Repertoire notes

Here is the music from the internet section of my repertoire notes article for the current Organ Australia (methinks it is now the Spring, rather than the September, edition).

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Bolero for Organ – Thomas Mohr

250 Easy Voluntaries and Interludes – John Zundel

In some of my recent wanderings on the internet, I’ve noticed that there is a fair amount of new composition being published under Creative Commons licensing.  This is an important development for an aspect of the repertoire which remains largely unexplored by most organists.  In future columns, I hope to be able to include some of this material for the interest of readers of Organ Australia.

Thomas Mohr is an Austrian composer and organist, born in 1964.  He has a doppelgänger, in the form of a baritone of the same name, which makes finding information about him on the internet something of a challenge if you are not willing to join the Facebook cult.  There are a couple of youtube videos of Mohr’s playing, including a creditable performance of Theodore Dubois’ transcription of the Hallelujah Chorus.

Mohr’s Bolero for Organ is one of five pieces published through the International Music Score Project website.  This simple piece has three layers to the texture: the characteristic ostinato rhythm is maintained in the right hand, supported by long pedal notes.  The left hand contains the melodic interest, which is contained within the tenor register of the keyboard.  Mohr’s tonal language is decided diatonic, perhaps leaning towards the minimalist.  None of the modern music scary monsters lurk here.  The score contains no explicit performance directions, such as tempo or dynamic markings, nor is there any direction for the use of more than one manual.  One could treat this as a piece for a single manual, or play the left-hand part on a solo registration for a bit of variety.  One of the virtues of scores with so few directions is the implicit freedom to realize the music according to the immediate performance conditions.

When I played this piece through for the first time, I was reminded somewhat of other Austrian essays in dance genres, such as Peter Planyavski’s Toccata alla Rumba.  It has always seemed to me that Austrian organist/composers know how to have fun.  This Bolero would make an oddball postlude for an ordinary Sunday, or a useful standby in one’s list of pieces for playing during the prelude at weddings.  Toe-tapping is almost certain to ensue.

Many readers will be familiar with C.H. Trevor’s several collections of simple music for manuals only, and his anthologies of chorale preludes for the various seasons of the Church’s year.  These remain an important ingredient in any organist’s library, and when the copyright finally expires they will undoubtedly be uploaded by some diligent soul.  In the meantime, we must be satisfied with what is already out there – which in many cases includes some very substantial collections of music published prior to the 1930s.  One of these is John Zundel’s 250 Easy Voluntaries and Interludes, published in Boston in 1851.

Zundel was born in Germany in 1815, and emigrated to America in 1847.  He had a substantial career as an organist, composer and teacher in New York.  He published several treatises on aspects of music theory, as well as instructional manuals on playing the organ and allied instruments.  Zundel returned to Germany some time before his death in 1882.

This collection of voluntaries is useful to the present-day organist in search of gebrauchsmusik.  The whole collection is indexed by liturgical use, time signature and key.  Nearly all of the pieces are original compositions, with a couple of transcriptions from Mendelssohn and Haydn – very much a reflection of contemporary taste.  While there are directions for the use of pedals, all of the pieces can be played on manuals only.