Sweelinck’s pupils: Scheidemann, Jacob Praetorius, Scheidt, Siefert, Schildt

Started by Mandryka, June 03, 2018, 07:39:03 AM

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Mandryka



Scheidemann's music sounds well on this 2009 organ, and Joseph Rassam's playing is perfectly tasteful. The registrations are contrasted enough to make the counterpoint very clear, but he never lapses into tawdry symphonic colours; he manages to make the music sing, dance and pray,  without ever lapsing into  fausse naïveté.

Booklet is here for anyone like me who listens to a stream.

https://issuu.com/klassiek.nl/docs/digital_booklet_scheidemann_keyboar

The sound quality is very good.

I haven't listened to the music on virginal/harpsichord properly yet. The instruments he chose are excellent.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

71 dB

Sweelinck's pupils include also Andreas Düben (1597-1662) and there are two Scheidts, Samuel (1587-1654) and Gottried (1593-1661).
Spatial distortion is a serious problem deteriorating headphone listening.
Crossfeeders reduce spatial distortion and make the sound more natural
and less tiresome in headphone listening.

My Sound Cloud page <-- NEW Jan. 2024 "Harpeggiator"

Mandryka

Quote from: 71 dB on June 03, 2018, 09:32:43 AM
Sweelinck's pupils include also Andreas Düben (1597-1662) and there are two Scheidts, Samuel (1587-1654) and Gottried (1593-1661).

Thanks for mentioning Andreas Düben, your mentioning it has led me to what is, I think, a  fine discovery from the point of view of music, organ (Norrfjärden) and performance



Andreas DÜBEN Praeludium Pedaliter Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält
Melchoir SCHILDT Gleichwie das Feuer Paduaria Lachnymae
Gustav DÜBEN Suite in D minor
A & M DÜBEN Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr
Martin DÜBEN Praeluium Erstanden ist der heiley Christ
ANONYMOUS Frantzösches Liedelein
J.R. RADECK Engellischer Mascharada Courant. Sarand
H. SCHEIDEMANN Englische Mascarada oder Judentanz
M. DÜBEN Praembulum Pedaliter
G. DÜBEN (?) Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

71 dB

Quote from: Mandryka on June 03, 2018, 11:56:41 AM
Thanks for mentioning Andreas Düben, your mentioning it has led me to what is, I think, a  fine discovery from the point of view of music, organ (Norrfjärden) and performance



Andreas DÜBEN Praeludium Pedaliter Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält
Melchoir SCHILDT Gleichwie das Feuer Paduaria Lachnymae
Gustav DÜBEN Suite in D minor
A & M DÜBEN Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr
Martin DÜBEN Praeluium Erstanden ist der heiley Christ
ANONYMOUS Frantzösches Liedelein
J.R. RADECK Engellischer Mascharada Courant. Sarand
H. SCHEIDEMANN Englische Mascarada oder Judentanz
M. DÜBEN Praembulum Pedaliter
G. DÜBEN (?) Nun lob, mein Seel, den Herren.

You're welcome. I didn't know that CD, but I have this:

[asin]B00AKJ1ID4[/asin]
The problem with these rather obscure baroque composers is that more often than not only a few minutes or their music has survived to us. So, you can fit "complete" works by half dozen composers on one CD.  ::) It seems three short organ works just over 10 minutes in all we have from Andreas Düben.  :-X
Spatial distortion is a serious problem deteriorating headphone listening.
Crossfeeders reduce spatial distortion and make the sound more natural
and less tiresome in headphone listening.

My Sound Cloud page <-- NEW Jan. 2024 "Harpeggiator"

XB-70 Valkyrie

Interesting. I will certainly look into these. I am glad someone gives a Scheidt about this music.

We need another thread (resurrect an old one?) about Sweelinck himself. For months now, I have been enamored by the Radio Netherlands (purple box) set of his complete keyboard works played on various organs and harpsichords. I would like to hear some of this on clavichord and (heresy) piano. Obviously there is the Glenn Gould, but I would be interested in hearing others on piano and possibly playing some myself.

(further OT) I have also been listening to the Sweelinck psalms, and, although exquisitely crafted, these are harder for me to enjoy. For one thing, I don't think that they were written to be listened to back to back for very long.
If you really dislike Bach you keep quiet about it! - Andras Schiff


Mandryka

There are three recordings which contain substantial amounts of music by Melchior Schildt, played by Leon Berben, Annette Richards and Friedhelm Flamme. All three bring their own slants on this attractive music.

All of these recordings contain fillers by other composers, there just isn't enough music available by Schildt to fill a whole CD.

By temperament Schildt had a reputation for being a fiery, violent and difficult character, with strong and sometimes rather eccentric views. None of this comes out in the performances on these recordings, for better or for worse.






Once I start listening to this recording of music by Melchior Schildt played by Leon Berben at the Tangermünde Scherer, I can't stop. This is mainly because the music, which, benefits IMO very much from the meantone tuning of the organ, is coloured with dusky shades of grey by Berben. The recording quality is wonderfully soft and sweet, it's a great piece of sound engineering. The music is affecting, as befits the reputation of the composer. The interpretations are articulate, but not IMO overly so. I very much enjoy this recording,



The playing here by Annette Richards is also  commendable.It lacks the interior nuanced quality of Berben's shades of grey - like a Rembrandt etching -  which I find irresistible. But it is partly compensated for by her choices of bright and contrasted colours. The organ at Roskikde, which no doubt Schildt knew, is equally tuned, and I wonder whether it would have been in his day.




Friedhelm Flamme choses the organ at St.-Bartholomäus-Kirche in Dornum Germany. His registrations, and indeed his performances, show a sort of unnuanced and unsubtle nativity, he simplifies the music sometimes and giving it a quasi-folkloric quality. This is the recording I find the least rewarding of the three, I don't like it.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Que

What can I say?

I greatly admire Léon Berben and thoroughly dislike Friedhelm Flamme, so you must be right on the mark... :D

Q

Mandryka



I want to make a post in praise of Julia Brown, whose Scheidemann vol 4 I've been enjoying all day.

The first thing to say about her is that she is spiritual, which is exactly what this CD of mostly liturgical music needs. She plays slowly and expressively, so the complexity and the expressive profundity of the music can be savoured. She is brilliant at registration, the registrations are sweet and colourful, but her genius consists less in that than in her knack for using registration to enhance the musical affects.

The spirituality which I talked of must come from this combination of expressiveness and just tempi. She makes the music seem  to be, paradoxically, both alive and both still. The still point of the turning  world.

Pupil of Wolfgang Rubsam, you can hear his influence I think, both in the desire to be  expressive  and to avoid trying to impress with virtuosity - she's not a musician for people who want a quick thrill. You can also hear it in her tempos, and, occasionally, in her rhythmic rubato.

(Is this the way to play Stylus Fantasticus, the way to play Buxtehude? The question remains unanswered, but it has to be an interesting avenew to explore.)

And the music - well it contains two magnificats which Julia Brown makes sound like summits of the form to me. Scheidemann is every bit the equal of Sweelinck at echoes in the 5th.  Fabulous organ too boot, with pipes which sound almost old, pipes with character.

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

premont

Quote from: Mandryka on June 04, 2018, 10:39:53 PM
The playing here by Annette Richards is also  commendable.It lacks the interior nuanced quality of Berben's shades of grey - like a Rembrandt etching -  which I find irresistible. But it is partly compensated for by her choices of bright and contrasted colours. The organ at Roskikde, which no doubt Schildt knew, is equally tuned, and I wonder whether it would have been in his day.

No, it is tuned unequally with four pure fifths, according to the Marcussen page here;

http://marcussen-son.dk/orgler/roskilde-domkirke-·-hovedorgel/


γνῶθι σεαυτόν

Mandryka

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka

Quote from: Mandryka on October 31, 2017, 07:18:25 AM


Elke Bestehorn plays Scheidt's Varum Betrubst du Dich mein Herz, from the Tabulatura Nova, on the Compenius organ. It's outstanding. I think there's only one other recording of this, by Zerer in Kantens, where he uses some imaginatively colourful  registrations and is quite introspective through most of it. Bestehorn seems very much "in the zone" - she communicates an infectious sense of her joy in performance, and that's good.  As far as I can see Raml didn't record this one.

Going back to the Scheidt again I feel the same way about Bestehorn. However I have found Raml's recording, and a beautiful performance of about half of the verses by Harald Vogel. And one I didn't like at all, by Helmut Walcha.



I feel sufficiently inspired by the way Vogel plays Scheidt to want to seek out his other recording at the Aa church, does anyone have it? Can I have an upload?

Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka





Jacob Praetorius clearly learned a lot from Sweelinck, in particular the art of creating variations by divisions and that in the context of great lyricism. Foccroulle loves the reeds on the Lübeck Stellwagen and he doesn't hesitate to show them off - that alone makes for a distinctive sound, something which is a valuable complement to Leon Berben's weightier and more flamboyant JP recording, and indeed William Porter's sweet and serious Jacob Praetorius.  No chant, colourful without being gaudy, intimate I'd say, like Porter in that respect, well recorded.

I haven't had the chance to hear the Schildt yet.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

Mandryka



After thoroughly enjoying Friedhelm Flamme's Johann Praetorius CD I decided to play the end of his series of North German organ composers for CPO, the recording dedicated to Scheidemann.

The thing to say before all else, is that the programming is really audacious. Basically he starts the CD with a sequence of 12 preludes played as a cycle, like Chopin! And what you realise when you hear them presented like this, is the sheer inventiveness of the music, that Scheidemann was far from being trapped in any sort  formulaic post-Sweelinck approach to music. For that alone the recording deserves to be cherished.

And there's more.

The organ.  St. Levin, Harbke  Germany. It has parts that go back to the c16 and I think you can hear it - this sounds like a renaissance organ. And that, I wager, inspires Flamme's style, or maybe just fits Flamme's default style. Because the the simple one dimensional approach to music making which is part of Flamme's trademark sounds good with the delicate, ancient sounding registers of the instrument.


And there's more.

The set of chorales on the recording includes one which, I suggest, is one of the high points of Scheidemann interpretation on record. Komm Heilige Geist Herre Gott. Here Flamme's registrations are nothing short of brilliant. This is something that bioluminescentsquid may well enjoy too.

I can see two other discs at Harbke Schlosskirche, Reinhard Kluth in the Fagott Scheidt, and a recording by Ablitzer called Groningen 1596. I shall have to listen to these soon, but I can see I'll have a problem because the Ablitzer has disappeared without trace! Found it.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

bioluminescentsquid

Quote from: Mandryka on September 03, 2019, 12:04:36 PM


After thoroughly enjoying Friedhelm Flamme's Johann Praetorius CD I decided to play the end of his series of North German organ composers for CPO, the recording dedicated to Scheidemann.

The thing to say before all else, is that the programming is really audacious. Basically he starts the CD with a sequence of 12 preludes played as a cycle, like Chopin! And what you realise when you hear them presented like this, is the sheer inventiveness of the music, that Scheidemann was far from being trapped in any sort  formulaic post-Sweelinck approach to music. For that alone the recording deserves to be cherished.

And there's more.

The organ.  St. Levin, Harbke  Germany. It has parts that go back to the c16 and I think you can hear it - this sounds like a renaissance organ. And that, I wager, inspires Flamme's style, or maybe just fits Flamme's default style. Because the the simple one dimensional approach to music making which is part of Flamme's trademark sounds good with the delicate, ancient sounding registers of the instrument.


And there's more.

The set of chorales on the recording includes one which, I suggest, is one of the high points of Scheidemann interpretation on record. Komm Heilige Geist Herre Gott. Here Flamme's registrations are nothing short of brilliant. This is something that bioluminescentsquid may well enjoy too.

I can see two other discs at Harbke Schlosskirche, Reinhard Kluth in the Fagott Scheidt, and a recording by Ablitzer called Groningen 1596. I shall have to listen to these soon, but I can see I'll have a problem because the Ablitzer has disappeared without trace! Found it.

Gröningen 1596 (not to be confused with the Dutch Groningen!) is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmvDqgk-YM
If you'd like FLAC files, I have them.
I'll write more soon.

Mandryka

Quote from: bioluminescentsquid on September 03, 2019, 03:32:17 PM
Gröningen 1596 (not to be confused with the Dutch Groningen!) is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SmvDqgk-YM



Ahhh.


Quote from: bioluminescentsquid on September 03, 2019, 03:32:17 PM
(not to be confused with the Dutch Groningen!)


Ahhhh

Quote from: bioluminescentsquid on September 03, 2019, 03:32:17 PM

If you'd like FLAC files, I have them.


Ahhhhh.

Yes please!
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

bioluminescentsquid

Quote from: Mandryka on September 04, 2019, 02:39:57 AM
Ahhh.


Ahhhh

Ahhhhh.

Yes please!

FLACs incoming.

The story behind it is that in 1596, Duke Heinrich Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (who later would also commission the Compenius organ now in Denmark) had a large organ of 59 stops with lots of experimental features (huge pedal division, tons of interesting reeds and flutes) built for his private chapel in Gröningen (Central Germany) by a certain David Beck. He then organized a meeting of over 50 different organists (many of them Sweelinck pupils) to inaugurate the organ, including the Praetoriuses and Hassler.

The organ was still well-regarded in the 18th century. Werkmeister wrote about it, but also noted how it didn't live up to 18th century expectations of e.g. being able to combine stops of the same pitch. Eventually, the organ was moved to Halberstadt and replaced by a run-of-the-mill Romantic organ in the 19th century. Right now, the cases (and few preserved pipes) of the organ are spread across two churches, and Ablitzer is head of an initiative to reunite the cases and reconstruct the long-gone organ. I guess this disc was made as part of the fundraiser effort.


A photoshop reconstruction of the original facade of the organ :)

Anyways, I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. I like the recording, but nothing really stands out to me in it.

Mandryka

Quote from: bioluminescentsquid on September 04, 2019, 11:35:01 AM
FLACs incoming.

The story behind it is that in 1596, Duke Heinrich Julius of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel (who later would also commission the Compenius organ now in Denmark) had a large organ of 59 stops with lots of experimental features (huge pedal division, tons of interesting reeds and flutes) built for his private chapel in Gröningen (Central Germany) by a certain David Beck. He then organized a meeting of over 50 different organists (many of them Sweelinck pupils) to inaugurate the organ, including the Praetoriuses and Hassler.

The organ was still well-regarded in the 18th century. Werkmeister wrote about it, but also noted how it didn't live up to 18th century expectations of e.g. being able to combine stops of the same pitch. Eventually, the organ was moved to Halberstadt and replaced by a run-of-the-mill Romantic organ in the 19th century. Right now, the cases (and few preserved pipes) of the organ are spread across two churches, and Ablitzer is head of an initiative to reunite the cases and reconstruct the long-gone organ. I guess this disc was made as part of the fundraiser effort.


A photoshop reconstruction of the original facade of the organ :)

Anyways, I'd like to hear your thoughts on it. I like the recording, but nothing really stands out to me in it.

The thing that's standing out for me on this organ is the extraordinary Hassler Magnificat. Hassler is such a strange composer, at times the music sounds almost gothic to me, and at times modern almost. I intend to explore his magnificats a bit, there isn't much on record - Ablitzer, Raml, Katzschke, Bembreck, Böcker (which I've just ordered) Krumbach (which I can't find)

Ablitzer is a very "poised" performer here and elsewhere, this is one of his recordings which I think is genuinely valuable for the organ and the sound and the programme. One thing I'd quite like to hear is his Heredia CD - do you have it? If you do, would you let me have it? It's OOP.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen

bioluminescentsquid

Quote from: Mandryka on September 07, 2019, 08:41:48 PM
The thing that's standing out for me on this organ is the extraordinary Hassler Magnificat. Hassler is such a strange composer, at times the music sounds almost gothic to me, and at times modern almost. I intend to explore his magnificats a bit, there isn't much on record - Ablitzer, Raml, Katzschke, Bembreck, Böcker (which I've just ordered) Krumbach (which I can't find)

Ablitzer is a very "poised" performer here and elsewhere, this is one of his recordings which I think is genuinely valuable for the organ and the sound and the programme. One thing I'd quite like to hear is his Heredia CD - do you have it? If you do, would you let me have it? It's OOP.

I just listened to the Hassler, and I think it is indeed one of the high points of the recording!

Another interesting Magnificat of Hassler's, now played on an Italian organ (12 stops, 1/5 of the size of the Gröninger organ!) I really hear what you mean by Gothic-modern here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAgs4lJBQAk

Here, if youtube allows you to see it, is another recording containing music by Hassler by a certain Michael Novenko. Played on a 16th century organ, the oldest in the Czech republic. I think it's wonderful playing, very engaging for both player and listener.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_eVRNgfwvo&list=OLAK5uy_nWP9AOv7FlLPJGjLzJ3RpFtcLt6XCKuHc

Mandryka



A thought provoking suggestion as to Sweelinck's importance, and the response of his pupils, taken from the 2019 Foccroulle Schildt and Praetorius cd pictured above.

Quote

The essential quality that Sweelinck seemed to have passed on to his pupils was the ability to vary the weight and density of their polyphony, to make their music breathe and to highlight a solo line on a separate keyboard, to colour the music with chromaticism and to create passages with diminutions that had been inspired in particular by John Bull in England and by the Venetian school in general.

Bearing all of these influences in mind, we can only be struck by the arrival and development of a new style of art that dared to go far beyond its earlier models. The pedalboard was used to a much greater extent by the above German composers than by Sweelinck or Bull; they gave the pedals a much more definite role, whilst their experiments in sonic perspective and spatialisation went far beyond the echo techniques in Sweelinck's fantasias. Sweelinck's reserve — or propriety — gave way to a growing need for expressivity. This new expressive intensity can be heard throughout the entire range of the keyboards in Praetorius' fantasia on Durch Adams Fall and in the glittering virtuosity that concludes the second verse of Schildt's Magnificat: this is no longer the sound world of the Renaissance, but rather the early stages of the Baroque aesthetic, a style of composition that aimed at moving the listener and at expressing the most contrasting affects. This expressive and rhetorical dimension became more and more profound and reached its greatest profundity in the works of Buxtehude, Reincken, Lübeck and Bruhns. Although the works of Praetorius, Schildt and Scheidemann offer occasional moments of contemplation, this was not their primary aim: they have left us important and admirable works that arouse not only a listener's emotions but are also a source of delight.

As far as the recording is concerned, it's wonderful to have it of course, and Foccroulle's restraint is much appreciated. My only slight reservation is a certain lack of atmosphere in the recorded sound. I want to be able to hear the cathedral reverberations, and I can't hear any of that in this recording. For me that's a bit of a disappointment.
Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, darüber muss man schweigen