Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue on BACH, Opus 150

Möseler Press, Wolfenbüttel — M 19.225 (2000)

This music has been the subject of controversy since 1981 when doubts of its authenticity were raised; there is no easy answer and the music is of sufficient importance that we cannot merely abandon it or wish it did not exist.

Material in Gerlach’s catalogue (1984) is relevant. To begin, one may even argue about the title, albeit a minor matter:
1. Hinrichsen’s cover: Passacaglia, Variations and
   Fugue on B-A-C-H
1. (which wrongly gives 1879 as Karg-Elert’s date of
   birth, a printer’s error?).
2. Hinrichsen, page 3: To Henry Willis
2. my dear friend, in highest admiration
2. Passacaglia and Fugue (B flat minor) on B-A-C-H
2. (and incorrectly dated 1932, another printer’s
   error?).
3. Première in Leipzig, 12th December, 1931:
3. Introduction, Passacaglia (55 Variations) and Fugue
   on BACH

Gerlach’s second last paragraph states (p. 99):
“Contains material from Op.46, I {viz., Second Harmonium Sonata in B flat minor, of 3 movements — 1909?}.  Composed with regard to the American tour of 1932, according to Schwaab and Piersig. Sceats probably instigated it for he had transcribed Op.46 with Karg-Elert’s knowledge [see his letter to Sceats on 24/2/1930 {also that on 3/4/1930}] and played it on 17/5/1930 in London”. {That was the last concert of the Karg-Elert Festival — these letters indicate that the sheet music was copied material sent by Karg-Elert after he had removed the harmonium registration markings.}

Of much importance are Sceats’s comments in his book (The Organ Works of Karg-Elert, 1940 & 1950).  From p.10:
“The whole Sonata was played at the Karg-Elert Festival in London from a two-stave copy (covered with pedalling indications and other annotations ad hoc).”
And from p.38:
“Karg-Elert thought highly of his own Harmonium Sonata on B.A.C.H., and I had several times urged him to rewrite it for the pedal organ. He said he would do this, but wrote this new Passacaglia and Fugue instead. The fugue-subject is the same as in the Harmonium Sonata, and the new work contains a certain amount of matter borrowed and adapted from the old. Some of the passages in the new work actually represent a simplification. The differences, however, are sufficiently important to make the two works essentially distinct, and the Harmonium Sonata would still repay the trouble of skilful adaptation to the pedal organ.” {NB: Dr. Stockmeier uses the harmonium version of the fugue as a reference source in his new edition.}

Gerlach’s last paragraph on p.99 states:
“A letter from Piersig to Sceats shows that Piersig in 1940 possessed the manuscript of a revised version. First made public in 1981 (when Piersig was seriously ill), whilst Karg-Elert was in America, after the première of Op.150, he {Piersig} revised the work for publication and in so doing, drastically shortened it. In the preface to this edition, Piersig wrote nothing of this but emphasised instead that he had put before the composer in his last moments the printed version and played it to him. Mrs. Schwaab feels that the revised version {i.e., the printed one} is unauthorised.” {Piersig’s preface ends with this bland sentence:
“The present text was, however, seen by the composer and was played to him shortly before his death by the editor.”
There is no assertion that Karg-Elert actually approved it.}

The letter from Piersig, referred to above by Gerlach, is actually dated 12th May, 1936. A relevant paragraph near the end, translated by Sceats, appears in his book (ibid.) on p.35:
“As for the B-A-C-H Passacaglia and Fugue, I have in my possession the manuscript of a revised version of this which represents the composer’s final intentions. It is an improvement on the original manuscript, and carries out fully a fundamental strictness of form which brings out better the dramatic structure of the composition, with long stretches of writing in a more definitely polyphonic style and a suppression of all that is non-essential or in the style of improvisation.”

Another short extract from Gerlach is worth quoting (again p.99):
“Autograph sketch of the opening (ink, unsigned) of the printed version, considerably different in part, 4 pages.” {Dr. Stockmeier does not mention it in his preface; perhaps as a sketch it is unsuitable for his purpose, and it is after all unsigned.}

Here is a translation of Dr. Stockmeier’s preface:
“In by far the most organ pieces of Karg-Elert, the motif B.A.C.H. appears, more or less concealed. Towards the end of his life the Master returned to that idea in conferring his veneration of Bach through the expression of a great work on B.A.C.H. He composed his opus 150: Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue on B.A.C.H.  He gave the première in St. John’s Church, Leipzig on 12th December, 1931.

Karg-Elert’s friend Johannes Piersig, church musician, musicologist, later also a doctoral law student, found the work too long. Unsolicited, he “arranged and thereby drastically shortened” it (Sigfrid Karg-Elert, catalogue compiled by Sonja Gerlach, Frankfurt, 1984). Piersig had his version published in 1938, five years after Karg-Elert’s death (Hinrichsen Edition No. 92, London), and in fact under a non-original title, “Passacaglia and Fugue on B-A-C-H” as well as a false date of origin (1932). Katharina Schwaab, Karg-Elert’s daughter, has in conversation disputed the necessity of this revision and has also given to understand that the manner exhibited by her mortally ill father, in which the will to live was manifest, was possibly interpreted, or more likely misinterpreted, by Piersig as consent for his version.