ANY COMPOSER’S RELATIONSHIPS with his publishers are undoubtedly crucial for the dissemination and survival of his music. Although such dealings are mundane and behind the scenes, they can throw considerable light on the subsequent fate of his compositions and his resulting posthumous reputation. Karg-Elert, whose mercurial character presumably found these business aspects of his creativity irksome, seems to have been particularly unlucky in his publishing history.

This was not apparent at the outset, however. The young Karg-Elert seems to have begun writing seriously from his mid-teens, and was soon getting songs and piano pieces published in music magazines. His first properly published work appears to have been the 6 Skizzen (Sketches) for harmonium. When Forberg (Rheinberger’s publishers) issued these in 1904, they made them opus 10 so as not to give the impression they were by a compositional beginner!

The following year Karg-Elert began his most important publishing association, with the Berlin firm of Carl Simon. They were not only music publishers but also harmonium manufacturers, and Karg-Elert was one of a group of young composers they took on who were encouraged to publicise the instrument (which, it must be remembered, was taken much more seriously than perhaps it is nowadays). Willy Simon placed a ‘Kunst- (Art)Harmonium’ at Karg-Elert’s disposal and found his trust well repaid. The composer later wrote, “I have dedicated the best years of my life to the Harmonium”. Soon Simon was seeing the first fruits of Karg-Elert’s enthusiasm in works such as Passacaglia in E flat minor (opus 25) and the Phantasie and Fugue in D (opus 39), together with many groups of smaller pieces.

Initially, Carl Simon accepted from Karg-Elert only music corresponding with their own catalogue specialities – music for harmonium, piano (or both together !), songs and salon music. Karg-Elert’s interests were wider than this, however, following his Leipzig Conservatoire training and subsequent freelancing. As well as being a virtuoso pianist (often forgotten), he played oboe and viola, later learning saxophone during World War I. Other German firms published music reflecting these interests, for example Hofmeister (2 Concert Studies for Piano (opus 22/1904)), Merseburger (Oboe Studies (opus 41/1906)), Kahnt (Wind Quintet, (opus 30/1904)).

The young composer’s fame was by now spreading. His bigger harmonium pieces had come to the attention of Professor Paul Homeyer (and later to that of Reger). It was their approval of opp 25 and 29 that prompted the suggestion that Karg-Elert should try his hand at writing for organ. After arranging some of these harmonium works he took a year off in 1907-8, and in an extended period of inspiration produced the 66 Choral Improvisations (opus 65) which remain the cornerstone of his reputation. It was these new contributions to the organ repertoire that introduced Karg-Elert to the organ fraternity in England, thus beginning this country’s long association with the composer and his music.

This association was fostered in no small way by the immediate interest taken by Novello, who as England’s premier music publishers were at this time at their most expansive. They took on some important pieces from what were perhaps the composer’s best years (1908-14): the 3 Impressions (opus 72/1909), the Organ Sonatina in A minor (opus 74/1909) and the Chaconne and Fugue Trilogy (opus 73/1910). At the same time, in those pre-radio and LP/CD days, Karg-Elert’s admiration for Elgar was demonstrated by his masterful piano reductions of the two Symphonies, as well as Dvorak’s G major Symphony. Further plans to publish his arrangement of Elgar’s ‘Falstaff’ were, however, wrecked by the outbreak of the First World War, as were those for his own Homage to Handel, written in June 1914 in thanks for his election to the Royal College of Organists. To him the choice of a theme of Handel signified the bonds between English and German music, and and the War which so swiftly followed was bitterly opposed by him.

There was no way that Karg-Elert could avoid the call-up, however. He was drafted into a Leipzig regiment that included many of the Gewandhaus orchestra. This seemed to reawaken his early interest in wind instruments. Indeed he was so taken with a saxophone taken as spoils of battle in France that he set about learning it, and eventually wrote 25 Caprices and a Sonata for it (opus 153/1929). He also applied in 1917 for the post of organist at Berlin Cathedral but, having reached a shortlist of three, was turned down – as he wrote to Sceats, “by the Kaiser because I was not Prussian !” In some ways this is a puzzling episode – either his reaching thus far gives the lie to the generally held view that Karg-Elert was no organist (he did in fact do some playing at
St John’s, Leipzig), or perhaps the Kaiser’s musical judgement was a little more sound than one might imagine! In any case the composer was so dispirited by this episode that for the next ten years he gave up playing the organ at all and composed very little for it. Although he continued as a performer on the harmonium (with his famous Sunday morning radio appearances), his composing for that instrument dried up completely.

Farnborough Abbey in Hampshire, England.
A piece of France in England, this remarkable building has a series of organ recitals which sometimes include works by Karg-Elert.