BASED IN ENGLAND

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CATHEDRAL MUSIC

The website of the Karg-Elert Archive with news and comment from around the world

Sigfrid Karg-Elert, 1877-1933, was an important German composer of the late nineteenth and the early twentieth centuries.

The Karg-Elert Archive was originally founded in 1987 with the objective of encouraging the performance, recording and publication of the composer’s music. Growing in appreciation by a widening circle of performers and discriminating audiences; it represents a peak of late Romantic music in its emotional intensity, variety of styles and imaginative use of resources, both instrumental and vocal.

The Karg-Elert Archive

Founded in 1987 as the Karg-Elert Society. The Archive is based in England.


President

Prof Graham Barber

(Professor Emeritus, Leeds University, and Organist of
St Bartholomew’s

Church, Armley, Leeds)


Vice-President

Dr Martin Neary

(Late President, Royal College of Organists)

Chairman
Anthony Caldicott

Membership Secretary
Richard Walker

General Enquiries
Contact the Archive

Patrons of the Archive  David Hill (BBC); John Scott Whiteley (Assist. Organist, York Minster); Dr Harry Bramma (Former Organist, Southwark Cathedral, London); Simon Lindley (Leeds Parish Church and Leeds City Organist, Yorkshire); John Scott (Organist, St Thomas’ Church, Fifth Avenue, New York, USA)
Richard Walker (Former Director of Music, Harrow School, Greater London); Nicolas Kynaston (Concert Organist, London)

Honorary Members  Prof Wolfgang Stockmeier; Heinrich Schwaab; Prof Stefan Engels; Dr Harold Fabrikant; Staffan Thuringer; Terry Truman

Fellows  Frank Conley; Dr Harold Fabrikant  Life Members  Barry Doe; Michael Jones; Tony Luker; Ronald Smith; Dr Craig Scott Symons; Dr Richard Webb

Foundation Member  Dr Brian Parsons  Corporate Membership  The Royal College of Music


© The Karg-Elert Archive. Updated 24 January 2012

MEMBERS AREA

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This is an area where exclusive items can be viewed which are of particular interest to members of the Archive.

This includes video and photographic content which documents the activities of the Archive.

Back issues of the Newsletter will also shortly be available for viewing. It will be possible to download these onto the user’s computer and subsequently print them, if required.

Archive members who wish to view the content should contact the Chairman, who will provide a private password.


The Harmony of the Soul
 Second Edition
We are delighted to announce the publication of the second edition of The Harmony of the Soul compiled by the Archive’s Honorary Member and Fellow, Dr Harold Fabrikant. The original publication, issued in1996, comprised letters sent by Karg-Elert and others close to him ‘to his Australian friends’, principally Dr Arthur Nickson, the distinguished advocate of the composer’s music and dedicatee of Seven Pastels from the Lake of Constance op 96, who performed many other major works in Melbourne, maintaining a warm correspondence with Karg-Elert from 1913 to 1929. The 1996 edition proved to be a valuable resource in illustrating so many aspects of the composer’s approach to composing, his innermost feelings, philosophy and religious ideals, set against the background of the economic crisis in Germany during the 1920s.
The second edition of The Harmony of the Soul comprises a greatly enhanced version of its predecessor, namely:
An Introduction by Harold Fabrikant including new material concerning Arthur Nickson: details of his life, the recital programmes which he gave in Melbourne, the specifications of the organs he played and Nickson’s own article — Karg-Elert: the Genius of the Organ — written after the composer’s death in 1933. This section of the book is further enhanced by detailed and very informative footnotes. There follow the Letters from Karg-Elert to Nickson extending from December 9 1913 to June 8 1929, now providing texts both in German and English. Dr Fabrikant’s English translation has been thoroughly revised and carries extensive annotations, footnotes appearing after each letter, rather than within the text, as previously.

Examples of the revised translation:
 1996 (from p. 82)
 ‘Come to us and I shall reveal the essence to you in a day, so that ‘the scales of virtue fall’ to you. The books to be found in your possession are 9/10 elementary:
subject-matter (still without musical supplement in addition to that!). Come, so that I can put before you a proof of my ‘New Pathways’. That you should study in peace to experience it.’
2010 (from p. 73)
 ‘Come to us so that I may uncover the most fundamental concepts in a day, that ‘the scales fall from your eyes’. The books in your possession are 9/10 elementary subject-matter (still without added musical examples!). Come, so that I can place before you a proof-corrected copy of my ‘New Pathways’. You should study that in peace and experience it.’
Appendices,  new in this edition:
 Footnotes on certain letters too long to fit into the main text.
 Details of the members of Karg-Elert’s family.
 Four Essays by Dr Arthur Nickson.
 Article from The Times (7.2.41) on the centenary of Walter Parratt’s birth, Parratt being Nickson’s organ teacher at the Royal College of Music.

CONCERTS & RECITALS

Continuation of article
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JANUARY 2012

Saturday, January 28 at 4.30pm
Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2
Timothy Wakerell (St Paul’s Cath.)
'The 19th Century Explored'
Soul of the Lake from Seven Pastels op.96; also
Max Reger's Chorale Fantasia on 'Wachet auf !'
Saturday, January 28 at 6pm
Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church, Shaftesbury Avenue, London WC2
 Gerard Brooks
(Westminster Central Hall)
 Works from opus 65:
no.48 'Jerusalem, du hochgebaute Stadt'; no.51 'Schmuecke dich'
no.33 'Wachet auf !'
Saturday, February 4 at 6.30pm
St Chad's Church, Shrewsbury,
Shropshire, England
Richard Walker
'The Mirrored Moon' from Seven Pastels op.96; 'Jerusalem, du hochgebaute Stadt' op.65/48;
Valse mignonne op.142[II]/2