Six Works in Canon Form Op. 56
Six Fugues On The Name Of Bach Op. 60
Jens E. Christensen Organ
OUR recordings 6.220675
Full price
The Review
Writing for organ was not really Schumann’s thing – nor was delving into the neo-baroque world of Bach, at least not to the same extent as his contemporary Mendelssohn, so it is interesting that he wrote his only two substantial pieces in the genre in 1845; the same year that Mendelssohn was writing his organ sonatas. No doubt a true scholar will tell me if that was only coincidence.
Even when he did stipulate the organ, Schumann made sure the piano was mentioned as a possibility too. The six canons, Op. 56, cleverly combine contrapuntal discipline with his natural metier of miniature fantasy writing. The fugues are much drier, limited partly by the theme’s reliance on the musical transcription of Bach’s name (Bb ACB) and partly by a sense of uncharacteristic inhibition, as if Schumann was conscious of the solemnity thought at that time appropriate to his predecessor; in the 1840s Bach’s more light-hearted pieces had been forgotten for the most part and only Lutheran churchmen were really interested. Perhaps only in the last of the Op. 60 fugues does Schumann come up with the sort of magnificent grandeur that he looked for in symphonies and matches the organ’s potential.
Jens Christensen seems to recognise this and interleaves the dour fugues with the freer canons so that the recital does not get bogged down with reverence. He is playing on the superb 1700 organ of St. Saviour’s (Vor Freisers Kirke) in Copenhagen, with its 4000 pipes and astonishing carved case resting on a pair of rather cross-looking elephants, where he has been organist since 1989. The church is one of the city’s great landmarks, with a massive carillon and a spire which lives up to the name by being a spiral – the pun probably doesn’t work in Danish.
I cannot pretend to be expert enough in organ technique to pass comment on Christensen’s selection of registration and stops, except to say that nothing sounds glaringly out of place. Maybe that is a drawback, though. There are moments in the fugues where a few jolts to the aural fabric would be welcome.
SM