I first heard Nun danket alle Gott by Karg-Elert performed at Lincoln, NE many years ago when I was an assistant organist at Grace Lutheran church. Director of Music, Sara Schott played it during Thanksgiving service and it sounded really splendidly. Since this year Thanksgiving is approaching fast, I have decided to include this piece in my upcoming recital. And today it's the perfect time to share with you my 9 steps in mastering this festive chorale prelude which will serve you well in your liturgical and/or concert use. I'm playing it on the Sauer organ sample set from Chemnitz made by Sonus Paradisi of Hauptwerk VPO. Hope you will enjoy it!
Score with fingering and pedaling: https://secrets-of-organ-playing.mysh...
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Would you like to play a beautiful and charming Andante in D Major, MWV W 32 by Felix Mendelssohn? It's a theme and variations on a very sweet melody. You will love it! 110 percent guaranteed! It's Ausra's favorite work by Mendelssohn. In fact, she first heard it play on our Vilnius University St John's church organ back in 2007 by the great Swiss organist Guy Bovet. We both fell in love with this piece at first glance. And last year she played this piece during our Fantasia Chromatica recital. But days before it, we came into the church to practice and I secretly recorded Ausra's performance from up close so that the hands were clearly visible. She wasn't very happy about it when she found out I made a recording because my filming interfered with page turning (I held the camera with one hand and with the other turned pages). And I think I missed one or two page turns... But now she is no longer upset because this recording allowed Jeremy Owens transcribe the fingering and pedaling and produce a nice score for you. So here it is: 5 Pages. PDF score. Basic level. 50% discount is valid until July 2. Check it out here This score is free for Total Organist students. Bellow is the video from our Fantasia Chromatica recital. Welcome to Secrets of Organ Playing Podcast #118!
Today's guest is Angela Kraft Cross, San Francisco Bay Area organist, pianist and composer. She graduated from Oberlin College and Conservatory of Music in 1980 with bachelor's degrees in Physics and Organ Performance. She then earned her Doctor of Medicine degree at Loma Linda University, where she subsequently completed her residency in ophthalmology. In 1993, she completed her Master of Music degree in Piano Performance at the College of Notre Dame with Thomas LaRatta, with whom she continues to study. Her organ teachers have included Louis Robilliard, Marie-Louise Langlais, Sandra Soderlund, S. Leslie Grow, William Porter and Garth Peacock. In 2001, she was awarded the Associateship credential of the American Guild of Organists (AAGO) after passing rigorous playing and written examinations. She has studied composition with Pamela Decker in recent years. Dr. Kraft Cross has performed extensively on both organ and piano, having given over four hundred concerts across the United States, in Canada, England, Holland, France, Hungary, Lesotho and Guam, including such venues as Notre Dame Cathedral, St. Sulpice and the Madeleine in Paris, Washington National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., St. Patrick's Cathedral and St. Thomas Church in New York City, Methuen Memorial Music Hall and Trinity Church in Boston, E. Power Biggs' organ at Harvard, and Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral and Southwark Cathedral in London. She has been featured soloist with local Bay Area ensembles; Master Sinfonia Orchestra, Soli Deo Gloria, Sine Nomine, Masterworks Chorale, Viva la Musica and the San Jose Symphonic Choir as well as Seattle's Philharmonia Northwest Chamber Orchestra and the Skagit Symphony in northern Washington. In May 2014, Masterworks Chorale premiered her new choral work Solomon's Love. In July 2011, she was a featured recitalist at the San Francisco AGO Region IX Convention. She has released seven CDs; three with Arkay Records: two on organ (French Romantic and North German Baroque) and one on piano (Classical Piano Sonatas); and three with Compass Audio in Europe: (200 Years in the Germanic Tradition, the Majesty of Cavaillé-Coll and a 2CD set of Mendelssohn's organ works recorded on the 1801 organ of St Margaret's Lothbury, London). Three of her organ albums have received critical acclaim in The American Organist magazine. Most recently she has released a CD of her organ compositions entitled Sharing the Journey, recorded at Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles. She has served as the organist of the Congregational Church of San Mateo since 1993, and is currently the Artist in Residence. She is also a staff organist at the California Palace of the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. In addition to her musical career, Dr. Kraft Cross retired in 2011 having worked for 22 years as an ophthalmic surgeon at the Kaiser Permanente Hospital in Redwood City, and now practices ophthalmology with the Peninsula Ophthalmology Group. Dr. Kraft Cross is committed to the musical education of young people, and since 1997 has been instrumental in organizing an annual Organ Camp for young pianists headquartered at her church. She is the founding director of the San Francisco Peninsula Organ Academy, a nonprofit organization formed in 2014 to support young concert organists with scholarships on short intensive overseas study trips. Dr. Kraft Cross also served as faculty and or performed in Pipe Organ Encounters in San Francisco 2005, San Diego 2012, and Stanford 2013. She is the Regional Coordinator for Education for Region IX AGO and a member of the executive board for the Junior Bach Festival in Berkeley. She is also a member of the Concert Artist Cooperative. In this conversation, Angela is joined by her husband Robert who records her performances. They shares insights about her practice procedures, her challenges, her organ recordings, her passion for Mendelssohn organ works and Germanic organ tradition and about her future project recording organ symphonies of Vierne. We have recorded our conversation at Vilnius University St. John's church before Angela's concert with San Francisco Viva la Musica choir and orchestra. Enjoy and share your comments below. And don't forget to help spread the word about the SOP Podcast by sharing it with your organist friends. And if you like it, please head over to iTunes and leave a rating and review. This helps to get this podcast in front of more organists who would find it helpful. Thanks for caring. Listen to the conversation Related Links: https://www.angelakraftcross.com http://www.sfpeninsulaorganacademy.org Happy Thanksgiving! As you celebrate this wonderful evening with your families and think about the many things in life we all have to be grateful for, I have a fantastic piece for such an occasion - Nun danket alle Gott, BWV 657 by Johann Sebastian Bach. This is a chorale prelude from the famous collection of 18 Great Chorales, also known as the Leipzig Chorales. This is a four-part setting and the melody of the chorale (Cantus firmus) is presented in the soprano in longer note values. The tune is written in the Bar form (AAB). This is a traditional form of the German Lutheran chorales where the part A (Stollen) is repeated with a different text. Section B (Abgesang) is usually longer than A. The chorale prelude is written in the key of G major. At the beginning Bach uses Vorimitation technique where the first line of the tune is presented in imitation before the general Cantus firmus enters. The beginning features fugal entries of this phrase first in the soprano (tonic), the alto (dominant), and the bass (tonic). Phrases 1 and 2 of the tune are connected with an interlude where the tune is present in the tenor part. Then both phrases are repeated exactly from the beginning. Abgesang is prepared by the 3 fugal entrances of phrase 3 of the tune (tenor, bass, and alto). This time the key is D major and the fugal entries are written in the tonic, dominant, and tonic, respectively. Before phrase 4 (in D major) Bach writes another set of fugal entries using Vorimitation technique (tenor - tonic, bass - dominant, and alto - tonic). Phrase 5 is foreshadowed by the alto, tenor, and bass fugal entries in the left hand part and pedals. The piece is concluded by the phrase 6 in the alto (dominant) and soprano (tonic) and a long sustained tonic pedal point on the note G in the soprano. This is a traditional place to touch the subdominant key and and wrap up the entire composition. It is like an extended Plagal cadence involving the chords of the subdominant (C major) and the tonic (G major) which share the same common note (G). I hope you enjoy this brilliant piece performed on the organ at St. Thomas church in Leipzig: http://youtu.be/zynjWa4EbOQ If you cannot see the video, click on the title link at the beginning of this article. By the way, do you want to learn my special powerful techniques which help me to master any piece of organ music up to 10 times faster? If so, download my free video Organ Practice Guide. Or if you want to learn to improvise in the style of Bach? If so, I suggest you check out my free 9 day mini course in Keyboard Prelude Improvisation. Are you struggling with finding the best registration when playing German Romantic organ music, such as works by Mendelssohn, Brahms, Reger, Liszt, Reubke, Rheinberger, and others? Read this article which will clarify some of the most common registration indications.
The following guidelines are taken from the Preface to the 6 Organ Sonatas, Op. 65 by Felix Mendelssohn which is written by the composer himself. FF (Fortissimo) – Full Organ. With this indication you can use most of the stops on your instrument, including principals, flutes, and chorus reeds of various pitch levels. Add couplers if you want a bigger sound. However when in doubt, omit certain stops or couplers because there is the danger for the organ to sound too loud. In other words, listen how the instrument sounds in the room and make appropriate adjustments. pp (Pianissimo) – Soft 8’ stop alone. Such register might be a soft sounding flute or a string stop. If you have many such stops available on your organ, try to find the one which has an original character. F(Forte) – Great organ without some of the loudest stops. In this case you should probably omit the loudest reeds, such as Trumpets of 16’ and 8’ pitch level. A full principal chorus based on the 16’ (if available) with flutes of different pitch levels will do. p (Piano) – Several soft 8’ stops combined. Two or more flutes and strings will usually sound nice. In some cases you can also use manual couplers. Registration in the pedals. Use 16’ and 8’ stops together in the pedal, except where expressly stated otherwise. The composer specifically refers to the variation part of the 6th Organ Sonata, where you can find indication that a chorale tune (cantus firmus) “Vater unser im Himmelreich” should be played on the 8’ stop (perhaps the reed). 2 manuals – different tone color, without too great contrast. When registering pieces for two different keyboards, aim to use stops which are not too different in terms of volume level. Instead, choose the ones which produce a different sound character. Suitable for other German Romantic music. It is interesting to note that Mendelssohn’s suggestions are valid not only for his music, but also for the works of other German Romantic Composers. This is based on the fact that the organs which were built at that time in the German lands share many similar concepts. Follow these guidelines when registering organ music by German Romantic composers in general or pieces by Felix Mendelssohn in particular. As always, when adapting original registration indications to modern organs, have in mind the ideal sound that you want to produce and make necessary changes. If in doubt – choose the solution which is the simplest. By the way, do you want to learn my special powerful techniques which help me to master any piece of organ music up to 10 times faster? If so, download my video Organ Practice Guide. Or if you want to learn to improvise in the style of Bach? If so, I suggest you check out my 9 day mini course in Keyboard Prelude Improvisation. One of the best-known organ chorale preludes by Johannes Brahms, Herzlich tut mich verlangen, Op. 122 (6/4 meter) can be considered a beginner level organ piece. It is easy to play because of very slow tempo, straightforward pedal line and lack of imitative polyphony. Its gentle but sad character can make a nice contrast in your organ recital if you play it between two louder and/or faster pieces. In this article, I will give you 5 tips on how to learn this chorale prelude.
1. Repeated notes. There are several half notes which are repeated in the chorale melody in the pedal part. According to the tradition of legato playing technique, repeated notes should be shortened by an exact rhythmical value. Shorten these notes by the smallest most frequently used rhythmical value in this piece (unit value). This would be a sixteenth note. It means that you should make a sixteenth note rest. The repeated notes in the left hand part should be made shorter by a sixteenth note. 2. Pedal preparation. It is best to automate your pedal playing in this piece by applying pedal preparation technique. For example, as soon as you release a pedal played by the right foot, immediately slide this foot with a quick motion in the position for the next note and let it wait there. The same applies for the pedal preparation in the left foot. 3. Lean on dissonances (harmony). Not all notes are considered equally important in this piece. The most significant notes in the Romantic music tend to be the ones which form a dissonant chord. A dissonant chord consists of dissonant intervals, such as any second, seventh, diminished and augmented intervals. In this case, emphasize the chords which have four or more chordal tones and chromaticisms. In other words, lean on dissonances by coming in a bit late or holding them a bit longer. 4. Long melodic lines. A signature by Brahms are his endless melodies, somewhat similar to those of Richard Wagner. The difficult part of performing long melodic lines is that you can't take a breath in the middle of the line. Instead, use your mental focus by seeking the end of that line. Do not stop mentally in the middle of the phrase. Also try to count out loud the parts of the measure. In this way, the long melodies will have a purpose and direction, and listeners will be able to follow and appreciate the lines. 5. Registration. Since the dynamic level of the manual part is piano, you should use several 8' stops combined. It is best to play the middle part on the secondary manual. The chorale melody in the pedals should be based on the 8' stop. Do not use 16' in the pedals here. Instead, choose a soft 8' reed or 8' principal with or without 8' flutes. Use these tips when you practice the chorale prelude Herzlich tut mich verlangen, Op. 122 today. For best results, try to be very precise in executing every detail, such as repeated notes, using pedal preparation, and emphasizing the dissonant chords. By the way, do you want to learn my special powerful techniques which help me to master any piece of organ music up to 10 times faster? If so, download my FREE Organ Practice Guide. Or if you really want to learn to play any organ composition at sight fluently and without mistakes while working only 15 minutes a day, check out my systematic master course in Organ Sight-Reading. Are you struggling in learning one of the best known organ works by Felix Mendelssohn, Sonata No. 6 in D Minor, Op. 65? In this article, I will give you 5 tips which will help you learn this composition.
1. Repeated notes. One of the most important elements in the performance of the Romantic organ music is the issue of the repeated notes. Whenever you see the repeated notes in this composition, you have to shorten them by the unit value. For example, if the most common rhythmic value (the unit value) in the last movement is an eight note, try to shorten the repeated notes exactly by an eighth note. If the eighth notes are repeated, it is best to shorten them by half and playing a sixteenth note with a sixteenth note rest. 2. Registration. Mendelssohn wrote in the preface of his 6 sonatas that for him fortissimo means a full organ, pianissimo - soft 8' stop alone, forte - great organ without some of the loudest stops, piano - several soft 8' stops combined and so forth. In the pedal you should always use 16' and 8' stops together unless indicated otherwise. 3. Tempo in the toccata (the last variation of movement I). Although many organists love to play this toccata very fast, I recommend avoiding extremes in tempo. This is because in such a tempo you will lose the important details in articulation, phrasing and so on. When you practice this toccata, take a slow and comfortable tempo which would allow you to avoid mistakes. If you make a mistake, go back a few measures and play that episode several times in a row correctly. 4. Practice in fragments, in separate parts and in combinations. For best results, I recommend you practice in shorter fragments of about 4 measures each. Then you will be able to correct your mistakes very quickly. As you start making progress in your playing, you can make the fragments longer. It is also a good idea not to play both hands and feet together right from the beginning. Instead, practice right hand alone, left hand alone, and pedals alone. Then take both hands together, right hand and pedals, and left hand and pedals. Only then master all parts together. 5. Practice on the piano. Since the basis of the Romantic legato organ technique is based on the piano technique, you will improve your keyboard technique by practicing this composition on the piano extensively. If you want, you can play the pedals on the floor while sitting on the higher chair. However, be very careful not to play this piece on the piano using the piano touch with intense dynamics and lifting your fingers high up in the air. Instead, play everything mezzo piano with an even sound and try to keep your fingers in contact with the keys at all times. Playing this way will ensure you will get the most benefit out of the piano practice. Use these tips as you practice the Sonata No. 6 in D Minor, Op. 65 by Mendelssohn on the organ today. If you are precise and consistent in your practice, in time you will learn to play it well. By the way, do you want to learn my special powerful techniques which help me to master any piece of organ music up to 10 times faster? If so, download my FREE Organ Practice Guide. Or if you really want to learn to play any organ composition at sight fluently and without mistakes while working only 15 minutes a day, check out my systematic master course in Organ Sight-Reading. |
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Drs. Vidas Pinkevicius and Ausra Motuzaite-Pinkeviciene Organists of Vilnius University , creators of Secrets of Organ Playing. Our Hauptwerk Setup:
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