Complete Organ Works

Vol. 12 of our edition of organ works of the Northern German Baroque contains the complete extant works of Matthias Weckmann that can be genuinely assigned to the organ. No use at all was made of the modern electric bellows motor; instead the muscle power of two calcants was used to operate the historical bellows unit. The flexible wind supply, wind-force factor, and corresponding noises produced by the bellows result in a vivid sound picture meeting the requirements of historical authenticity. Matthias Weckmann, who was born to the organist or pastor Jacob Weckmann in Niederdorla, near the Thuringian imperial city of Mhlhausen, was already in 1628 a boy chorister in the Dresden court chapel led by Heinrich Schtz. It was also Schtz who saw to it that Weckmann obtained a scholarship from the Prince Elector in order to receive thorough training as an organist and composer from Jacob Praetorius, the famous organist at St. Peters Church in Hamburg. Like that of his later teacher Schtz, Weckmanns music exhibits an unusually intensive word-tone interrelation (above all in vocal music) and in its contrapuntal complexity with tonal dissonances verges on the limits of harmony.