The concert 'Bach-Transcriptions and Fragments' closes the 2024 organ cycle in the Auditorio de Tenerife

 

The German organist Arno Hartman offers the concert Bach-Transcripciones y fragmentos, this Sunday (15 November) at noon at the Symphony Hall of the Auditorio de Tenerife. The programme is solely comprised of works by Johann Sebastian Bach. In addition to his original pieces, the programme includes organ transcriptions of several acclaimed composers and efforts to complete Bach's fragments of organ music.

Transcription, especially for organ, has always been a widely extended practice that seeks to adapt to one instrument piece composed initially for another. Transcriptions flourished in the 18th century, reaching their summit about Bach. Bach's transcriptions are of great artistic value, and the German composer himself adapted his works to the organ.

This concert, which closes the 2024 organ cycle in the Auditorio de Tenerife, includes one of Bach's most famous compositions: Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (BWV 2024). This work is based on his Schübler Chorales, a collection of six transcriptions of his cantata cycles. It shall be preceded by the transcription of a group of Franz Liszt's cantatas as the evening's solemn opening performance. Bach's student and contemporary Johann Friedrich Agricola stand out for his noteworthy transcription of Ricercare for six voices, a piece of Das musikalische Opfer.

Bach's original works Präludium und Fuge in C (BWV 547) and the chorale Advent edition Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland (BMV 659) are among the most famous organ works from his Leipzig period. His Pastorella is greatly influenced by the Italian school and features the musical attributes of shepherds, i.e. bagpipes and chirimía. The first part immediately evokes a Christmas atmosphere, continuing a long tradition of "pastoral music" insofar as style: a work with four movements, Italian and French influences and a clear Yuletide spirit.

Pedal-Exercitium and Fantasia and Fugue in C minor for five voices were not completed by Bach. Ton Koopman and Lorenzo Ghielmi, two of today's most renowned organists specialising in Bach have completed these pieces with great care to remain true to the spirit of the German composer. The programme will draw to a close with Passacaglia in C minor, BWV 582, registered by Franz Liszt and Johann Gottlob Töpfer.

Born in Duisburg (Germany), Arno Hartman studied organ, orchestral conducting and religious music at the University of Music and Performing Arts of Vienna. Invitations extended to him to perform at concerts have taken him to organ festivals throughout Europe, Iceland, the United States, South Africa, Russia, Australia, Argentina and Uruguay.

As an organ soloist, he has performed with the Orchestra da Camera di Firenze and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra at the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall of the Moscow Philharmonic, among other engagements. He has taught several master classes at Emory University in Atlanta and the Gnessin Music Academy in Moscow, where he recently sat on the jury in the "First Leonid Rojsman Organ Competition”.

After many years of musical activity in Vienna, where he was in charge of numerous concerts for the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation, he joined the Vienna Symphonic as an organist. Mr Hartmann also worked for many years as the musical director of a church in Bochum, Germany, and he is currently the artistic director of the Bochum Organ Festival.

Tickets for the organ concert are available on the website www.auditoriodetenerife.com, at the auditorium's box office or by dialling the phone number 902 317 327 from Monday to Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Check the special discounts for students, unemployed people and large families.