Naxos Blog

Naxos releases Volume One of Arthaus Musik’s History of the Organ series in celebration of one of the oldest, most complex and most glorious musical instruments known to man. The four-part series tells the history of this magnificent instrument, displaying the beauty of the sound it produces, the wealth of music written for it, the craftsmanship involved in building such a complicated and often ornate structure and the wonderful settings in which it has come to reside.Volume One: Latin Origins begins in the Verona workshop of Bartolomeo Formentelli where he talks about the many craftsman skills that organ makers must possess and how these skills, in cooperation with traditional materials and processes, go into making each organ sound it’s best. The episode travels through Italy, Spain and France to trace the origins, history and development of the organ. It encompasses the classical sobriety of the Italian style, the Golden Age of the organ in sixteenth-century Spain, and the French style of the eighteenth century.

Volumes coming soon:
Volume Two: From Sweelinck to Bach - A look at Central and Northern Europe and Germany provinces when the organ was popular from end of the middle ages. Because of Lutheran reform in the church, the organ became a widespread and important part of religious worship. This volume examines the development of organ music from Sweelinck to Bach.

Volume Three: The Golden Age - The third volume of the series explores the organ’s true renaissance in the first half of 18th Century. Mechanical and technical perfection in the structure and design of the organ coincided with the greatest musical expression it was now capable of. There were two important schools of organ music at this time: German and French. In this episode the viewer will visit the very sites in Germany associated with the compositions of Johann Sebastian Bach.

Volume Four: The Modern Age - Volume four introduces Romantic era organ composers, some of which continued to compose in the style of their great predecessor J.S. Bach. Many 19th Century composers tried to bring the language of the orchestra to organ composition, while many primarily composed for and played the organ for liturgical purposes. This volume examines the music of composers not necessarily known for their organ compositions, such as Liszt, Schumann, Mendelssohn, Brahms, Saint-Saens, Franck, and Messiaen.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 5:14 am and is filed under Naxos News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.