23 OCT | Monday 9.30 pm
Church of São João Evangelista
Funchal
‘The Orgelbüchlein Project’
- Completing Bach’s work
William Whitehead, organ
In the year that we celebrate the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s Reformation, I play a programme centred on Bach and the chorale. I start with the battle cry of the Reformation, Ein feste Burg, Luther’s version of Psalm 46. Today I choose a little known version by Bach (or possibly by Walther). Next, a brief interlude with Bach’s son, Carl Philipp Emmanuel; though he never held an organist’s post, he was referred to thus by C. F. Nicolai: “If you want to have an example of how one can combine the deepest secrets of art with everything that taste treasures, then listen to the Berlin Bach on the organ”. It is likely these Sonatas were written for Anna Amalia, Princess of Prussia, the music-loving younger sister of Friedrich II. Bach became her honorary Kapellmeister, and probably taught her. This Sonata was written in 1755.
Next, a sequence of chorale settings from Orgelbüchlein and ‘The Orgelbüchlein Project’, tracing a course through the church year. This long-running pan-European project seeks to fill the 118 blank pages in Bach’s Orgelbüchlein manuscript with new compositions. We know the melody Bach intended for each of these ‘ghost’ pages, and Europe’s best composers are taking up the task of composing what Bach omitted. In each one, the given chorale will be heard, once through, with contemporary techniques replacing Bach’s style. When complete, the Orgelbüchlein Project will see all today’s “-isms” represented. In today’s concert, we hear a selection: Grier writes with bitonality, placing the chorale in a decorated form in the right hand. Oortmerssen uses typical Dutch minimalism. Quinney writes a chorale trio. The piece from the pen of the Festival Director, João Vaz, uses a kind of obsessive chromaticism in a way that Bach would surely have understood. Bach’s own chorale canon, played immediately before, Christus, der uns selig macht, is not so distant in its chromatic intensity.
The six sonatas by Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy were commissioned by the English publisher, Coventry and Hollier, and published in 1844. The first movement of Mendelssohn’s Sixth Organ Sonata is a set of chorale variations on Luther’s Vater unser im Himmelreich. The second movement takes the form of a fugue on the same chorale melody, and the final movement is a sweet Mendelssohnian song - perhaps reminiscent of one of the arias from Elijah, “O rest in the Lord”.
I finish with a celebratory flourish, returning to Bach and his Nun danket alle Gott from ‘The Eighteen’ or ‘Leipzig’ chorales, in which the tune is given out boldly, with masterly, interweaving counterpoint beneath it.
Bach, father and son
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
¬ Chorale prelude «Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott», BWV Anh. 49
Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788)
¬ Sonata in F major, Wq 70/3
› Allegro
› Largo
› Allegretto
Chorale preludes from the Orgelbüchelin and the Orgelbüchlein Project
Francis Grier (1955)
¬ «Wir haben schwerlich»
Johann Sebastian Bach
¬ «Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland», BWV 599
Christopher Fox (1955)
¬ «Jesu, meines Herzens Freud»
Johann Sebastian Bach
¬ «Christum wir sollen loben schon», BWV 611
Jacques van Oortmerssen (1950-2015)
¬ «Nun ruhen aller Wälder»
Johann Sebastian Bach
¬ «Das alte Jahr vergangen ist», BWV 614
Robert Quinney (1976)
¬ «Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren»
Johann Sebastian Bach
¬ «Christus, der uns selig macht», BWV 620
João Vaz (1963)
¬ «Herr Jesu Christ, wahr Mensch und Gott»
Johann Sebastian Bach
¬ «Heut triumphiret Gottes Sohn», BWV 630
Mendelssohn and Bach
Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809-1847)
¬ Sonata nº 6 in D minor, Op. 65 nº 1
› Coral [e variações]: Andante sostenuto – Allegro molto
› Fuga
› Finale: Andante
Johann Sebastian Bach
¬ Chorale prelude «Nun danket alle Gott», BWV 657
Participants
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William Whitehead’s solo organ-playing career took off when he won First Prize at the Odense International Organ Competition in Denmark, 2004. Trained at Oxford University and the Royal Academy of Music, London, his teachers have included David Sanger and Dame Gillian Weir. Valuable inspiration was gained in his year as Organ Scholar of Westminster Abbey, where he played for services and occasionally conducted the choir. This led to becoming Assistant Organist at Rochester Cathedral, where he accompanied the Cathedral Choir and helped to found the new Girls’ Choir. William now combines a career as a concert organist, teacher and writer. He has given recent solo concerts in Berlin Dom, the Laurenskerk Rotterdam, Westminster Cathedral, the Toulouse les Orgues Festival, and Treviso, Italy. He is regularly to be heard with groups such as the Dunedin Consort, the Academy of Ancient Music and the Gabrieli Consort, with whom he recently recorded a Handel Organ Concerto. He has made a number of solo recordings, including the award-winning Dances of Life and Death (music of Alain and Duruflé), complete Organ Sonatas of Mendelssohn, and English repertoire on the historic Abraham Jordan organ in Southall, London. As a teacher, he has held posts at both the Royal Academy of Music and Trinity College of Music, and now teaches organ students at both Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He is currently curating a major international project to complete Bach’s Orgelbüchlein with new compositions. |
William WhiteheadNotes 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