Brahms: Organ Works

Robert P

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Cat No: 8550824

Release Date: 12 January 1999

Label: Naxos - Nxc / Naxos Classics

Packaging Type: Jewel Case

No of Units: 1

Barcode: 730099582421

Genres: Classical

Composer/Series: BRAHMS

Description
Johannes Brahms (1833 - 1897) Complete Organ Works Prelude and Fugue in G Minor Fugue in A Flat Minor Eleven Chorale Preludes, Op. 122 Chorale Prelude and Fugue on O Traurigkeit, O Herzeleid (\O Heartbreak, O Sadness) Prelude and Fugue in A Minor Most listeners do not think of Johannes Brahms (1833- 1897) as a composer of organ music, for the works that first come to mind are the symphonies, concertos, piano pieces, songs, and chamber music - or perhaps the German Requiem. Yet, the very last compositions from the pen of Brahms were a set of chorale preludes for organ, published posthumously in 1902. Curiously enough, his only previous compositions for this instrument originated much earlier. In the 1850s, when Brahms was still a young pianist and composer, he mentioned his aspirations to become an "organ virtuoso". Although he found the complex instrument more difficult to master than he had anticipated, he began to compose for it in earnest. Among his first attempts were two preludes and fugues, a conscious emulation of a form developed in the Baroque era but filtered through Brahms's own harmonic language. He regarded both works as novice projects not worthy of publication and apparently thought that the manuscripts had been destroyed. They were discovered much later, however, and published in 1927, thirty years after his death. The Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, the second and more mature of the two, was written in 1857. The flamboyant prelude recalls the rhapsodic style of praeludia and toccatas by earlier German composers like Buxtehude or even the young J. S. Bach. Brahms was an avid student of pre-19th-century music, and it is by no means coincidental that he often chose archaic musical forms for his own writing. Counterpoint, especially canon and fugue, absorbed the attention of Brahms during this period in particular. The first version of his Fugue in A flat minor, completed in 1856, was later revised and published in 1864 (as a supplement to the journal Allgemeine musikalische Zeitung). The accompanying prelude in this rarely used key has been lost - if indeed it was ever completed - but the quiet fugue, marked langsam, stands on its own as a masterfully crafted and deeply felt creation. Brahms's contrapuntal ingenuity is revealed even from the outset, as the highly expressive main subject is answered by its own inversion. After the 1850s Brahms abandoned composition for the organ, other than revision of older pieces for publication, but toward the end of his life and just before the impending death of his close friend Clara Schumann, Brahms once again turned his attention to the organ. The resulting Eleven Chorale Preludes, finished in May and June of 1896, are a high point in German Romantic organ literature. Most are rather short and similar in format to pieces in the Orgelbüchlein, J. S. Bach's cycle of 45 chorale preludes for the liturgical year; that is, the phrases of the chorale melody, plain or embellished, are not separate
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