Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica di Vicenza “Arrigo Pedrollo”

Abstract: Jeanne Demessieux has produced a dozen wonderful preludes based on Gregorian chant themes. The pieces contain fairly simple pedal parts and are in a variety of styles. Titles include: Rorate Caeli (Choral Orné) * Adeste Fideles (Musette) * Attende Domine (Choral Paraphrase) * Stabat Mater (Cantabile) * Vexilla Regis (Prelude) and more.

Abstract: 44 completed compositions of the "Little Organ Book" giving an impressive display of the full range of the so-called short chorale prelude. - Description urtext edition: The ”Little Organ Book”, perhaps the most celebrated collection ever of chorale preludes, owes its title to J.S. Bach’s application for the post of Cantor at St Thomas’ Church in Leipzig. Lacking an academic degree, Bach wanted to demonstrate his qualifications as a teacher through his compositions – including his Inventions, Sinfonias and the ”Well-tempered Clavier”. This also led him to append a misleading title to the most ambitious project of his time at Weimar: he called this collection of chorale preludes – originally meant to number 164 pieces – pieces for an ”aspiring organist”. In fact the 44 completed compositions of the ”Little Organ Book” are demanding masterpieces giving an impressive display of the full range of the so-called short chorale prelude. This new critical edition returns for the first time to the format of the principal sources dating from Bach’s time, in that most of the pieces are reproduced on two systems, rather than three. Grade: Intermediate. (Fonte editoriale)

Abstract: Johannes Brahms’s organ works in a sense “frame” his whole oeuvre. He wrote several preludes and fugues and the chorale prelude “O Traurigkeit, o Herzeleid” in the mid-1850s, at a time when he was making an intensive study of counterpoint. The Eleven Chorale Preludes op. 122, on the other hand, are Brahms’s final work, composed in 1896, immediately before and after the death of Clara Schumann. This revised Henle Urtext edition presents all of Brahms’s organ works in a single volume, following the musical text of the New Brahms Complete Edition, and with a preface and a commentary that reflect the latest scholarship. The early versions of two of these pieces are also given in an appendix.