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Franz Lehrndorfer - LIVE: Organ Concert (1987)

Product no.: Vol. 10
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From 1970 on, Franz Lehrndorfer directed the recial series in the Munich Liebfrauendom (Cathedral of Our Lady), which gave organists from numerous countries the opportunity to perform in the Frauenkirche. Jean Langlais, the blind French organist and composer, was scheduled for August 17, 1978, but he had to cancel due to illness. Cathedral organist Prof. Franz Lehrndorfer stood in for him at short notice with his own program.

This CD documents the previously unpublished concert in honor of the 90th birthday of Franz Lehrndorfer, who died August 10, 2013; we experience him here as an interpreter (Bach, Gronau, Vivaldi, Franck, Reger), as an arranger and publisher (Vivaldi) as well as an improviser (B-A-C-H).

Johann Sebastian Bach's (1685-1750) probably best-known organ work, the Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 565), stylistically still belongs to his early compositions. Franz Lehrndorfer performs it as a conglomeration of improvisational elements: with a turbulent opening unison, the heavy counterplay of broken chords (climax resulting from the diminished seventh chord, sustained for four measures, which emerges here for the first time in music history in all its expressive power!), with the undulating triplets, the powerful pedal solo and the fugue thematically following the opening motif of the Toccata.

The chorale variations for organ of the long forgotten Gdansk organist Daniel Magnus Gronau (+1747) have recently been rediscovered and newly recorded by several organists. Franz Lehrndorfer led the way here with the variation on "Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan". He may have been attracted not only by the independent tonal language of the Baroque master, but also by the virtuoso playing technique that Gronau demands of the interpreter (one hand on two manuals!).

Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) wrote operas and concertos, including double concertos for violin and organ. Bach held the Italian master in high esteem, and Vivaldi lives on in the memory of organists primarily through Bach's arrangements of his concertos for organ ("Bach-Vivaldi"). Franz Lehrndorfer arranged the Concerto in D major (BWV 972) for organ by bis own hand - an early example of the numerous arrangements (Bach, Stanley, Mozart, etc.) that followed and with which he made prelude templates available to organists for both inside and outside the church service.

The graceful third piece from César Franck's "Six Pièces" of 1864, entitled "Prélude, Fugue et Variation," beginning lullaby-like, is one of the most popular works by the Belgian-French master (1822-1890). Franck composed it, after he became the organist at the newly built Basilica Sainte-Clotilde in Paris in 1859. Since the composer mastered the strict compositional technique, that only a few artists of that time had mastered, but at the same time made the organ ("my orchestra!") accessible to the symphonic expression and colorful harmonies of his time, Franck's impact reached far into the future, into the 20th century; essentially through him, French organ art remained in creative connection with the general development of music up to the present.

Franz Lehrndorfer was well-known for his interpretations of the organ works of Max Reger (1873-1916). He performed many of Reger's works at concerts and recorded several on CDs. Moreover, Reger played an important role in his organ lessons. The 2nd Sonata in D minor, op. 60, written in 1901, containing three movements, offers the "whole Reger" in a nutshell: with an exposition that contains elements of the development from the very beginning, a haunting recitative-like "Invocation" that echoes the chorale "Vom Himmel hoch, da komm ich her" at the end, and the final fugue that follows a scherzo-like introduction.

Bach's "musical name", "saved" in intervals of a second, has inspired countless organists - and quite a few composers - again and again to create improvisations, preludes and fugues on B-A-C-H. Franz Lehrndorfer's concert of August 17, 1978, also ended with an improvisation on B-A-C-H. It shows all the arts of the internationally esteemed and admired improviser: toccata-like free playing, austere chord agglomerations and an "art of the fugue" that only very few contemporary organists manage to achieve today. Franz Lehrndorfer clearly proves himself here as a contemporary, as an organist and as a composer of the 20th century. May this piece keep him in our grateful-admiring memory.

 

Hans Maier
(Bavarian Minister of State for Education, Culture, Science and the Arts from 1970 to 1986)

Translation

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