Praeamble and Chaconne B-A-C-H was composed in 1999 in early celebration of the 250th anniversary of Johann Sebastian Bach’s death in 2000. It is dedicated to organist and composer Michael Radulescu, whose then student Johannes Hämmerle premiered the work on April 7, 2000 in Vienna’s St. Ursula’s Church.
Kropfreiter treats the B-A-C-H motif in different guises and combinations, as he had already done in earlier works. One can see from the sketches that he very consciously planned the work’s “architecture”. Numbers and proportions, too, have some importance. The second part of the Preamble consists of 21 bars. The Chaconne theme, which also appears in different configurations, is a twelve-tone series. After its presentation it appears 21 times plus one additional time. Sometimes the theme is shortened, sometimes some additional bars are added. The numerological content can, however, only be speculated upon.
Kropfreiter’s instrument was the “Bruckner organ” in the Abbey Church of St. Florian, Upper Austria, which without any doubt inspired his entire organ oeuvre. However, performance on smaller instruments as well as adaptions in dynamics and registration are easily possible.
- ISMN: 9790012201977 (M012201977)
