TWENTIETH-CENTURY ORGAN MUSIC
Review Feature by Lawrence Archbold
TWENTIETH-CENTURY ORGAN MU- SIC, ed. Christopher S. Anderson. New York and London: Routledge, 2012. xvi, 349 pp., ill. ISBN 9780415875653.
Organists do not lack for books that
survey their repertoire. From exhaus- tively detailed lists of publications and manuscripts from around the Western world (such as Klaus Beckmann’s Repertorium Orgelmusik: 1150–2000) to equally wide-ranging prose accounts of the history of organmusic (Organ Lit- erature: A Comprehensive Survey by Corliss Arnold is but one of several in a variety of languages), such projects in- vite players to learn about composers of organmusic and their compositions. Es- pecially in the case of student organists, readersmay thereby come to appreciate the value of a reliable works list and dis- cover the resources with which pro- gram notes might be written. Twentieth-Century Organ Music,
edited by Christopher S. Anderson for the “Routledge Studies in Musical Gen- res” series, presents twelve essays by as many authors, noting that, despite pre- vious surveys, the organ repertoire of the 20th century has never before been the sole topic of an entire volume. Moreover, the editor proposes to under- stand the repertoire survey as encom- passing an exceptionally wide range of topics. Indeed, Anderson sets forth am- bitious, even daring, aims for this book: “to situate the music in a multidimen- sional context” certain that “the organ’s music has had as much to say about the values of its culture as has the music of any other 20th-century repertoire.” Abandoning the threadbare binary op- positions of “‘sacred’ versus ‘secular’” and “‘academic’ versus ‘practical,’” the book seeks “critical, original contribu- tions to a history of 20th-century music generally” (p. xv). Of course, not all twelve of the essays in the volume achieve this goal; bringing the study of organ music into the world of contem- porary musicology is a bigger agenda than one book can accomplish. To try to do so, however, is a noble quest. What makes this book important is that it does in fact try and sometimes even succeeds. The first chapter in the volume looks
to the instrument itself as a place to be- gin. “The Organ in the Twentieth Cen- tury” by James L. Wallmann provides an account of the multitudinous styles
AUGUST 2013 45
of 20th-century organbuilding more generous thanmight be expected from a repertoire survey. Categories are abun- dant and useful: the author teases apart organ types such as Romantic, sym- phonic, and orchestral, demonstrates the wide variety found in Orgelbewe- gung instruments, contrasts eclectic ideals with those that are “historically informed,” and concludes with the “neo-symphonic” organ as a late-cen- tury specialized style. Such emphasis on the special qualities of these many instrument types invites investigation of the idiomatic qualities (or lack thereof) of corresponding repertoire. The essay edges closer to the social and cultural explanations sought by the ed- itor in its concluding “Internationalism and Regional Developments” section, where we learn that “Economic condi- tions, war, and national pride pre- vented the development of any interna- tional styles in the first half of the 20th century” (p. 29). The readermust, however, turn to an- other essay, that by Peter Williams, to
understand more about the interplay of the organ and its cultural context. Peter Williams’s “The Idea of Bewegung in the German Organ ReformMovement of the 1920s” (the only item in the volume that has previously appeared in print) demonstrates how the nexus of ideas and opinions that characterize this movement embodies both a “national movement” and “cultural centrism” (p. 116). Williams casts a critical eye over the leaders of this trend in organ- building and calls into question their at- titudes toward Bach, historical perfor- mance practice, editions, scholars outside Germany, and many other mat- ters. With such a multifaceted look at a relatively narrow topic (in comparison, say, to that addressed by Wallmann), he is able to make sense of claims such as thosemade by J. Müller-Blattau in 1938: “[The organ is] the symbolic instrument of the community. It is a ‘political’ in- strument in the highest sense” (p. 129). In a new postscript, appearing some 20 years after the first publication of this essay, Williams suggests how contem- porary scholars, who are now unafraid to explore the music world’s connec- tions with the Nazi regime, might fur- ther enlighten our understanding of this problematic phase in the history of 20th-century organ culture. Five essays present surveys orga-
nized by nation (or region): “The Ger- man-speaking Lands” and “France,” both jointly authored by Hermann J. Busch andMartin Herchenroeder, “The Netherlands” by Hans Fidom, “Scandi- navia” by Sverker Jullander, and “The United States” by Sharon L. Hettinger. Of the five, those by Busch and Her- chenroeder are the largest. The German- regions chapter devotes considerable space to accounts of many composers, some of only modest accomplishment, accompanied by brief biographies and lists of their best-known (or most wor- thy) works. Only some of this material is new, and much of it lies far from the goals outlined by the editor. Yet sur- prises can be found: Busch and Her-
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