IMSLP Forums

Hello! I am learning how to play the organ- truly a work of art- and I just wanted to say how happy I was to find your website. Haha, but I bit off more than I could chew and printed all the hard pieces that I looooove (Dorian, Passacaglia, et cetera) and I need to go back to the basics. I am not very experience with organ music/composers so I am lost. Does anyone here have any recommendations as to which pieces are relatively easy for beginning organist (adept at piano though). I prefer the slower pieces (and please, no major keys! I like being depressed!).

A number of Bach's choral preludes satisfy your requirements, slow and melancholy while not being too difficult. I'm not too familiar with them to give many examples, however one example is "Ich ruf zu Dir, Herr Jesu Christ" BWV 639 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vMnrjQK2Z8Y

I had always wanted to play but could never get the coordination to play with both hands, let alone feet. It was only recently that I have made some progress on the manuals. (I have yet to find a pedalboard.)

If I could recommend any one of the 'great' fugues of Bach, I would recommend the dark toned fugue in B minor, BWV 544. The main theme is simple enough that it is easy to remember each time it appears, yet the counterpoint is filled with the perpetual motion that I personally love in a fugue. It is admittedly not the easiest to play and requires some special fingerings, but if I can learn to play it anybody can!

I've also recently been playing around with the Concerto No. 2 in Am BWV 593 after Vivaldi's RV 522 (No. 8 in L'Estro Armonico). The slow movement is particularly beautiful, a duet in the right hand over a simple left hand accompaniment. The finale is for the more advanced organist and requires the typical Vivaldi speed to sound right.

Bach's works are among the most difficult in the Baroque repertoire.

Instead, try:

Fischer - Ariadne Musica
Bach (?) - Eight short preludes and fugues
Pachelbel - Fugues on the magnificat
Pachelbel - Toccatas.
Zachow - Chorale preludes

Anton Bruckner was an outstanding organist in his day, but he never wrote much for organ exept a few preludes; I think one is in d.
Bach is another good one...
Cesar Frank was a good friend of Bruckner's and he wrote alot more organ pieces....

I'd start with Bruckner, then Frank, then finally Bach...

I may have missed or forgotten this thread earlier.

As regards music for organ manuals, try the voluntaries by John Stanley. They are wonderful extensions of the Corelli/Handel influence in Great Britain. (I've performed some of the introductory slow sections of these pieces with pedal, but that's not necessary.)

For 19th-century, Alexandre Guilmant wrote some nice, but relatively easy pieces -- although many others that are really difficult.

If you are trying to learn by yourself, it might help to use a textbook/manual of some kind as a guide. There are many; my organ teacher had me use Gleason's method. Besides explicit exercises, it includes many short pieces for learning different aspects of organ playing.

Try the Boellmann Prelude In C Minor from His Suite Gothique

If you dislike major keys and don't want to play difficult organ music, I would stay as far as possible from Elgar's Organ Sonata.

Try:
Guilmant's Melody, Op.17 No.3
Boellmann's Elevation, Op.29 No.1
Vierne's Berceuse, No. 10 of 24 Pieces in free style, Book 2

and if you can tolerate C major for just two pages:
Boellman's Elevation, Op. 29 No.3

Pete
[edit] Hmmm ... for some reason I thought it was C major you were avoiding but it's actually major keys in general. Oh well. Have a look anyway [/edit]