Kaleidoscope

Performances of Kaleidoscope op 144 are sufficiently rare for those given this year by Graham Barber and Richard Walker (May 19 and September 25) suggest a recon­sideration of what could well be regarded as one of Karg-Elert’s finest works for the organ. As with Homage to Handel op 75 [II] (see Newsletter 58), the advent of the LP enabled an authoritative Karg-Elert recording of Kaleidoscope to be made – this time by Graham Barber at Coventry Cathedral in 1980 on the Vista label. Twenty one years later, another outstanding recording was made, by Stefan Engels on the Seifert organ in St Matthias Church, Schöneberg, Berlin. (Priory PRCD 790). Produced by the Archive’s recordings adviser, Geoffrey de Coup-Crank, it sadly proved to be his memorial, since he died two years later. 2004 saw another fine recording, this time on the Aeolus label (Volume 4 in its Ultimate Organ Works series), played by Elke Völker on the 1912 Stahlhuth organ in St Martin’s Church, Dudelange, Luxemburg. Geoffrey had always recognised Kaleidoscope’s exceptional merit and it is fitting that the two performances for the 75th anniversary of Karg-Elert’s death should be by players who are so closely linked with the Archive.

We first hear of Kaleidoscope in Karg-Elert’s letter to Godfrey Sceats dated May 23, 1930, just after the composer’s return from the Festival of his music at St Lawrence Jewry Church, London. He wrote: ‘In the last few days I have begun a fine little organ work – Kaleidoscope – and it is intended for Stuart Archer who will offer it to Paxton’. Stuart Archer (1866-1953) was the dedicatee of Sempre Semplice op 142 [I]/7, published in 1931, and originally of Kaleidoscope too, but by March 1931 Karg-Elert had changed his mind, referring to Stuart Archer as ‘a great blockhead . . . (who) cannot accept the most harmless dissonances . . . he did not know what to do with the piece’. Although Karg-Elert’s relationship with the Oxford University Press was not a warm one: (‘this disobliging firm’ he called it),

nevertheless it published Kaleidoscope in 1932 along with Music for Organ op 145, no doubt at Sceats’ suggestion.

Archibald Farmer, now the dedicatee of Kaleidoscope, had been one of the organisers of the 1930 Karg-Elert Festival, along with Nicholas Choveaux and Godfrey Sceats. Each of the three had one part of Karg-Elert’s Triptych op 141 dedicated to him, in Farmer’s case, Gregorian Rhapsody. The foundation of the Organ Music Society in February 1931 was a direct consequence of the Festival, Archibald Farmer being one of the four musicians responsible. The Society’s first recital took place in St Mary Aldermary Church, City of London on May 5th that year; given by Archibald Farmer, it concluded with the first performance of Kaleidoscope. His programme note described the work thus: ‘In manner it is aphoristic: upwards of fifteen motives, for instance, can be counted in the allegro alone. In form it is virtually a sonata, with four regular movements – an allegro, a slow movement, a scherzo and another allegro. In mood and tone it is a veritable kaleidoscope of colours and patterns continually reshaken’.

Karg-Elert was to describe Kaleidoscope as ‘much work’ when writing to Sceats in September 1930: ‘Here there is a general motive in Gregorian style, carried through as an architectonic medium . . . Ah! It sounds magnificent; I first found this form in the “Gregorian Rhapsodie” ’ (sic). Karg-Elert’s only subsequent reference to Kaleidoscope in the Sceats’ correspondence was in May 1931: ‘Farmer will soon perform the Kaleidoscope on the BBC for the first time’. It would be interesting to know if this broadcast ever took place.

(Grateful acknowledgement to ‘Your Ever Grateful, Devoted Friend’: Sigfrid Karg-Elert’s letters to Godfrey Sceats,
1922-1931, translated by Godfrey Sceats and Harold Fabrikant, compiled and annotated by Harold Fabrikant).