The International Historical Organ Recording Collection

This is the second release with Helmut Walcha. This time it's from his first cycle of the complete J. S. Bach recordings from 1947-1952. The “Sei gegrüsset” and the “Schübler chorales” are recorded at the Stellwagen organ Sct. Jacobi in Lübeck in 1947 and the Preludes and Fugues from 1952 at one of the most important Schnitger organs situated in Cappel. This release is also interesting due the historic importans of two instruments used. This link provides a good insight on the organ of Cappel, and the author of this blog even quotes some text from the original Walcha release. http://mypipeorganhobby.blogspot.com/2009/10/cappel-st-peter-und-paul-1680-schnitger.html I’ve found som info about the Stellwagen organ in Sct. Jacobi Kirche, Lübeck: Die kleine Orgel (Stellwagenorgel, Nordorgel) ist deshalb kulturgeschichtlich von allergrößtem Wert. Das gotische Blockwerk von 1467 baute Friedrich Stellwagen 1636/37 zum Hauptwerk mit Schleif-Windladen um und fügte Rückpositiv, Brustwerk und...

Helmuth Walcha (1907-1991) It’s now time for a release with the famous German organist Helmut Walcha. This is the first of initially 4 releases with Walcha playing J. S. Bach. He recorded the complete works by J. S. Bach twice, from 1947-1950 in mono on the Schnitger organ in Cappel and in St. Jakobi in Lübeck and 1956-1971 on the famous organ in Alkmaar. This release is from the Alkmaar serie and is therefore in stereo. A quite interesting thing is to compare it with the IHORC14 release, where Fernando Germani plays the exact same organ about two years later. The next part is from Wikipedia: Helmut Walcha (October 27, 1907 in Leipzig, Germany – August 11, 1991 in Frankfurt am Main, Germany) was a blind German organist who specialized in the works of the Dutch and German baroque masters and is known for his recordings of the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach. And whom, despite being blinded at 19 by smallpox, is considered one of the great teachers and performers of the or...

Even though I try to present a variety of different organists, the field of historical organ recordings often has its own life, where recordings surface and disappear. Fernando Germani recorded a great deal of music, and his recordings were released in quite big numbers and were well distributed worldwide due to his “big name” in the recording industry. In retrospect it’s therefore quite easy to aquire his recordings. That is why I am able to present the fourth release with him. This time it’s one of the LPs from his legendary recordings at the fabulous Schnitger organ in Alkmaar, Holland. Fernando Germanis organ playing is always great to listen to, but I would especially recommend his version of the Passacaglia, which in my opinion is one of the best ever to be put on record. It has the rythmical intensity and big lines typical for Germani coupled with a really fine sense for registrations. Some technical details; I could not find the exact release date and year for this recording, a...

Anton Nowakowski (1897-1968), the master pupil of Straube and Fritz Heitman (who were friends of Max Reger) is one of the outstanding German organists. Born in Danzig in 1897, he became famous both as a teacher at the German Academy of Music in Prague and the Essen Folkwang school and as an organ soloist. In addition, thanks to the encouragement from Wilhelm Furtwängler, he achieved considerable fame in Danzig and Berlin as an opera conductor. Anton Nowakowski died in 1968. These recordings were released on several LP’s over a span of some years. I’ve located some rather different reviews of these recordings, and chosen the earliest review from The Gramophone, July 1955: “Nowakowski is a new name to me; and I do not recall having heard the Danish instrument on which he plays so skillfully. It has brightness and clarity, with a remarkably well-balanced ensemble and a fascinating array of colour. The mixtures are especially satisfactory, and add top to the tuttis without overpowering the...

This is the second, but hopefully not the last, release with Fritz Heitmann. On May 19th in 1950 Fritz Heitmann recorded parts of J. S. Bach’s Kunst der Fuge in the Gruft-Kapelle in the Berliner Dom. This recording was afterwards released on an LP on the German Telefunken label. Again we are faced with a impressive display of organ playing. This recording was made in just one day, and that required quite an amount of work and technical precision in a time when cutting and splicing was still very limited. The cathedral was heavily damaged in 1944, and among other things the entire dome was destroyed. A temporary roof was set up in 1953 and until then the cathedral was unusable. Church services and other activities were held in the crypt under the cathedral. Historically speaking this recording must have been very emotional. It was recorded in 1950, so it was made when the cathedral was still in a terrible condition with much damage due to weather and vandalism. I’m not sure, but as I r...

This is the third release with Fernando Germani. Now it’s time for the famous recordings from Westminster Cathedral done during the period from 1947-53. Thanks to Claus Byrith I’ve been able to access the catalogue of the HMV Plum Label “C” Series where all Germani's recordings were released. This catalogue gives us among many things the exact dates and places of the recordings. These informations showed an interesting thing; the Dorian Toccata was not recorded in Westminster, as I first thought, but in All Soul's Church on Langham Place in London. This church and the organ were damaged in 1940 during the war, and the organ was dismantled. It was then rebuilt in 1951. Acccording to the HMV catalogue Fernando Germani recorded the Dorian Toccata (from this release) and the Mozart F-minor Fantasia on the newly installed organ in 1952. Furthermore the catalogue shows that Germani also recorded the C minor Passacaglia of Bach, the Nöel X by Daquin and “Tu es Petrus” by Henri Mulet. ...

Here is another great release from The European Archive ( http://europarchive.org/ ). This time it’s Fritz Heitmann playing excerpts from J. S. Bach “Dritter Teil” at the Arp-Schnitger organ in Eosander Chapel at Charlottenburg Castle in Berlin. One very interesting thing is that this organ was destroyed during the Second World War in 1944, so this is the only sound document of this organ. I’ve searched for some information on Heitmann and found a little on the German Wiki: Fritz Heitmann (1891-1953) war ein deutscher Organist. Erste Ausbildung bei seinem Vater, der ebenfalls Organist war. Dann besuchte Heitmann das Hamburger Konservatorium für Musik und von 1909 - 1911 war er am Leipziger Konservatorium Schüler von Karl Straube, Max Reger und Josef Pembaur. Als Organist von 1912 bis 1914 am Dom in Schleswig tätig, dann von 1918 bis 1932 an der Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche und seit 1919 zugleich an der Sing-Akademie zu Berlin, schließlich von 1932 bis zu seinem Tode Domorganist am B...