Pipe Organ Reubke Sonata on the 94th Psalm (Part 1)

I've wanted to upload this for quite a while, because it's a near-perfect performance of one of the great show-pieces. It's a perfect marriage of music, performer & instrument.

There are numerous recordings of the Reubke Sonata, but they tend to be a muddy jumble if the performance & acoustics aren't just right. Helmut Schröder lets us hear every musical line with absolute clarity. This was recorded in 1979; I've never seen a recording by him before or since. But he can rest on his laurels with this one splendid performance.

I've delayed uploading it for a couple of reasons.

First, there are no pictures available of the organ, church (St. Dionysius-Kirche), or the town of Rheine, Westfalia (other than the single picture of the organ case at the beginning of the video).

Second, it's over 20 minutes long -- which makes it tough to squeeze into the YouTube format.

To deal with the first problem, I decided to showcase some of Martin Doering's (of Die Orgelseite) many spectacular pictures of German organs. Martin has apparently travelled around Europe with a very good camera, shooting every available interesting organ. The lucky stiff.

To deal with the second problem, I've had to make a couple of judicious cuts. And I've had to make one big unnatural cut right in the middle.

The organ, by the way is a Klais III/47/66. I've seen references to a Klais installed in the church in 1907, but this doesn't look like a 1907 organ case. (And was Klais even in business in 1907?)

Category:

Music

Tags:

• pipe
• organ
• orgel
• orgue
• organo
• Reubke
• sonata

[EccentricRichard]

@a55b47 - now that YouTube has lifted its time limit per video to 15 minutes, could you please re-upload this recording in full, without the cuts you'd made?

[a55b47]

@EccentricRichard Given that editing each of these videos takes several hours -- probably not ;-)

[sensuumdefectui]

I heard Schroeder playing the sonata last week in Bonn (Münster). He is still in excellent shape !

[a55b47]

Glad to hear it !! He certainly had spectacular technique 20+ years ago. We don't get any news of him on this side of the Atlantic. I'd pay to hear him play if he ever made it to the U.S.

[hotbasterd]

i like it its rilly good and spooky

[katarina111222]

Shock!!!

[shirtlifter007]

fabulous.. thanks very much..

[Telemaker]

This Klais Organ is build in 1975 not in 1907!

In 2002 the Organ was renovated by Romanus Seifert&Son

[jvdurante84]

Yes, Klais was in business in 1907. The company started in the late 1800's.

[sergiobantam]

Uma das obras mais apaixonantes de todos os tempos.

O caráter sinistro e surreal é uma obra interplanetária onde céu e inferno estão juntos como as faces de uma mesma moeda.

Nada equivalente em modelo, estilo, sonoridade e idealização!

[eskatee]

------I've never seen a recording by him before or since----

Accept for this recording, I have in my collection a recording of the 'Musikalisches Opfer' BWV 1079 on the Klais-organ (25 II/P) of the Kreuzbergkirche at Bonn, Germany, by Helmut Schröder on LP FSM (Edition Brockhoff) 63 202 EB. So, at least there is one more recording.

[FrancoisHoutart]

l'interprète devrait sérieusement revoir le phraser des thèmes de cette sonate...

[yuryhabrus]

The organ neither looks being from 1907 nor sounds. Taht's should be definitely mistake

[f1f1s]

This is what I want to be played at my funeral, if I die young, by a tragic accident.

If I die late in life, then please perform Bach's Chorale Prelude in F minor.

No piece can be more religiously pathetic and tear-fetching than this Sonata.