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Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Praeludium & Fuge C-dur BWV 547
en ut majeur / in C major

Triosonate n° 3 d-moll BWV 527
en ré mineur / in D minor
Andante
Adagio e dolce
Vivace
Praeludium & Fuge f-moll BWV 534
en fa mineur / F minor

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
(1756-1791)
Ouverture C-dur KV 399
en ut majeur / in C major
Grave ~ Allegro

Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy
(1809-1847)
Sonata II c-moll op.65
en ut mineur / in C minor
Grave ~ Adagio
Allegro maestoso e vivace, Fuga, Allegro moderato
Sonata V D-dur op.65
en ré majeur / D major
Andante ~ Andante con moto
Allegro maestoso

Early in his career, J.S. Bach was already producing compositions like the G major Fantasy (BWV 572), or his well-known Toccata in D minor (BWV 565), which were daring enough, musically as well as technically, to astonish his contemporaries. Even then, composition, for Bach, was not only improvisation and virtuosity, but also “musicalische Wissenschaft” (musical Science). The C major Prelude, a later work from the Leipzig period, was written in an unusual 9/8 time. A scale with the repetition of the third and the fifth notes, forms the basic theme, which in the following development is richly imitated and varied. In the Fugue, Bach brings his theme into the bass extraordinarily late in the work and sets it in long note values.

With the six triosonatas “à 2 Clav. e pedal”, Bach created Chamber Music for Organ. Mozart later transcribed several of their movements for strings. The soft first movement of the D minor Triosonata flows into the expressive adagio-dolce with the lead voice in the alto. Bach used this adagio movement again in his Concerto for Harpsichord, Flute and Violin (BWV 1044). The third movement is constructed like a virtuoso concert piece. The F minor Prelude from the Weimar period (1708-1714) uses the moving and plaintive key of F minor, which Bach rarely used, though it also recurs in the Lamento from the St. John Passion, “Zerfliesse, mein Herze”, and in the Organ Choral, “Ich ruf´ zu Dir”.
When W.A. Mozart heard a Bach motet sung by the Thomaner Choir in Leipzig in 1789, 39 years after Bach´s death, he is said to have remarked: “For once there´s a piece of music you can get something from.” In 1781 and 1782, Mozart had already discovered “alte Musik” (baroque music), the works by G.F. Handel and J.S. Bach. His C minor Mass, the Requiem and his organ compositions were influenced by them. The C major Ouverture brings to mind Handel, and the Fugue reminds one of Northern German Baroque music.

As Mozart had done before him, F. Mendelssohn wrote for an instrument that was no longer in style at the time. “These compositions owe much to the right choice and mixing of registers”, wrote Mendelssohn in the forward to his six organ sonatas in 1845. The composer, conductor, and rediscoverer of Bach´s music was a master in the use of organ and orchester timbres. With his organ sonatas, he returned to Baroque forms, but set them in the spirit of his later style, so that the organ acquired Romantic nuances and a Romantic timbre. The adagio in the second Sonata and the andante of the fifth are unusually free-flowing and cantabile for an instrument on which, outside of register changes and the swell box, no nuances are possible. At the same time, with the maestoso and fugue in the second Sonata, as well as the final movement of the fifth, Mendelssohn created real concertos for organ, which obviously inspired composers like Joseph Rheinberger or Charles-Marie Widor.

Till Aly


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