Karg-Elert

Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877 - 1933)

As my friends from Secrets of Organ playing know, I love both the harmonium as well as the music of Sigfrid Karg-Elert. In fact, I've been "binge-listening" to Karg-Elert all day today.

My present apartment is so small I doubt I could fit a fold-out lawn chair in here, but if I had more space (and the money to do so) I would seriously purchase a harmonium - after which point I would probably never want to leave my apartment!

I've wanted for some time to write a post about Karg-Elert's harmonium music. What has prevented me from doing so has been the lack of appropriate, high-quality excerpts of his music from YouTube that I can share with you. Some of his works apparently cannot be found on YouTube at all. However, the recordings I have in mind can easily be purchased online and are available for streaming from Spotify. So this blog post will be a very abbreviated version of the one I had hoped to post.

I would direct your attention to the five-volume collection "Sigfrid Karg-Elert: Harmonium Works" released by Classic Produktion Osnabrück ("cpo"). The performer on these albums is Johannes Matthias Michel; organist, conductor, and chairman of the Karg-Elert-Gesellschaft. These recordings are the very best Karg-Elert harmonium recordings I've heard.

Particularly, I would direct your attention to Volume 5 of this collection (see album cover below) where you can hear a stunningly beautiful, virtuosic performance of Karg-Elert's magnificent "Harmonium Sonata No. 1 in B minor, Op. 36."

In a previous post I mentioned that, in my opinion, the second-movement "Interludium" of this sonata is one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever composed. I would encourage you to check out the recording of this piece (it's the second track on the above-mentioned album).

Karg-Elert was a great composer. This is nowhere demonstrated more clearly than in his brilliant harmonium works. These works are absolutely unique in the concert music repertoire. If you are not familiar with the harmonium, or perhaps you are not a fan of reed organs I hope you will nonetheless give these works a chance. Karg-Elert draws effects from the harmonium that are as breathtaking as those that can be produced by the grandest pipe organs. In so listening you will bring some beauty into your own life and thus into this world and the strange times in which we live.