This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 Excerpt: ...Merkel and Hesse, were two terrible persons, who produced numbers of works all in a solid and severe organ style, and all as heavy as lead. Among the German composers who stand above this general level of dulness is Rheinberger, whose compositions have, of course, a reputation beyond that of an organ-composer, but who ...
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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1910 Excerpt: ...Merkel and Hesse, were two terrible persons, who produced numbers of works all in a solid and severe organ style, and all as heavy as lead. Among the German composers who stand above this general level of dulness is Rheinberger, whose compositions have, of course, a reputation beyond that of an organ-composer, but who was an accomplished organ-player, and his sonatas for the organ have real interest, besides being written with a thorough understanding of the instrument; especially the one called (for no obvious reason) "Sonata Pastorale," which contains one of the most attractive fugues ever written for the organ, the subject of which is a really original inspiration. Van Eyken, of Magdeburg, produced a fine organ sonata in D minor, written a good deal under the influence of Mendelssohn, which deserves not to be forgotten; and among modern works are two sonatas by A. G. Ritter, which seem to be little known, and which are of unusual dramatic force and fire of style--that in A minor especially--while keeping strictly within the limits of organ music. I owed the knowledge of these to Best, who said to me one day, before one of the Saturday organ recitals at Liverpool: "I am going to play a Wagnerian organ sonata this afternoon." This was Ritter's in A minor, commencing would be quite futile. There is a fine old organ in the parish church at Northampton, with two Great Organ manuals, on which organ music of this type could be executed; but it is a rare, if not unique, instance in this country. And on the whole Reger's organ music, though work to be regarded with respect, seems to me to be rather the outcome of learning and a serious aim than of inspiration. This cannot be said of another modern sonata, that in C minor by Herr Reubke, a Saxo...
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