and variations structure.
Brahms’ Fugue is quite chromatic and was a strong influence on Arnold Schoenberg. The 11 Chorale Preludes was the only work Brahms left behind upon his death. They used variations on lieder and hymn melodies from his childhood, and in fact he had played some of them on the piano for his friends the night before his death. The acoustics of the church are well-preserved via the full 5.1-channel surround reproduction. Although all solo instruments benefit from surround sound reproduction, the pipe organ benefits more than any other, since the acoustics of its venue are so much a part of the musical experience. Audiophile organ buffs will definitely want to add this expertly performed, recorded and notated album to their collection.
– John Sunier
