Sometimes
it is the organist’s happy experience that an encounter with an
instrument can transform one’s conception of the music one plays.
Just such an experience awaits the player who brings the organ music of
Nicolaus Bruhns to the organ at Roskilde Cathedral. Nicolaus Bruhns is
known to us as the virtuoso violinist and brilliant organist resident for
a time in Copenhagen and later in the north-German town of Husum, and his
exuberant assimilation of Italian stylistic features shaped by
north-German rhetorical conventions is reflected in his cantatas and in a
small corpus of organ repertoire that would seem ideally suited to the
lively and agile character of the north-German organs of the late
seventeenth century. And indeed his music fares well on such instruments:
their colorful and brilliant soundscapes express superbly the bold
gestures of his praeludia, the rhythmic intensity of the final fugues of
the Praeludium in G and of the large Praeludium in e, the layered
counterpoint of the fantasia on Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland.
An
entirely different world of sound characterizes the organ at Roskilde
Cathedral. Liveliness and agility are of course present, and there is an
abundance of color available to the player through a wide variety of
pipe-forms. The overall character of the instrument, however, tends to be
more aristocratic, more elegant and sweet than its north-German
counterparts, and it reveals in the music of Bruhns a reflective and
somewhat refined quality that one can hardly experience elsewhere. It is a
sound such as this that Bruhns is likely to have experienced during his
sojourn in Copenhagen. At Roskilde the relatively narrow scaling of the
principal registers impart to them a gentle fullness not unlike that of a
concert of viols, in contrast to the more highly declamatory behavior of
north-German principals; the lightly-winded flutes and reed pipes likewise
impart an effortlessly singing quality to the music played upon them. This
suavity and cultured elegance of sound has its own intensity, of course,
but it is an intensity that speaks with a mild yet focused voice. Such
sounds lend themselves to music that is intimate and highly expressive of
poetic qualities, and they encourage one to register the organ very
simply, using single stops where possible. The wide range of color found
in the eight-and four-foot stops alone in this instrument is heard to
advantage particularly in Bruhns’ fantasia on Nun komm, der Heiden
Heiland and in the chorale preludes of Hanff.
Johann
Nicolaus Hanff, born in the same year as Nicolaus Bruhns, left his native
Thuringia for northern Germany at an early age. He was active principally
in Hamburg, but he also served as court organist to the Prince-bishop of Lübeck
at Eutin for nine years. The chorale preludes heard on this CD are his
only surviving organ works; they are all preserved in manuscripts copied
by Johann Gottfried Walther. The highly expressive yet restrained
ornamentation found in each of these pieces reflects the sense of the
text, and provides an opportunity to explore the ways in which the
distinctive colors of the individual stops at Roskilde Cathedral can
heighten this expressivity. Thus the plaintive sound of the Hoboy 8’ is
used for the penitential chorales, Ach Gott, vom Himmel sieh darein and
Erbarm dich mein, where its particular tonal qualities enhance the falling
gestures of the former piece, and the chromaticism of the latter. A
certain amount of text-painting is to be heard in Auf meinen lieben Gott,
where the meaning of individual words of the text is given special
emphasis through the use of different figures; here the vocal style of the
melodic writing is expressed in the use of the most “vocal” of the
registers of this instrument, the Principal 4’ of the Rygpositiv. Helft
mir Gottes Güte preisen, a hymn of anticipation of the New Year, is given
an active and flowing figuration, somewhat reminiscent of the diminution
style of the earlier seventeenth century. The Gedact 8’ is used together
with the Salicional 2’ here to enhance the activity of the soprano line
and to provide a contrast to the sustained nature of the accompaniment.
The two chorale preludes whose texts celebrate the strength of God, Wär
Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit and Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott, are
characterized by ornamentation having bold flourishes, dotted rhythms, and
quick runs encompassing an octave or more. In both pieces the assertive
quality of the Sesquialtera II is heard, in combination with eight- and
four-foot registers in Wär Gott nicht mit uns diese Zeit, and together
with the reed plenum of the Rygpositiv in Ein feste Burg.
Organs,
like other musical instruments, are fragile creatures. Indeed, the
longer-lived a musical instrument is, and the finer it is, the more
fragile it is apt to be. And the older a musical instrument is, greater is
the temptation to change it in order to meet the demands of changing
tastes. Sometimes, as was often the case throughout the seventeenth
century, it was possible to make changes to organs in such ways as not to
diminish their intrinsic quality. The organ at Roskilde Cathedral, along
with many other well-beloved historic organs, bears the marks of such
changes. The art of restoration is in part the art of pruning an
instrument of changes which are believed to have compromised its intrinsic
quality, so that the instrument may regain its earlier integrity. Such a
process was also necessary at Roskilde, because of more recent changes
made to the organ. The art of organ restoration is essentially a
twentieth-century phenomenon, and one which may safely be said to have had
a rocky beginning. Despite this, there has been in a sense a kind of
“quantum leap” in the development of the restorer’s art, beginning
even in the 1950s with the pioneering efforts of Ahrend and Brunzema in
Germany, and of several builders in the Netherlands, and coming to an even
higher level in the seventies and eighties. The high standards of
restoration that came to be realized in the Netherlands and parts of
northern Germany produced highly successful restorations of organs in that
region, so that many were able to witness the high level of historic organ
building in the Netherlands and northern Germany. Perhaps during those
years it was not as easy to appreciate the equally high level of historic
organ building in areas where such standards of restoration were not yet
applied, or where unrestored well-preserved organs were not so easily
accessible. The landmark restoration of the organ at Roskilde Cathedral
represents the application of these standards in Denmark at a level that
was not possible in earlier times. Subsequent restorations at Helsingor
and Clausholm are revealing anew a historic organ culture of immense
worth, one which stands to reshape our understanding of the Danish organ,
and one which challenges the player to new ways of experiencing the music
that has its roots in this part of the world.
©
Copyright 1999
