London, Methodist Central Hall Westminster

London, Methodist Central Hall Westminster

 

Sunday, 15. September 2024, 3 pm

 

Organ recital

 

Homage à Anton Bruckner on Occasion of his 200th Birthday

 

 

Program

 

Anton Bruckner                             Overture g-Minor WAB 98 (1863)

(1824–1896)                                   (Transcription for Organ by Rudolf Innig, 2018)   

 

Josef Gabriel Rheinberger           Vision (1888)                                                                    

(1839-1901)                                    aus: Zwölf Charakterstücke für die Orgel op. 156

 

Anton Bruckner                            Drei Orchesterstücke WAB 97 (1862)         

(1824-1896)                                    Moderato -

                                                     Andante -

                                                    Andante con moto

                                                    (Transkription for Organ by Rudolf Innig, 2018)

 

Otto Kitzler                                  Trauermusik 'Dem Andenken Anton Bruckners'

(1834-1915)                                   für großes Orchester (1905)                             

                                                   (Transcription for Organ by Rudolf Innig, 2022)

 

Rudolf Innig                                Fantasy on a Improvisation Sketch (1890) by Anton Bruckner (2021)

(*1947)                                                               

 

Rudolf Innig, Organ

(www.rudolf-innig.de)

Program notes

 

Unlike today, Anton Bruckner was known in his time mostly as organist, not as a composer of important symphonies. As cathedral organist in Linz (1855-1868) he met the ten years younger theater conductor Otto Kitzler (1834-1915), who gave him the decisive impulses for composing symphonic orchestral works between December 1861 and July 1863. This development is recorded in the so-called Kitzler Studienbuch, which contains 326 pages of exercises ranging from simple eight-bar periods to sketches for his first four-movement symphony in F minor.

Based on current textbooks Kitzler taught him especially the Sonatform - as Bruckner called it - as part of a four movement symphony. Kitzler also introduced him to Richard Wagner's opera Tannhäuser (1845), the performances of which in February 1863 became a key experience for the further musical development of the almost 40-year-old Bruckner. The Overture in G minor, completed in early 1863, is based on this sonata form (decisively influenced by Ludwig van Beethoven), preceded here by a slow introduction, which Bruckner added on Kitzler 's advice. But the first sonata movement by the already 38 years old composer deviates already from tradition and focuses primarily on the coda of the overture, in which the main theme is surprisingly heard in a new sound.

Josef Gabriel Rheinberger and Anton Bruckner were for nearly three decades colleagues as teachers of harmony and counterpoint at the conservatories in Vienna and Munich: Bruckner from 1868-1894, Rheinberger from 1867-1901. Alongside Felix Mendelssohn, Rheinberger is the most important composer of organ music in the German-speaking world in the 19th century, primarily due to his twenty (!) organ sonatas. But also can be described as the inventor of the 'character piece for organ'. Small, mostly lyrical genre pieces in three-part song form (dreiteilige Liedform) were particularly popular in piano music: the Träumerei from Kinderszenen op. 15 by Robert Schumann is for example the most famous character piece of all time. Rheinberger composed four extensive organ cycles in this style, each with twelve movements. His organ piece Vision (1888) is based on the advanced tonal language of Richard Wagner's late works: low or highly altered harmonies, which reach up to seven-note chords, sometimes move at the limits of major-minor tonality, but without questioning it.

Otto Kitzler's three-part Funeral music - In memory of Anton Bruckner (Adagio - Andante con moto - Adagio) does not use direct quotations from Bruckner's symphonic works, but adopts typical stylistic elements of his symphonic music: short 'impulse motifs' with their tendency towards sequencing, the advanced 'alteration harmony' inspired by Richard Wagner with a preference for fallacious turns in distant third relationships, as well as the tendency towards pedal points or general rests, techniques that Anton Bruckner had been familiar with as an improviser on the organ since his youth.     

In the spring of 1890, Anton Bruckner was in Vienna for the second time reworking his Symphony No. 1 in C minor, which he had composed in 1865/66 as cathedral organist in Linz. Shortly before finishing work on the Finale, the k.k.Hoforganist received a request from the Imperial Court to play the organ at the wedding of the youngest Emperor's daughter in Bad Ischl. It therefore made sense for him to use the two themes from the Finale of this symphony c-Minor. According to his nearly 70 bars long manuscript the main theme of the Finale was to be heard during the entrance. During the exit, he wanted to start with the second theme and then combine this theme with the 'Hallelujah by Händl or the Imperial Hymn improvisation' or even mix all three themes.

But Bruckner's suggestions were rejected by the High Court Office: the themes of the symphony were not suitable and a fantasy on the Imperial Hymn would bore the Emperor. Nevertheless, Bruckner began with a fugue on the Kaiserlied (today's German national anthem), and in the exit he varied this theme again, before moving on to Handel's Hallelujah. The emperor was very impressed and praised Bruckner's improvisation several times at the court banquet that followed.

The Fantasy on Bruckner's improvisation sketch heard here combines the two themes noted by Bruckner in his sketch with a transcription of the coda of the finale of Symphony No. 1 in C minor, which leads to a triumphant conclusion in C major. In the middle section, Handel's Hallelujah quotation, which Bruckner only hinted at, is expanded into a short fugato episode.                                                                                                                                                                                                 (Dr. Rudolf Innig)

Sonntag, 15. September 2024

 

Orgelkonzert

 

Hommage à Anton Bruckner aus Anlass des 200sten Geburtstages 2024

 

Programm

 

Anton Bruckner           Ouvertüre g-Moll WAB 98 (1863)

(1824–1896)                 (Bearbeitung für Orgel von Rudolf Innig, 2018)      

 

Richard Wagner          Feuerzauber aus Die Walküre (1857)

(1813-1883)                  (Bearbeitung für Orgel von Rudolf Innig, 2023)

 

Otto Kitzler                  Trauermusik 'Dem Andenken Anton Bruckners' für großes Orchester (1905)         

(1834-1915)                  (Bearbeitung für Orgel von Rudolf Innig, 2022)

 

Rudolf Innig                Fantasie über eine Improvisationsskizze

(*1947)                         von Anton Bruckner (2021)

 

Rudolf Innig, Orgel

(www.rudolf-innig.de)