Johann Peter Kellner, Preludium pro Organo Pleno

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(Edited)

This is my entry for the Secrets Of Organ Playing contest, week 26.

Johann Peter Kellner (1705 – 1772) was a German organist and composer. He was the father of Johann Christoph Kellner. It is known that he knew Johann Sebastian Bach, though it is not known whether he was taught by him. He made many manuscript copies of keyboard and organ works of Bach. These often are the earliest or only source of these works. An intriguing theory is that he and not Bach composed the famous toccata and fugue in d minor. I've played quite a few pieces by Kellner in the past four years, and that has led me to believe that this theory is not as far fetched as I thought it was when I first read it.

This Prelude is typical Kellner: lively and easy listening.

The sound recording was done with the Hauptwerk software and the sampleset, made by Voxus, of the Matthijs van Deventer-orgel in the Grote Kerk, Nijkerk (https://www.voxusorgans.com/en/product/nijkerk).

And if you're interested in playing this piece yourself, the score can be downloaded here: http://partitura.org/index.php/johann-peter-kellner-preludium-pro-organo-pleno-c-dur/



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10 comments
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(Edited)

Great performance. Is the score link correct? The one you have linked starts off with a pedal solo.

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Oops, wrong link. That's the g minor one; also nice, and a possible candidate for a future entry in this contest. I corrected the link in the post. Thanks for pointing it out!

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Very lively performance and piece. Fun to listen too! And I would guess it's fun to play it as well. What fascinates me is these global Baroque idioms in these composers, such as sequences and pedal points. What particular cadence is just like in D minor Toccata by Bach.

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There sure is a stylistic idiom that goes beyond the particular style of an individuel composer. It's not just the Baroque idiom that creates similarities between Kellner and BWV565. It's more the way the fugue of BWV 565 is written, compared with the way J.P. Kellner writes his fugues. It is well known that the fugue of BWV 565 is rather clumsy in it's counterpoint and not at all on the level of his other writing. In his fugues Kellner reverts as soon as possible to essentially two part writing, even if it is a four or five part fugue. The fugue of BWV 565 is most of the time just two part writing as well (chords in one hand, pedal point, etc). That's no proof either way, I know. It's just that fugues by Kellner and the fugue of BWV 565 have a very similar feel.

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Could be that it is a piece by a teenage Bach when his knowledge of counterpoint wasn't developed yet.

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Yes, of course, that could equally well be the case. It's just that the theory Kellner might be the composer once sounded preposterous to me. Nowadays, not so much anymore.

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