Gottlieb And Rhapsody Of The Spheres are two works for solo Organ. Gottlieb was first performed in 2000 by Simon Neiminski at St Mary's Cathedral Edinburgh. Rhythmically there is a strong influence of Rave music and harmonically I turned the blues upside down often using minor triads in the left hand with major triads in the right hand.Gottlieb is dedicated to Sydney Gottlieb.'Rhapsody of the Spheres: Reading something John Coltrane said on his album 'A Love Supreme' that 'all vibrations lead to God' got me thinking maybe music is the best form of describing what is going on at an atomic and subatomic level: that the great composersand musicians take you to Heaven rather than try to describe it in words.With that in mind I wrote this piece-a prayer to the Moon and the Stars-where I wanted by using the most majestic instrument of all the organ to describe the beauty of existence. This is a one movement piece slow-fast-slow and is dedicated to my eldest son Sean.'David Heath

Arranged here for Organ the Centenary Collection celebrates the life and works of the British organist and composer William Lloyd Webber. Born in 1914 by the age of 14 Lloyd Webber had already become awell-known Organ recitalist giving frequent performances at many important churches and cathedrals throughout Great Britain. He won an Organ scholarship to Mercer's School later winning a further scholarship to the Royal Collegeof Music where he studied composition with Ralph Vaughan Williams and gained his FRCO diploma at nineteen. Parallel to his activities as an organist Lloyd Webber began to compose and from 1945 to the mid-1950s he wrotemusic in many different forms: Vocal and instrumental Choral and Organ Chamber and Orchestral. Some of his best known works include the oratorio 'St. Francis of Assisi' the Orchestral tone poem 'Aurora' the Sonatinas for Violaand Piano and Flute and Piano and numerous songs Organ pieces and Choral works. Showcasing Lloyd Webber as a composer who was true to himself and who fully embraced his signature style the music in the CentenaryCollection is romantic melodious and – above all – heartfelt.

Freie Orgelwerke - BuxWV 136-153, 158. Par BUXTEHUDE DIETERICH. This edition is the result of Harald Vogel?s many years of practice as an organist and musicologist. The music text is based on a reevaluation of 17 th - and 18 th -century manuscripts containing the free organ and keyboard works by Buxtehude. They originated during a transitional phase between the traditional letter tablature and the staff notation still in use today. Since many works have survived only in transcriptions for staff notation, the editor was confronted with a high error rate, which he carefully analyzes in the ?Einzelanmerkungen?. During the preparation of the edition, the editor always kept sight of the performance practice, but still, the image of the sources is never distorted (e. g. by superfluous rests, beaming not conforming to the sources and the unhistorical adjustment of time signatures) and stays very close to the compositional notation, the letter tablature. The flexible use of three staves and the differentiated distribution of the voices on the staves allow for an approximation in reading conventions of historical notation with its resulting information about hand division. Grouping the free organ repertoire into works with obbligato pedal and works for manuals, this edition is organized in two volumes. The first subvolume (I/1, EB 9304) contains the Preface and the Preludes, whereas the second subvolume (I/2, EB 9305) contains Toccatas, Ostinato works, alternative versions and a comprehensive Critical Commentary (in German only). Volume II (EB 9306) contains Buxtehude?s free organ and keyboard works (manualiter) with the corresponding texts (Preface and Critical Commentary). Until 1971, Harald Vogel worked on a dissertation (with Georg von Dadelsen, Hamburg) on ?Die Fuge um Bach?. Besides the description of the ?inclusion? of triple measures into the C notation and the irregularities of the ?voice mutation? in the polyphonic structures, this also included a discussion about the justification of the ?inner textual criticism?. With the inner textual criticism, deviations in parallel passages are unified. The North German fugue style, reaching a peak in Buxtehude?s work, is characterized by a constant diversity of details in subject and polyphonic progressions. One of the ?indicators of the fantastic style? is the dissolution of the polyphonic structures at the ends of the fugues, evident in Buxtehude?s work. In this edition, a musical text is presented that avoids the uniformity of detail not conforming to the sources. However, there are many examples of transcription and cursory errors, which are analyzed in a methodical systematic manner. About the editor: As an organist, professor, organ expert, and scholar, Harald Vogel has rendered outstanding services to the interpretation of early music and especially to historical performance practice concerning the organ for decades. He has received numerous awards, including an ECHO Klassik as Instrumentalist of the Year (2012), honorary doctorates from Luleå University of Technology (Sweden, 2008) and Oberlin College (USA, 2014), as well as the Buxtehude Prize of the City of Lübeck (2018). Harald Vogel is the author and editor of numerous scholarly publications and editions. Through his lifelong performance practice, he can look back on an extensive discography, including the complete recording of Buxtehude?s organ works, which he recorded in various locations with historical organ instruments of the North German organ building tradition in Scandinavia, North Germany and the Netherlands. / Date parution : 2022-10-12/ Recueil / Orgue

Modern and Contemporary Music. Par . Now finally in English too: The third part of the organ method Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing follows on from part two with contributions by Guy Bovet (on Jehan Alain), Hans-Ola Ericsson, Anders Ekenberg, Markus Rupprecht (Olivier Messiaen), Hans Fagius (Maurice Duruflé), Jeremy Filsell (Marcel Dupré), Bernhard Haas (Arnold Schönberg, Ernst Krenek, John Cage, György Ligeti, and others, plus the latest developments) and Armin Schoof (neoclassicism). As in the first two parts of the organ method, here too a representative selection of composers is discussed. Alongside mainly personal recollections (e.g. from Hans Fagius) there are analytical essays (including by Jeremy Filsell). Bernhard Haas has organised one section of his text as an introduction to the playing techniques and aesthetics of new music, beginning with pieces which are easy to play. This English edition contains new chapters by Kevin Bowyer (The Development of New Organ Music in Britain / Contemporary Organ Music in North America). Laukvik?s organ method Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing has now become established as a standard work. It is aimed at organists who want to incorporate the latest thinking on historical performance practice into their interpretations of works. The three volumes provide a practical introduction in a detailed, scholarly and comprehensible form, by giving organists as precise a picture of the interpretative traditions and aims of previous and modern/ contemporary eras as possible. The editions are aimed not only at organists, but also at organ teachers who are looking for a manual to use in their teaching. / Date parution : 2022-05-03/ Recueil / Orgue

Cradle Song-Vuggesang / Cradle Song for Organ solo by Peter Bruun (2016). The piece is based on Martin Luther's hymn 'Vom Himmel Hoch'. Dedicated to Vibeke Vanggaard. 'Peter Bruun's cradle song Vuggesang is an inventive and refreshingly unconventional set of variations on 'Vom Himmel Hoch'. There are some fascinating textures here and the whole thing is a far cry from a dutiful neo-classical perusal of stock partita motifs - the crystalline final variation which disappears into nothing in the final bars is especially striking. Numerous rhythmic complexities throughout the score will need thought but the piece will reward thediligent.' - Stephen Farr Choir & Organ Magazine 'Organ music makes up only a small part of Danish composer Peter Bruun’s (b. 1968) varied output. Nonetheless  Vuggesang (‘Cradle Song’) from 2016 is idiomatically and sympathetically written for the organ: a series of five variations on Luther’s hymn Vom Himmel hoch that affords variety of texture colour and mood. A clear head is needed to negotiate some of the rhythmic complexities but this is a fine work for the Christmas season that will reward performer and listener.' - Sunday by Sunday  

?Mors et vita? death and life. This antithesis opens a stanza of the ancient 11th-century Easter sequence Victimae paschali laudes where life and death are locked in mutual struggle. Zsigmond Szathmáry?s 12-minute composition of 2015 commissioned for the Freiburg Minster interprets this primal human experience with mighty explosions of sound. Here the organ can show what it?s capable of: its grandeur and strength are fully exploited but not at the expense of soft and gentle contrasts. Typical of Szathmáry?s compositional style is the alternation of seemingly improvised recitative-like writing and passages in strict rhythm. Time and again the composer takes upelements from the church hymn Christ ist erstanden von der Marter alle (Christ the Lord is risen again).

Nico Muhly's Patterns is a work in four sections for solo Organ. Patterns was commissioned by the American Guild of Organists for the 2014 Biennial National Convention in Boston Massachusetts U.S.A.'Patterns is composed in four sections each of which is sort of a rhythmic étude. The first (?Move Along?) is a perpetual motion machine with staggered and angular rhythms thrown between the pedals and the left hand. The second movement (?Palindromes?) is calmer and is centered around an idée fixe in the left hand while the right hand interjects and ornaments. The pedals here are a clumsy cousin constantly upturning the sense of rhythmic stability. The third movement (?Similar?) is all to do with ways to divide up the bar: seven eight six five four ? it?s all there. Then the finale (?Very Fast Music?) is a perpetual motion machine on its highest setting ? manic and hyper with hiccoughs offsetting the regularity of some of the rhythms.' - Nico MuhlyStephen Farr in the September/October 2015 issue of Choir & Organ writes that this work is 'full of filigree figuration and no little rhythmic complexity.'

A major influence on Bach ? who once walked 200 miles to hear him perform ? Buxtehude is among the great names in Organ music and the study of counterpoint. Born five decades after Heinrich Schütz the 'father of German musicians ' and a little less than half a century before Bach he bridged the era between the founder of Protestant Baroque music and its greatest master. This collection of church chorales attests to Buxtehude's reputation as an outstanding composer of sacred Vocal music.For his texts the composer drew upon scripture as well as church hymns and contemporary or medieval sacred poetry. Albert Schweitzer in his famous biography ofBach observed that Buxtehude's chorale preludes are 'chorale fantasias of the most varied kinds from the simplest to the most ingenious. In the simple ones the melody goes its way quietly just embellished here and there with a few ornaments and accompanied by interesting and always ingenious harmonies. . . . In the large chorale preludes Buxtehude tears the melody in pieces throws the fragments into the flood of a brilliant animated fantasia.'Authoritative and modestly priced this treasury of Buxtehude's works offers organists a source of endless satisfaction and inspiration.Reprint of the Breitkopf & Härtel Leipzig 1903 edition.

Judith Weir's The Tree Of Peace was composed in 2016 for Organ. Commissioned in loving memory of Richard Axtell (1952-2015) talented and much-loved organist at the Parish of St. Andrew West Tarring. 'It'senormously inspiring to see the Master of the Queen's Music turning her attention to the organ once again. Judith Weir's The Tree Of Peace is a short piece commissioned in memory of the organist Richard Axtell... Despite thesimplicity of the music it carries all the hallmarks of Weir's unmistakeably refined idiom.' - Stephen Farr Choir and Organ Jan 2018 From the Master of the Queen's Music Judith Weir comes The Tree ofPeace which was commissioned in memory of Richard Axtell organist of the parish church in West Tarring West Sussex. It was given its first performance there by Charles Harrison on the 17 June 2017. It lasts some 4 minutes andproves to be a thoroughly engaging piece in her customary refined idiom. It is in three main sections with a graded increase of tempo throughout. Thematic material is presented at the start cantabile. The central sectionprovides an energetic development marked animato leading to the conclusion molto mosso which gives the theme as in the opening but in augmentation. Throughout I feel an orchestral sense of colour and interrelationships inthe music - and have found it delightful to play. A modest two manual and pedal instrument with some contrasted quiet colours available will suffice and the technical demands are by no means severe. A delightful addition to therepertoire of short self-contained delightful pieces. - Organists' Review Duration: Approx 4 minutes.

Now here's a new idea: instead of asking our composers to work their improvisatory magic on hymn tunes we allocated the main theme of some of the world's favourite classical melodies. The result is a really pleasing new genrewhich we think will find favour with organists. All the pieces are written for those with a moderate technique and there are two versions - with or without pedals.

d'après The Turn of the Screw d'Henry James. Par GUILLOU JEAN. Though the work bearing this title is a portrait of childhood, it is a childhood quite different from the purely gameplaying and dreamlike childhood that is customarily represented. The childhood described here is carrying the seed, in all its purity, of all positive and negative qualities to be found the fully-grown men: a childhood both angelic and diabolical, and indeed very close to Henry James' 'The Turn of the Screw' which was the direct inspiration for this monodrama. Its growth follows the innumerable sudden changes, turns and contrasts of the unsophisticated spirit. There is hardly any development at all, as each idea gives birth to the next or rejects the previons one, being object to every impulse, every tempest, every flux, every fear and delight. After a dreamlike introduction, in which two simple melodies stand out, comes a sudden awakening, Allegro, stamped all over with lavish and forever regenerating dynamism. A sudden halt leads a kind of outburst from the most simple folklore is singing, in regular, repeated notes. Again the question mark leads us to another melody, Tranquillo, of a sweet tempo, but brilliantly decorated with counter-point, its cursive traits leading this time to a kind of roguish march (Vigoroso). Yet soon there emerges a melancholic chant, Largo, in the Cromorne's timbre, and then, in the highest register of the Trumpet there reappears like a metamorphosed memory, the theme of the second movement. Passing other episodes, we come to Tempo giusto, insistent and glorious, interrupted by other passionate figures, cut off by unsettling silent moments and taken up again in always accelerating volleys./ Répertoire / Orgue

Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901) was a prolific composer in almost every field but he found in the organ the medium best fitted to his genius and temperament. This seems to be proved by the fact that his reputation as an organ composer has grown and is now firmly established whereas his position in other branches has declined.His twenty sonatas and numerous other short pieces make up one of the most important contributions to the organ repertory. It may indeed be claimed that in the maintainance of a high level of quality and interest throughout a long series of works of both large and small scale his position as an organ composer is second only to that of Bach.

Mendelssohn produced an early work for Organ in 1837 but it was a London music publishing firm who commissioned the first of his mature Organ works. The second half of the commissioned pieces are published in this volume. Mendelssohn himself saved all his manuscripts and they have survived in libraries in Berlin and Krakow providing the subtitle of this book.Eleven movements are included here all written in 1844 and 1845. What were originally commissioned as ‘Voluntaries’ were changed at the composer’s request to ‘Sonatas’. Whether one considers these movements as drafts and sketches or as distinct musical entities in their own right the works are not identical tothe final printed versions. For those who appreciate or study the Mendelssohn Organ oeuvre this volume is of immense interest.While the Organ never completely fell from grace as the instrument of church and religious music it is the editor’s belief that in the century dividing JS Bach from these works of Mendelssohn fashion and church practice had greatly diminished its importance and few works of real note were produced. Mendelssohn was introduced to the Organ early in his prodigious career and found a warm audience for his Organ performances in Engand to which he returned nine times over nearly twenty years.