Friday, 21 October, 9.30 p.m.,
Igreja de São João Evangelista (Colégio - Funchal)
From Rome to Leipzig: Masters and Disciples
Ludger Lohmann, organ
From Rome to Leipzig: Masters and Disciples
Apart from his contemporary Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck of Amsterdam, Girolamo Frescobaldi was the dominating figure of early baroque keyboard music. His student Froberger (born in Stuttgart) composed a major body of keyboard music which was well known and often copied not only in Vienna, but all over Germany and in France. He obviously influenced North German composers such as Buxtehude to a high degree. Between the latter and Bach there is again a direct teacher-student relationship. This historical lineage of four generations is exemplified by four toccatas, one of the most important genres in the keyboard repertoire up to Bach. Whereas the early toccata tried to show a maximum contrast to other, polyphonic forms of keyboard music by avoiding a substantial use of contrapuntal or imitative techniques and instead relying on free, improvisatory passages and elaborate harmonic progressions, already Froberger must have found the resulting formal inconsistency problematic, and inserted fugal parts into his toccatas, normally two of them which are based on the same motivic material in duple, then triple metre. This became almost a norm in North German toccatas. Buxtehude’s F major Toccata, however, must be a rather early specimen since the form is still quite colourful with many small parts and only a very remote relation between the subjects of the two main fugal episodes. Bach, in the development of Toccata form, clarified things much farther, up to dividing the free and the fugal parts into two separate pieces. BWV 564 is a special case, as it tries to integrate the typical North German opening with manual and pedal solo passages with a main part in Italian concerto style. The Adagio could easily be a middle movement of a violin concerto, whereas the fugue displays the attitude of a Giga. The four toccatas are accompanied by pieces of various genres. Frescobaldi’s Capriccio on a then famous Flemish folk song is a typical polyphonic composition in seven parts in different metres and tempi. Froberger’s Fantasia follows a similar concept, it also has seven parts. The difference in titles is caused by the more serious nature of its soggetto, the so-called hexachord. Buxtehude’s Passacaglia is another species of a variation form, on a basso ostinato. The particularity of this piece is that it consists of four parts of seven variations each, but in three different tonalities: D minor, F major, A minor and D minor again (a unique case in the history of the passacaglia before the 20th century), which has led to speculation that it might represent the lunar cycle which was traditionally associated with the four human temperaments. In a presentation of German organ music a setting of a chorale must be included. Bach’s setting BWV 663 of the probably the most famous chorale, the Lutheran Gloria, with the ornamented cantus firmus in the tenor voice, which can clearly be associated with the third verse which is the equivalent of the Latin verse “Agnus Dei, qui tollis peccata mundi, miserere nobis”.
Ludger Lohmann
ROME
Girolamo Frescobaldi (1583-1643)
¬ Toccata sesta sopra i pedali (Secondo Libro di Toccate, Rome 1637)
¬ Capriccio sopra la bassa fiammenga (Primo Libro di Capricci, Venice 1626)
VIENNA
Johann Jakob Froberger (1616-1667)
¬ Toccata in a (1649)
¬ Fantasia sopra Ut, Re, Mi, Fa, Sol, La (1649)
LÜBECK
Dieterich Buxtehude (1637-1707)
¬ Toccata in F major BuxWV 156
¬ Passacaglia in D minor BuxWV 161
WEIMAR-LEIPZIG
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
¬ Chorale Prelude Allein Gott in der Höh’ sei Ehr BWV 663
¬ Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C major, BWV 564
Participants
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Ludger Lohmann was born in Herne (Germany) in 1954. He studied music and musicology at the Musikhochschule and University of Cologne, organ with Marie-Claire Alain, Anton Heiller and Wolfgang Stockmeier, and harpsichord with Hugo Ruf. He won several international organ competitions, notably the competition of the ARD (Association of German Broadcasting Corporations) Munich 1979 and the Grand Prix de Chartres 1982. From 1979 to 1983 he was professor of organ at the Cologne Musikhochschule. Since 1983 he has been professor of organ at the Staatliche Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst, Stuttgart. He also was titular organist of St Eberhard Catholic Cathedral for 25 years, guest professor at the Hartt School of Music, University of Hartford, Connecticut (USA), and senior researcher at the Göteborg Organ Art Centre at the University of Göteborg (Sweden). He has given concert tours throughout Europe, Northern and Southern America, Japan and Korea, and several recordings with music from the 16th to the 20th centuries. He is a jury member of many international competitions. A central part of his activities is teaching talented students from all over the world in his Stuttgart organ class. As guest professor and teacher of masterclasses he visits music academies and universities in many countries. |
Notes about the Organ
Church of São João Evangelista (Colégio), Funchal
This instrument, with 1586 sounding pipes, is situated in a religious space with certain particularities. As a church typical of those belonging to Jesuit colleges, with a broad nave and quite a gentle acoustic, the organ had to be specially conceived, especially with regard to the measurements of the pipes. Thus all the pipework of the instrument has been specifically tailored to produce a full sound, and each stop produces a timbre with an individual personality, forming part of a harmonic ensemble based more on the sound of fundamentals and less on harmonics. It was also felt to be essential to give the instrument a certain ‘latin’ sonority that would favour performance of ancient music of the Italian, Spanish and Portuguese schools of the 17th and 18th centuries.
Another aspect to be taken into consideration was the need to complement the current range of organs available locally: the new organ responds in an ideal fashion to the performance of works of periods and of technical and artistic requirements that none of the 24 historic instruments of Madeira cater adequately for. It also enhances the range of organs that constitute the island’s heritage by being present in this particular religious space, as well as by existing side by side with other historical instruments. In the decision to build it for this church, not only were the issues of acoustic, aesthetic and liturgical space taken into account, but also the presence there of an important historic instrument which is currently on the list of instruments undergoing restoration.
I Manual - Órgão Principal (C-g’’’)
Flautado aberto de 12 palmos (8’)
Flautado tapado de 12 palmos (8’)
Oitava real (4’)
Tapado de 6 palmos (4’)
Quinzena (2’)
Dezanovena e 22ª
Mistura III
Corneta IV
Trompa de batalha* (bass)
Clarim* (treble)
Fagote* (bass)
Clarineta* (treble)
II Manual - Órgão Positivo (C-g’’’)
Flautado aberto de 12 palmos (8’)
Tapado de 12 palmos (8’)
Flautado aberto de 6 palmos (4’)
Dozena (2 2/3’)
Quinzena (2’)
Dezassetena (1 3/5’)
Dezanovena (1 1/3)
Címbala III
Trompa real (8’)
Pedal (C-f’)
Tapado de 24 palmos (16’)
Bordão de 12 palmos (8’)
Flautado de 6 palmos (4’)
Contrafagote de 24 palmos (16’)
Trompa de 12 palmos (8’)
Couplers
II/I
I/Pedal
II/Pedal
* horizontal reeds