Rheinberger and ambitions

This is my entry for the secrets of organ playing contest, week 29. As it is, I think, my fourteenth entry, I got a bit over confident. The goal was to play the composition I had planned for this week's contest one time, working out the registration, than play it once as a final practice, and than record it. And I allowed myself one recording.

Perhaps I should have chosen a composition that comes more natural to me. My main forte is after all German Baroque. Somehow my hands and feet are very well suited to play that kind of music. Romantic music, be it German or French, does not come natural to me. One reason is that I have small hands. Composers like Joseph Rheinberger and César Franck did not have small hands at all. Espesically Franck writes somtimes chords I literally can not play: too many notes too far apart. Another reason romantic music does not come natural to me, is the many knobs and levers one has to use to play it faithfully.

It did of course not help that I chose a registration for the lower manual on a sixteen feet basis. The part that I play on the manual has to be played an octave higher than notated because of that registration. Near the end I get confused, because I use the left foot to play some pedal notes, the right foot to close the swells of both the Récit and the Positiv a bit and the right hand has to change to the lower manual. And I nearly forgot that because of the registration I chose, I have to play other notes than notated. But which ones? Eh, octave up or down? And which note? That one? That one? Oh, help!

The ambition was: one recording. And I sticked to that. So with mistakes and confusion and all, I left it as it was. Next time I better allow myself a bit more preparation.

This Intermezzo is part of Rheinberger's third Organ Sonata. It is wedged in between the outer parts of that Sonata and serves as an unpretentious link between those parts. And as a true Intermezoo, it mainly serves as preperation of what follows. I like this Intermezzo a lot because of it's chromatism and quick move through several keys. The down side is that it is not really suited to be played stand-alone. It starts of in E flat major and ends on D major. It does not really end in the key of D major, it is more the dominant to G major. And indeed the final part of this Sonata is in the key of G major. The Intermezzo leaves us with the feeling of more to come. Sadly, I have nothing to offer at the moment. The fugue that follows this intermezzo is one of the best of it's kind ever written, it is also a very difficult one to play. Perhaps one day in the future I will be able to play that fugue for this contest. For now, however, I have only the Intermezzo for you, and perhaps leave you a bit unsatiesfied.

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