SKU: CA.5011900

ISBN 9790007188153. Key: E flat minor. Language: all languages.

The 6th Organ Sonata, composed in 1880 in E flat minor, was the first of a series of sonatas in Rheinberger's output which are more strongly symphonic. One of the features they display is the expansion of the previous three movements to a four-movement form. The grand introductory movement is followed by an Intermezzo, a gentle programmatic Marcia religiosa, and a highly effective tightly-constructed fugal Finale.

SKU: CA.5019300

ISBN 9790007188160. Key: G minor. Language: all languages.

Karl Straube wrote to Rheinberger about his penultimate Organ Sonata, published in 1899: Your 19th Sonata made a tremendous impression on my audience. The first ballade-like movement in particular was greatly admired by the public. In the middle movement, marked Provencalisch, Rheinberger used a theme by Machaut, whilst the third movement, with its somber improvisatory-like introduction, is very convincing.

SKU: UT.HS-335

ISBN 9790215328532. 9 x 12 inches.

Walter Battison Haynes (1859-1900): Sonata in D minor
Hugh Blair (1864-1932): Short Sonata in G major

The organ sonatas of Walter Battison Haynes and Hugh Blair demonstrate a notable peak in the development of the English organ sonata as a work that is musically cohesive. As discussed in The Genesis and Development of an English Organ Sonata (2017), the portfolio approach towards compositions under one title, a sonata, that included sometimes significantly contrasting movements of varying technical difficulty was common during the second half of the nineteenth century not least as a published example of the compositional skill of composers. Whereas these two sonatas join the tradition of works that could be convincingly played on both medium and large instruments and allow for creativity in registration they are also cohesive pieces that could serve in a concert programme. These works join the legacy of English organ sonatas that had an important pedagogical role jointly inherited from Mendelssohn’s very practical and popular approach to the instrument and the continued European legacy of the lesson-sonata tradition whereby in learning a piece you also learned the instrument and vice versa. They are both idiomatically written and musically rewarding pieces that are imbued with the undeniably English harmonic language of the era that was to remain popular for several decades to come.

SKU: CA.5006500

ISBN 9790007188146. Key: A flat major. Language: all languages.

With the 2nd Organ Sonata in A flat major of 1871, we encounter a masterpiece which is already fully formed. The first movement, only loosely related to sonata form in the sense of the title Fantasie-Sonate, the atmospheric Adagio espressivo, and the grand finale movement with its fugue and references back to the first movement ensure great success for the grand romantic organ sonata, in spite of its technical demands.