Complete Organ Works IV: Original Compositions 4

Middelschulte Complete Organ Works IV: Original Compositions 4

Wilhelm Middelschulte (1863–1943) studied church music in Berlin.  From 1891 onwards he worked as director of the organ department at the American Conservatory in Chicago and the Wisconsin Conservatory in Milwaukee.  As a virtuoso organist he had a formative impact in the USA .

No lesser authority than Ferruccio Busoni described Middelschulte as a “master of counterpoint” and declared him to be the greatest contrapuntalist since Johann Sebastian Bach.

Middelschulte’s oeuvre consists entirely of organ works.  He was a “modern classicist” firmly rooted in the 19th century tradition, yet strongly attached to baroque contrapuntal forms, and especially the works of Johann Sebastian Bach, with which he sought to rise above the compositional norm of his time.  The result was a combination of romantic virtuosity with a vision of music that was anything but antiquarian, despite its historical models.

Volume IV contains two works which belong to the group of larger-scale compositions completed by the composer himself.  The Contrapuntal Symphony was the last work to be published during the composer’s lifetime.  The manuscript of the Chaconne was considered to be lost until recently and it is now being published here for the first time.

- First Urtext edition of Middelschulte’s Complete Organ Works

- First publication of the Chaconne

- Each volume contains a detailed foreword and critical commentary (Ger/Eng)