MAY 2005 MARKS THE 75TH ANNIVERSARY of the first Karg-Elert Festival which took place in the church of St Lawrence Jewry, City of London, from the 5th to the 17th of that month. Organised by Nicholas Choveaux, Archibald Farmer and Godfrey Sceats, it comprised ten recitals of Karg-Elert's organ music during which most of the composer's major works could be heard as well as representative selections from the Chorale Improvisations opus 65 and the Preludes and Postludes opus 78. In addition to the organisers, performers included Charles Waters, Percy Hallam and J.A. Sowerbutts, but perhaps the Festival's principal attraction was the presence of Karg-Elert himself – his only visit to England, during which he stayed with Nicholas Choveaux and Godfrey Sceats. Among the audiences at the Festival was the young Felix Aprahamian, then a schoolboy of 15 who attended all ten recitals and succeeded in having its programmes autographed by the composer. A direct result of the Festival was the founding of the Organ Music Society with Aprahamian as its Secretary. It organised innovative programmes performed by players of international standing, one of which comprised Karg-Elert's Music for Organ op 145 and Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue on BACH op 150 played, for the first time in England, by Johannes Piersig on January 16 1939.

Godfrey Sceats' survey of the organ and harmonium works of Karg-Elert, published in 1940 and revised in 1950, provided a useful source of reference as well as an appendix containing examples from the composer's Fourteen Interludes and extracts from the correspondence between Karg-Elert and Sceats.
Karg-Elert's music has continued to be popular in this country mainly due to the continued availability of opus 65 and opus 78. The publishing of selections from the former work has in a sense been a disadvantage since a great many of the remaining Chorale Improvisations have been seldom heard, being regarded, quite wrongly, as too difficult for the average player. Sceats' listing of the numbers in
opus 65 as 'difficult' amounts to only twelve out of 66 and only one out of 20 in opus 78.

The centenary of the composer's birth in 1977 saw a reappraisal of his compositions, especially in Germany where the authoritative performances and recordings of Professor Wolfgang Stockmeier had done much to restore Karg-Elert's position as a composer of  distinction. From September to November 1977 there were 24 events arranged in the main Rhineland cities which comprised not only all the major organ works but also important choral works such as the Requiem op 109, the extended setting of Vom Himmel hoch and Benedictus op 82 as well as a representative selection of chamber music. Both Professor Stockmeier and Johannes Michel took a prominent part in this commemoration as they did in the founding of the Karg-Elert Gesellschaft in 1984. This body's annual conference has taken place ever since in various German cities, having a comprehensive programme of  lectures, workshops and recitals over several days.

Meanwhile, in England Karg-Elert's unique place in late Romantic organ music had been recognised by performers of international standing such as Nicolas Kynaston and Graham Barber; in 1975 the latter recorded Karg-Elert's Music for Organ op 145 for Vista on the Hredetsky organ in the Royal Northern College of Music. In 1977 both these players combined for a centenary concert in St Bride's Church, Fleet Street; the programme included Kaleidoscope op 144, Symphonic Canzona op 85 no 3 and Symphonic Chorale op 87 no 3. The CD era made available a much wider range of Karg-Elert's music, and this has continued over the years, with Stockmeier, Barber and Kynaston recording most of the major works on instruments ideally suited to Karg-Elert's unique idiom, providing authoritative interpretations of music that had previously been heard seldom, if ever. In 1985 Stockmeier performed the recently rediscovered Karg-Elert Symphony op 143 in Altenberg Cathedral – an event which aroused great interest and acclaim. Two years later he played the same work at St John's College, Cambridge during the IAO Congress when it received a standing ovation. The Symphony is now recognised as one of the major organ works of the 20th century; Karg-Elert had himself expressed the enthusiasm which it was to arouse among those who heard it for, writing to Godfrey Sceats on September 12 1930, he exclaimed 'Man, the thing is colossal! These harmonies!'