St Petersburg, Concert Hall

J. C. Bach. Stanley. Alain. Hollins. Schumann. Tchaikovsky


Evening of organ music

Johann Christian Bach. Concerto in D, Op. 1, No 6
Four Anonymous 16th Century Pieces: La Shy Myze. Belle et jeune fleur de quinze ans. Upon La Mi Re. Saltarelle
John Stanley. Voluntary, Op. 5, No 1 in C major
Jehan Ariste Alain. Variations sur un thème de Clèment Jannequin. Deux danses à Agni Yavishta. Litanies
Alfred Hollins. Concert Overture in C minor
Robert Schumann. Two Studies in canonic form
Pyotr Tchaikovsky. 1812 Overture. Arrangement for organ by Edwin Evans

The character of the Concert Hall’s organ

About the Concert Hall’s organ on the Mariinsky Media website

 

“The most gallant of all of Sebastian’s sons” and “the Lord of ideas of musical Europe, the talented composer and brilliant musician Johann Christian Bach (1735–1782) went down in history as the “Milan” or the “London” Bach. The youngest of Johann Sebastian’s sons who enchanted first Italy and then Great Britain, he acquired a reputation as one of the most authoritative musicians of the latter half of the 18th century. And when Europeans spoke of the “famous Bach” they meant, of course, not Bach Vater but Bach Sohn.
With his sensitive feel for Rococo aesthetics, Johann Christian embodied its typical features in music. The composer’s artistic style beautifully matched the aesthetics of the “gallant style” which was ruled by the cult of clarity, transparency, melody and light sensitivity. And at the same time it was a “turn towards new art” with its typical elements of subjectivism and sentimentalism.
In the course of his relatively short life, Johann Christian wrote a vast number of works in practically every genre that existed at the time. He worked in opera, spiritual music, chamber instrumental genres (including the Cycle of Six Concerti for Keyboard, Op. 1, Dedicated to Queen Charlotte; a melody from the national anthem God Save the King is used in the last).
The style of Bach Sohn’s instrumental writing is different to that of his father. The composer was of an era when the new gallant and delicate style replaced the “academism” and complexity of the music of the old maestri. Johann Christian’s music is light-filled in the Italian fashion and restrained in the English style. The vivid contrasts in the fast Allegri and the expressive cantilenas in the slow parts, the development which is controlled by a strict metric pulse and the clear tonal logic of classical form is all closer to Haydn and Mozart. It was not by chance that, under impressions of Johann Christian’s instrumental music which he had heard in 1765 in London, the young Mozart immediately began composing his first symphonies. Seven years later in Salzburg, he transformed Bach’s three keyboard sonatas, Op. 5, into concerti. But the connoisseur’s ear will still find a deeply concealed memory of Bach Vater’s lofty counterpoint art and the wild experiments in harmony by his elder brothers Wilhelm Friedeman and Carl Philipp Emanuel in the subtext of the music of Johann Christian.
Following the death of Johann Christian Bach, his music almost immediately lost its popularity and lay forgotten for a lengthy period. Interest in this music was revived in the latter half of the 20th century. Between 1984 and 1999 a collection of his works was published in New York, and much of what had previously existed only in rare old publications and manuscripts was made available to musicians at large for the first time. Over the last fifteen years, all of Bach’s symphonies and most of his concerti and chamber opuses have been recorded on the wave of historic performing practice. For a long time, Johann Christian was seen as the precursor of Mozart, and his works considered a lighter and more secular version of the Viennese classics. Today the “London” Bach appears in an altogether different light. “This Bach could be everything he wished to be, he was rightly compared with the mythical Proteus. He could hammer a key like water, and he could blaze like fire” – today, Christian Schubart’s words about Johann Christian no longer seem like a splendid metaphor.

 

After the end of the “Golden Age” of British keyboard music in the mid 17th century, every attempt to revive traditional practice was not brought to successful fruition. 18th century organ music took another direction – that of secular music. The predominant works in the repertoire of the time were compositions based on liturgical melodies – the voluntary, fugue and organ concerto.
A voluntary is a piece of music that is performed freely, without any hard-and-fast rules; often this term refers to music performed in church between the Psalms and a reading from the Epistles. The organist also uses it before he begins to perform any composition in order to test the instrument and prepare the tonality of the piece he or she is planning to perform. There are also compositions called Voluntaries that were written for the organ. Right up to the close of the 18th century in many sheet music publications one may find the sub-heading “for organ or harpsichord”. In fact, some of these pieces can be performed on any keyboard instrument; many, however, were written taking into account the specific characteristics of the organ. Initially the genre had a two-part structure (slow-fast). Its evolution resulted in the emergence of the cycle of the prelude and fugue.
John Stanley’s (1713-1786) three collections of voluntaries (Ten Voluntaries for Organ, Op. 5, 6 and 7) which summed up the development of the genre in the first half of the 18th century form a veritable encyclopaedia. They contain not just two-part but also three- and four-part works with a sequence of slow and quick sections, typical for the early sonata. These are vivid images of the gallant style with clearly traced early classical elements. The original registers that preface each piece are of special interest for the performer.

 

Robert Schumann’s Sechs Stücke in kanonischer Form, Op. 56 (1845), were written not for the organ but for the so called Pedalflügel – an instrument equipped with a special pedal construction and used as an organ in the home. It was a teaching instrument that allowed organists to improve their organ playing technique in the home. Though similar on the outside, the sound produced by the Pedalflügel was nothing like that of an organ, as in essence it remained a keyed instrument. It is known that the composer himself indicated to his publisher in a letter that the “Pedalflügel études are eminently suitable for the organ.” In a letter to a future critic of the Pedalflügel études Schumann brilliantly characterised the merits of the new instrument: “First and foremost, it gives the composer the opportunity to increase the power and fullness of the sound and to create numerous new effects. Then, as the pianist is bereft of the opportunity of using the pedal (the mute), in particular it makes it possible to achieve a clear and precise performance. And, ultimately, it leads us on to Bach, and to the study of his works for organ; because we don’t all have an organ of our own. This advantage in triplicate naturally requires further discussion.”

 

These four songs by unknown authors date back to the Renaissance, a time when keyboard music became an art form in its own right.
The first and last pieces are dances that were popular in the 16th century and which can often be found in early dance suites. It was dance genres that were popular among both composers writing for string instruments and keyboard composers.
The second piece is taken from An Early Manuscript of French Songs housed in the library in Uppsala in Sweden.
In the piece to the motif La Mi Re which originated in England, there is a note that indicates sounds that should be repeated in a lower register – A, E and D – at the same time as the upper register is a free and ornamental improvisation.

 

The music of French composer Jehan Alain (1911–1940) – who continued the traditions of his teachers, the organist Marcel Dupré and the composer Paul Dukas – is among some of the most frequently performed organ music today. The composer’s music covers various styles and genres. One can sense Messiaen and Debussy in his language, as well as the capriciousness of the Renaissance and the unique “Baroqueness”, the leaning towards expressive means of eastern cultures.
Drawn by the secular multi-voiced art of the Renaissance, Jehan Alain turned to the music of French composer Clément Janequin (1475–1558). It was this theme, which the composer had found in a book of old French songs, that formed the basis for Variations, written in 1937. As a result, it so happened that the theme used in the variations can be found not just in the music of Janequin, but also in several folk songs by unknown authors from the 16th century. Nonetheless, Jehan Alain used the version that belonged to Clément Janequin himself, in so doing paying tribute to the Renaissance era composer.
The natural flow of time is a typical feature in Alain’s works, played in the spirit of dance genres. Opuses inspired by the nature of dance include Deuxième danse à Agni Yavishta, written in 1934.
The organ Litanies (1937) is linked to the genre of spiritual music. The analogy in Orthodox Christian worship is the ektenia. In this prayer of appeal and application, normally spoken by a deacon, , there is a series of brief “responses” by the congregation (for example, the appeal “God, have mercy…”). The very word litania comes from the Greek and means “prayer” or “plea”. A litany may be addressed to Christ, the Virgin Mary or the Saints. Most frequently it is used in divine services in the Roman Catholic Church.
Alain’s Litanies is a concert piece, filled with inner spiritual force. The prayer in it is not a moan and a protest, but rather an extreme burst of energy that reaches its culmination in a trance. The highpoint of the culmination is like a splash, akin to the composer’s improvisational spirit.

 

Despite the widespread popularity of the organ in Great Britain, not so very many works have been written for the instrument. Alfred Hollins (1865–1942) stands out among the composers who wrote works to the organ. Born blind, he was an outstanding organist, pianist, composer, teacher and organ master. Of all his works for organ, the most famous is the Concert Overture in C Minor (1889).
Alfred Hollins’ playing style stood out for its virtuoso technique and colourful nature. His programmes of organ concerti, which balanced between the classical and the contemporary, were remarkable for the contrasting confrontations of various styles. Original transcriptions of works for organ by Romantic composers occupy a special position, among them the overture from Wagner’s Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, a prelude from Wagner’s Tristan und Isolde, a quintet by Robert Schumann and preludes by Franz Liszt as well as his own works.
The composer’s music is as if composed for the orchestra: the instrumental timbres and “colours” beautifully embellish the organ score. Hollin’s source of inspiration was always the classics. The combination of counterpoint technique, improvisation, clear harmonious logic and the subtly embellished organ register are defining features of this organ maestro’s style.

 

The triumphant 1812 Overture (1880) stands apart among all of Tchaikovsky’s programme symphony works thanks to its historical subject. The prototype for this battle-themed composition was Beethoven’s Wellington's Victory. It may be supposed that Tchaikovsky, who was extremely patriotic in terms of his character, was not unmoved by the theme, which he proved when writing this overture. His previous experience of composing triumphant works helped – the Festival Overture on the Danish National Anthem (1866) and Slavonic March (1876). The main factor in the success was his emerging genius. In this work, Tchaikovsky distinguished himself not just as a master of psychological collisions but also as a “battle painter”, depicting a scene of great war and the victory of the Russian people through musical means. When he was composing the work, Tchaikovsky wrote that “The overture will be loud and noisy – but I wrote it without any warm feeling of love, and so there will, in all probability, be little artistic merit in it.” Typically for Tchaikovsky, who was initially sceptical about his works, at a certain point he would grow to love them.
In this work, there is a typical abundance of musical quotations that embody the image of the Russian forces and the French. The church hymn Save us, oh Lord, your people represents the Russian forces, while the French flavour comes in the form of the Marseillaise. One can also hear the vivid melody of the folk song By the gates, the gates of men in the overture.

Anna Kolenkova

Age category 6+

Any use or copying of site materials, design elements or layout is forbidden without the permission of the rightholder.
user_nameExit