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Organ Music Of Lionel Rogg


MAB

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Last week I went to a splendid lunchtime recital by Peter Wright.

 

He finished his programme with the partita on 'Nun freut euch' by Lionel Rogg.

 

To be honest, I was not expecting a great deal from the piece, but it turned out to be wonderful ; well crafted, a really distinct musical language (although with echoes of Hindemith) and appealing for the listener. I am looking forward to learning it myself.

 

One reason I was (pleasantly) surprised by the piece was that the only Rogg I had heard before were his 'Deux etudes'. These are played more widely nowadays, although I am bound to say that on the one occasion I heard them performed, they made little impression on me.

 

I would like to find out more about Lionel Rogg's compositions. Does anyone play more of his music, and can anyone recommend other good stuff to look at ?

 

Regards,

M

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Last week I went to a splendid lunchtime recital by Peter Wright.

 

He finished his programme with the partita on 'Nun freut euch' by Lionel Rogg.

 

To be honest, I was not expecting a great deal from the piece, but it turned out to be wonderful ; well crafted, a really distinct musical language (although with echoes of Hindemith) and appealing for the listener. I am looking forward to learning it myself.

 

One reason I was (pleasantly) surprised by the piece was that the only Rogg I had heard before were his 'Deux etudes'. These are played more widely nowadays, although I am bound to say that on the one occasion I heard them performed, they made little impression on me.

 

I would like to find out more about Lionel Rogg's compositions. Does anyone play more of his music, and can anyone recommend other good stuff to look at ?

 

Regards,

M

The completion that he wrote for the Art of Fugue is the most convincing of all the different versions that I have heard. Does anyone know if it has been published?

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Last week I went to a splendid lunchtime recital by Peter Wright.

 

He finished his programme with the partita on 'Nun freut euch' by Lionel Rogg.

 

To be honest, I was not expecting a great deal from the piece, but it turned out to be wonderful ; well crafted, a really distinct musical language (although with echoes of Hindemith) and appealing for the listener. I am looking forward to learning it myself.

 

One reason I was (pleasantly) surprised by the piece was that the only Rogg I had heard before were his 'Deux etudes'. These are played more widely nowadays, although I am bound to say that on the one occasion I heard them performed, they made little impression on me.

 

I would like to find out more about Lionel Rogg's compositions. Does anyone play more of his music, and can anyone recommend other good stuff to look at ?

 

Regards,

M

 

I wish I could claim that there were a whole raft of gems worth looking at, but after listening to a disc he recorded in 2000 (all his own music) at St Peter's Cathedral, Geneva, I don't think this is the case! The pieces date from 1996 - 1999, and to be honest, the same motifs and ideas keep cropping up: sustained note or cluster, punctuated by an "impressionistic" splash of sound. I suppose the Hommage a Durufle is the best work of that type (Don't worry: he steers well clear of trying to ape MD's musical language) and the Livre d'orgue offers some textural variation, and the Toccata Capriciosa is pleasantly Ebenesque, but there is nothing to rival Nun freut euch.

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Thank you, particularly to Jonadkins, for this feedback. I am bound to say that this is rather as I expected.

 

If you have not heard much of a composer's music, or there is only one piece commonly played, I find that it is usually for a good reason. Also, and without, admittedly, having heard them, I was rather uneasy about a composer who writes a Hommage a Messiaen, only to follow it with a Hommage a Durufle, and then a Hommage a Takemitsu. Why doesn't he stop paying homage to all these people and just write some good stuff himself ?

 

M

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