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RECENT STORIES

Buchholz Organ Recital Outstanding

Contributed by: Robin McNeil on 5/5/2008

On Sunday, May 4, Dr. Horst Buchholz gave his faculty recital in Hamilton Hall at the Newman Center on the DU campus. This program was a little different from Dr. Buchholz' previous faculty recitals in that this one was dedicated entirely to Baroque composers. It was a very fine program as his faculty recitals always are, but this one was really interesting because he played pieces from the German Baroque, the Italian Baroque, and the French Baroque. It was a terrific to hear these pieces played consecutively, so that one could really hear the difference in the style between these three countries.

For those of you who may be unfamiliar with Horst Buchholz, he is Director of Sacred Music and Principal Organist at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception and Associate Professor of church music at St. John Vianney Seminary, an affiliate of the Pontifical Lateran University in Rome. He has won international acclaim as conductor, concert organist, scholar, and educator. While being in Colorado, he has served as Associate Conductor with Opera Colorado and as Music Director of Denver's Young Artists Orchestra. Currently, he is Music Director and Conductor of the Denver Philhar¬monic Orchestra.

Horst Buchholz received his early musical training in a boys choir in his native Germany and started conducting at age 16. When he was 21 years old, he had his Berlin Philharmonic debut as organ soloist, and shortly thereafter he founded the Berlin Chamber Orches¬tra. Dr. Buchholz holds two terminal degrees, one in Church Music from the University of Arts in Berlin, and one in Orchestral Conduct¬ing from Indiana University in Bloomington. His organ teachers were Heinz Lohmann, Peter Wackwitz, and Rudolf Heinemann. As an as¬sistant with the Berlin Philharmonic Chorus he had the opportunity to work with and learn from such eminent maestros as Claudio Abbado, Riccardo Muti, and Herbert von Karajan.

Dr. Buchholz has performed as a concert organist throughout Europe, Mexico, Japan, Korea, and the United States, and is a faculty member at the University of Denver where he is also the curator of the William K. Coors organ.

The first half of the program consisted of the Bach Prelude and Fugue Nr. 5 in F minor, followed by three toccatas; one by Frescobaldi, one by the French composer, Muffat, and a final toccata by Buxtehude. For those of you who are not sure just what a toccata is, the word comes from the Italian verb toccare, which means to touch. A toccata is a virtuoso piece usually but not necessarily, for keyboard. It was one of the first compositions where composers attempted true idiomatic writing for the instrument.

This particular composition by Bach has been preserved in just a single copy of manuscript. It was written out by a pupil of Johann Kittel who was a student of Bach's. This has led some scholars to doubt if it was indeed written by Bach, though they have been unable to give clear substantiation. The Prelude is almost toccata-like in its difficulty, and certainly the accompanying five-voice fugue is as difficult as any toccata. The fugue subject has a characteristic trill which makes the return of the subject easy to hear even in the thickest of textures. It was a perfect introductory piece to the program.

The outstanding aspect of the Recital was that Dr. Buchholz chose to give a small lecture about each piece before it was performed. The points that he made, I'm sure, were easier for the audience to understand ( and I don't wish to insult anyone's intelligence ) than if they had tried to read through them in program notes. It was almost like a lecture recital, and I think I would welcome this as a more interesting way to present a program.

The first half of the program ended with the Toccata in D minor by Dietrich Buxtehude. There was a marked difference between this toccata and the French and Italian toccatas because, as Buchholz explained, Buxtehude had a better instrument with a larger panel keyboard, and thus his options as a composer were greatly expanded. In all of these toccatas, Dr. Buchholz demonstrated why he is such a well-known organist, and why the University of Denver is fortunate to have him on the faculty.

The second half of the program began with the Concerto in B minor by Antonio Vivaldi. It was transcribed for organ by Johann G. Walther, who was a German organist, composer, theorist, and lexicographer of the Baroque period. He transcribed several instrumental concertos by Albinoni, Gentili, Torelli, Telemann, and Vivaldi. Dr. Buchholz did point out that for a period of time, many people considered transcriptions as a form of desecration or simply cheap copies. But Walther's transcriptions are extremely well done. Listening to a transcription of this Concerto was extremely interesting because hearing it for a single instrument allowed one to hear things afresh, and of this new perspective offered new insights to this piece. Walther kept the orchestra part on one manual, while the solo elements of the Concerto were on another manual. Heard as such distinctly separate entities made it easy to understand why there is often confusion between Vivaldi and Bach.

Following the Vivaldi, Buchholz performed the Partita, "Freu dich sehr, o meine Seele." The first appearance of this text comes from Freiburg, Germany, and the text is anonymous. Pachelbel used his chorale melody as a set of four variations for this partita. He allows the hands to exchange the melody, or cantus firmus, as it was known, to appear in the right-hand, then in the left-hand, then both hands, and finally, the pedal. Hearing this piece performed so well by Dr. Buchholz, made me wish that more organists would include Pachelbel in their programs. It always amazes me that so many well-known composers have so many pieces that are unknown.

Buchholz then performed the "Suite du deuxième ton" by Louis-Nicolas Clerambault. Clerambault was French organist and composer, and the dates that I have found were 1676 to 1749. I think that there was a misprint on the program, because the dates listed in the program were 1678 to 1741. At any rate, this suite is based on five registrations for the organ: Plien jeu, Duo, Basse de Cromorne, Recit de Nazard, and Caprice sur les Grands Jeux. This is a terrific piece, and its contrast with the German works on the program is quite something. As Buchholz pointed out in his mini-lecture before the performance, the French were very specific when assigning organ registration to their pieces. The Germans were not nearly so specific. But this piece, was in some ways more lyrical and it certainly used the woodwinds stops to advantage.

Dr. Buchholz closed his recital with two chorale preludes by Bach, the first, "We All Believe in One God," and the second, one of Bach's famous chorales, "Now Thank We All Our God," which is from Cantata, Nr. 79. It has been arranged for organ by Virgil Fox.

This was an outstanding performance by Dr. Buchholz, however this should not be a surprise to anyone who has heard him perform. There were not many people in the audience and there should have been. After many of his performances, I have heard people exclaim that they had no idea that organ music could be so exciting to listen to. The organ has certainly deserved its reputation as the primary instrument for liturgical music, but so many audiences, until they attend a performance, seem to think that is its only use. This misconception could be partially erased if the local classical music station would reinstate its Saturday morning program of organ music. It would also help if modern concert audiences would be a little more daring and consider attending organ recitals.






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CONTRIBUTOR INFORMATION

Robin McNeil

Littleton , CO

Robin McNeil has posted 698 stories and 0 comments since joining on 9/14/2005. Robin McNeil 's average story rating is 5.
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