{"id":12066,"date":"2013-05-02T07:59:46","date_gmt":"2013-05-02T12:59:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=12066"},"modified":"2013-05-02T07:59:46","modified_gmt":"2013-05-02T12:59:46","slug":"keyboard-thursday-album-review-the-spectacular-sound-of-regensburgs-pope-benedict-organ","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/05\/02\/keyboard-thursday-album-review-the-spectacular-sound-of-regensburgs-pope-benedict-organ\/","title":{"rendered":"Keyboard Thursday album review: The spectacular sound of Regensburg’s Pope Benedict organ"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Pope Benedict may have retired, but a pipe organ named after him and paid for by a foundation run by his brother continues to make spectacular sounds in Regensburg, Germany.<\/p>\n

Recorded in 2006, but only just released in North America by Chromart Classics, is a 76-minute best-of album compiled from the inaugural concerts held in the basilica of Alte Kapelle around the time of a personal visit by Pope Benedict in September of that year.<\/p>\n

The Peter Kaiser Memorial Foundation paid the three-quarters-of-a-million euro cost of installing a new instrument behind the rococco facade, which dates from 1791. The conditions for the funding were that the organ become a living memorial of Pope Benedict and that the music of composer Josef Rheinberger (1839-1901) be played on it as often as possible.<\/p>\n

The album contains a Rheinberger Sonata, a Prelude and Fugue by J.S. Bach, a Chaconne by Johann Pachelbel, pieces by two obscure German organists, one baroque the other classical, Felix Mendelssohn’s wonderful second-of-six Sonata in C minor, Op. 65, and the pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance: 25 minutes of impossibly elaborate improvisation by organist Wolfgang Seifen around Gregorian chant sung by the resident Choralschola.<\/p>\n

The other organists represented in this compilation — Gerhard Weinberger, Norbert D\u00fcchtel and Edgar Krapp — are excellent, using this Swiss-built Mathis-N\u00e4fels instrument to its fullest advantage.<\/p>\n

The sound has the bite typical of a baroque-inspired instrument but the lyricism and roundness to handle romantic music as well.<\/p>\n

This disc is a treat from start to finish, but I think the improvisation alone is worth the price of the CD. The details are available on the German-only site here<\/a>. The full story of the organ is also available only in German, here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Here is a tourist’s video visit to the Alte Kapelle which, coincidentally, has someone playing the second movement of the Mendelssohn Sonata on the organ:<\/p>\n