Music for organ (Karg-Elert)

Music for Organ op.145 is an organ sonata by Sigfrid Karg-Elert , which is counted among the composer's most important works. The piece was written in 1931 as a commission for the organist Johannes Piersig and was first published in 1932.

The work

The external structure of the music for organ, with its division into a sonata-like fast opening movement, a slow movement and a fast finale, shows clear parallels to traditional sonata schemes. Similar to the organ symphony he wrote shortly before, the composer handles the forms in a very individual way. So it comes in op. 145 z. B. hardly to formulations that could be called topics in the traditional sense . Rather, the musical events are based on small, mutually complementary motifs, so that the music for organ is one of Karg-Elert's compositions with the closest motif. Large parts of the material are derived from the BACH motif, which the composer used very often, and from the hymn melody "Blessed, whoever thinks of Jesus" BWV 498, ascribed to Johann Sebastian Bach . On the basis of the latter, one could also assign the music for organ to the genre of the choral sonata. Karg-Elert did not specify a key signature for the work, but B minor can be identified as the central key . The tonal ties, however, are pushed to the limits in a typical way for the composer.

The playing time of the work is approx. 26 minutes.

1st movement: Preambulo. Allegro energico

The first movement (4/4 time) is a concise, concentrated sonata movement. It begins with an exposition (T. 11–22), which is divided into three sections, each of which presents its own motif. The development (bars 23–57) works mainly with the motif of the third part of the exposition. Step by step, it reveals the relationship between the exposure material and BACH. The slightly abbreviated recapitulation (mm. 58–77) runs regularly and ends in a short coda (mm. 78–81) in which the first line of the hymn is quoted.

2nd movement: Canzona. Adagio molto

The canzona (4/4 time) is divided into three parts. Again, each part is based on its own motif. The first (bars 1–29) is composed in two parts and only expands the number of voices in bars 14–16, in which BACH is used. The middle section (mm. 30–59) is predominantly three-part. Several parts of the hymn are incorporated into the course of the movement as cantus firmus . The final part (T. 60–81) uses a different material than the first, but takes up its formal constellation.

3rd movement: Solfeggio ed Ricercare. Presto ed affanato

The finale is by far the most complex and, with a playing time of approx. 12 minutes, also the longest movement in the music for organ. The opening, two-part solfeggio (6/16 time) has the character of a toccata . The first part (bars 1–49) transforms motifs from the first two movements into virtuoso runs, already preparing the material from which the ricercar will later be formed. The second part (bars 52–131), which begins after a brief transition, introduces new motif variants and condenses the development from bar 97 by linking them with previous motifs. Then a first transition section begins (mm. 132–156) in which the hymn is processed again. A second transition (mm. 157–183) changes to 6/8 time, the time signature of the ricercar, which in m. 184 grows out of the preceding almost unnoticed. This second part of the sentence is a free double fugue with three lead-throughs, which immediately begins with four parts . Another cantus firmus movement about the hymn is inserted between the second and third development (mm. 251–266). The third implementation combines both fugue themes. Increasingly, the second theme in reverse dominates the event, whereby its relationship with the hymn becomes obvious. At the end of the ricercar, toccata-like pieces prevail again. The massive coda (mm. 297–303), which lets the music for organ end with a dissonance-enhanced B major chord, is made up of lines 1 and 4 of the hymn.

literature

• Günter Hartmann: Sigfrid Karg-Elert and his music for organ . 2 volumes. Bonn 2002