Over recent years Jennifer Bate has gained
a justified reputation as one of the most important organists
of our time, and in the first of five volumes she explores
the complete organ music of Mendelssohn. The project features
both newly-discovered works and some that have been recorded
for the first time. Therefore this is an important production,
extending our understanding of a composer who all too often
can be under-valued.
Mendelssohn was a prolific composer, and
like all prolific composers he is widely known by only a
fragment of his output. This is inevitable; but we should
never make the mistake of assuming that music we do not
know is music we do not need to know. Inevitably, however,
the unknown music contains more than a proportion of experiments
and trifles. But no matter; for everything that is created
by a great artist is of interest to succeeding generations.
With a project such as this, the organization
of the repertoire is an important issue. It is by no means
clear how the programmes were determined, but there appears
to have been a decision to create varied repertoire for
each disc, rather than deal with principal works first and
then add appendices, or to embark upon a chronological survey.
Mendelssohn was the ultimate child prodigy,
producing a wealth of worthwhile music of lasting value
while he was still a teenager. For example, masterpieces
such as the Octet for Strings and the Overture to A Midsummer
Night’s Dream were written by the end of his 17th
year. Even so, it seems hard to make much of a case for
the Praeludium in D minor of 1820, the earliest of the pieces
contained in this volume: worthy rather than inspired, perhaps.
At the opposite extreme come two major masterpieces:
the Prelude and Fugue in C minor and the Sonata No. 1. Jennifer
Bate realizes these with consummate artistry. For example,
her judgement of articulation in the fugue allows every
aspect of the texture to make its mark, while at the same
time maintaining the pulse. And in the Sonata, the balance
of the different tempi among the movements creates a most
satisfying whole.
Six different organs are used among this
survey, and full details of them are included in the booklet,
to which Jennifer Bate herself has contributed fully. While
the less celebrated music does not contain (in this collection
at least) a blazing discovery, it is all well written and
sensitively played. The recorded sound, venue by venue,
is thoroughly satisfactory, with impact as required and
atmosphere too. The organ of Wimborne Minster, featured
in the Prelude and Fugue that opens the programme, sounds
particularly well.
Terry
Barfoot
Jennifer Bate (organ)
