The International Historical Organ Recording Collection

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...

Now it’s time for the next release with the recordings of Marcel Dupré and Jeanne Demessieux in Saint Mark’s Church, London. However, first we start with a recording with Edouard Mignan playing the first movement of Mendelssohns 6th sonata. Edouard Mignan (1884-1969) was a French organist and composer. He was born in Orléans and 14 years old he became the organist of église Saint Paterne. He studied organ in Paris with Alexandre Guilmant and Louis Vierne and won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1912. He was organist at Saint-Thomas-d'Aquin from 1917 to 1935. He succeeded Henri Dallier as organist of la Madeleine in 1935 and held that post until 1962. (From Wiki) Edouard Mignan was succeded by Jeanne Demessieux in La Madeleine. The technical quality of this recording is very poor and everything sounds very chaotic and distant. Also there were some difficulties transferring the second 78rpm side, so there is a big pitch problem there. I’ll try to get it fixed. I know I’ve published the ex...

Now it’s time for the second release with Fernando Germani at the organ in Saint Ignazio in Rome. These recordings are interesting in many ways. First of all they again show Germani as one of the greatest organists. His beautifully formed musical lines coupled with a fine sense of touch and a great technical ability is a general thread in all his performances. I recommend listening to all of the recordings, but especially the Schumann, his own arrangement of the Frescobaldi Toccata, and Liszt's BACH are simply amazing. Concerning the arrangement of the Frescobaldi Toccata, the sheet music can be found at The Petrucci Library ( http://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ImagefromIndex/10811 ). Collecting information about these old recordings is often very difficult, since the documentation on the records themselves are often very limited. Michael Gartz and I weren’t able to find the composer for the “In dulci jubilo” and I couldn't find any information on track 8 whatsoever. So if you have...

André Marchal (1894-1980) With great thanks to The European Archive ( http://europarchive.org ) I’ve got permission to use their collection of public domain organ recordings. I haven’t altered anything beside cutting the sound into tracks and renaming them. The first item from EA is an LP released in France around 1945-1950 with André Marchal playing works by Johann Sebastian Bach in his church Saint Eustache in Paris. André Marchal (1894-1980) was a French organist and organ teacher. He was one of the great initiators of the organ revival in France. Marchal was born blind. He studied the organ under Eugène Gigout at the Paris Conservatoire where in 1913 he won their premier prix. He also won the prix d' excellence for fugue and counterpoint in Caussade's class (his counterpoint teacher) in 1917. He taught organ at Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles in Paris, and was titular organist of the Saint-Germain-des-Prés (1915-1945) and Saint-Eustache (1945-1963), his resignation i...

Fernando Germani, 1906 – 1998. Fernando Germani was an Italian organist. He studied in Rome, and at age eight he started taking lessons in composition from Resphigi who headed Germani toward the organ. In 1921 he began a career as organist. He has taught in Siena and Rome and played widely in the USA. He gave Bach's complete organ works for the first time in Italy in 1945, repeating them several times, and was first organist at St Peter's, Rome, 1948-59. Spanning a career of almost seventy-five years, Germani also was a celebrated teacher in Italy. He died in 1998. Here is a funny story; Pageant by Leo Sowerby was written in 1931, at the request of Germani. Germani had played Sowerby's Medieval Poem on his first concert in the United States, under the composer's baton. The Italian possessed a phenomenal pedal technique, and Sowerby's Pageant was very obviously intended as a direct challenge. In form it is a set of ingenious variations on a rather perfunctory theme,...