The “fiddle-G” organ and its repertory, 1800-1850

Organ: George Stevens (1847): 2 manuals (GG-f3)/pedal (GG, AA-G), 13 ranks.

As pipe organs became increasingly commonplace in American village churches, halls, and meeting houses, several performers began to explore their soloistic capacities. Many historians describe the early nineteenth century as a rudimentary stage in the development of an American organ repertory; but surviving manuscripts and publications suggest the presence of advanced practices yet to be examined by scholarship. Zundel’s organ method book (Boston, 1850) supplies a traceable performance practice for the period — one which informs my interpretation of this program comprising music from the decades leading up to the construction of this Stevens organ in 1847. I was pleased to find the perfect repertory for this instrument in the remarkable organ manuscripts of German immigrant Charles Zeuner, including virtuosic fantasias and fugues after the late-classical style of his teachers Hummel and Fischer.

Fantasy for organ in E-flat major - Charles Zeuner (1795-1857)

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Fantasie composée et dediée à Madame la Comtesse Caroline Chodekiewicz (1800) - Johann Nepomuk Hummel (1778-1837), arrangement: A. Ross (b. 1994)

Improvisation on a selected shape-note tune

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Selections from The Modern School for the Organ (1850)

• Introduction and fugue - John Zundel (1815-1882)

• Andante con moto - William Thomas Best (1826-1897)

• Stabat Mater dolorosa - G. B. Pergolesi (1710-1736), arr. Zundel

• Ave verum corpus - W. A. Mozart (1756-1791) , arr. Zundel

• Moderato - Christian Heinrich Rinck (1770-1846)

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Fantasy and Fugue in C minor/Major - Zeuner

March “composed for and dedicated to the U.S. Marine Corps by a Young Lady of Charleston, S.C.”  - attr. to Eliza Crawly Murden (1784-1847)

Introduction in D major - Zeuner

Fugue in D major Allegro molto - Michael Gottfried Fischer (1773-1829)

Chromatic Fugue in D major - Zeuner