Rheinberger: Works For Organ, Vol. 3

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Joseph GabrielRheinberger (1839-1901)Organ Works, Volume 3While for many his name may now have little resonance, Joseph GabrielRheinberger remains familiar enough to organists, to whose repertoire he madesuch an extensive contribution, in particular his twenty sonatas for theinstrument. Among his contemporaries he was held in considerable esteem as ateacher, preserving classical standards in a changing world, and some of hisCatholic liturgical music may still occasionally be heard.Rheinberger was born in Vaduz, the capital of the principality ofLiechtenstein, in 1839, the son of the Treasurer to the Prince. He had hisfirst organ lessons at the age of five and two years later was able to serve asorganist at Vaduz, making his first attempts at composition. From 1848 he wasable to have more formal instruction in the nearby town of Feldkirch from thechoirmaster Philipp Schmutzer, who had been trained in Prague, and gain somefamiliarity with the music of Bach, Mozart and Beethoven. It was on the adviceof the composer Matthaus Nagiller that his father was persuaded to allow him in1851 to study at the Munich Conservatory. His teachers there included, fortheory of music, Julius Joseph Maier, a pupil of Moritz Hauptmann, himself apupil of Spohr and founder of the Bach Gesellschaft. His organ teacher was thevirtuoso Johann Georg Herzog, who had joined the staff of the Conservatory in1850, and he studied the piano with Julius Emil Leonhard. He was also to takeprivate lessons from Franz Lachner, as a young man a member of Schubert'scircle in Vienna. During his three years of formal study he already showed veryconsiderable ability both as an organist and as a master of counterpoint andfugue. In the 1850s he continued to write a varied series of compositions,including three operas and three symphonies, but these were withheld frompublication. His first published composition was a set of piano pieces, issuedin 1859, the year in which he was appointed to the staff of the MunichConservatory as a piano teacher and subsequently as a teacher of theory. In thefollowing years he was appointed organist at the Church of St Michael,conducted the Oratorio Society, served briefly as repetiteur at the CourtOpera, and from 1867 held the position of professor of organ and composition atthe Conservatory, retaining this until his death in 1901. Among otherdistinctions he was in 1877 appointed Court Kapellmeister and was the recipientof academic honours in Munich and abroad. He enjoyed the highest reputation asa teacher, with pupils including Humperdinck, Wolf-Ferrari and Furtwangler,inculcating in them a respect for sound classical principles. His organcompositions, while remaining in current performance repertoire, have for longproved a valuable element in the training of new generations of players.Rheinberger's Sonata No. 8 in E minor, Opus 132, of 1882 startswith a slow introduction. These sixteen introductory bars are followed by afugue. The subject contains two elements, t