Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach, Sigfrid Karg-Elert
Performer: Sverker Jullander
Format: FLAC (tracks)
Label: Toccata
Catalogue: TOCC0111
Release: 2011
Size: 290 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
Toccata in G major, BWV 916
01. I. Allegro
Fantasia and Fugue in A minor, BWV 904
02. Fantasia
03. Fuge
Christmas Oratorio, BWV248
04. Sinfonia ‘Hirtenmusik’
Toccata in E minor, BWV914
05. I. Moderato – II. Un poco allegro
06. III. Adagio
07. IV. Fuga a 3: Allegro
Motet BWV225 ‘Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied’
08. Wie sich ein Vater erbarmet
09. Alles, was Odem hat
Overture (Partita) in the French Style in B minor, BWV 831
10. XI. Echo
Toccata in D minor, BWV913
11. I.
12. II. Fuga: Presto
13. III. Adagio
14. IV. Fuga: Allegro
Orchestral Suite No. 3 in D major, BWV1068
15. Air (‘Air on a G String’)
Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877–1933) was Professor of Composition at the Leipzig Conservatory and best-known as Germany’s foremost champion of the Kunstharmonium, ‘art harmonium’, which at that time was a full concert instrument and for which he made over 400 transcriptions.
He began his musical career as a boy chorister and organist who deserted the seminary where he was enrolled to become an oboist in a wind band. Later, rejected from active service because of his age, he served as a military musician (oboe) during WWI. But it was his organ music that made him internationally famous as a composer, particularly in the USA and UK,
although he was unusual in having no professional proficiency himself; a recital tour of the USA in 1932 was so disastrous that it might even have precipitated his death a year later.
His own organ music is frequently recorded and heard in recitals, but his many organ transcriptions are less familiar. After Wagner, Bach was the composer whose music Karg-Elert transcribed most often, carefully choosing the pieces best suited to the dynamic and colouristic possibilities of the late Romantic organ.