Miniaturen op. 1655 - Nos. 1, 5, 8

Peter Bares (* 1936) studied in Essen with Ernst Kaller and Siegfried Reda. He was organist at Sinzig near Bonn, where he initiated the „Internationale Studienwoche für Neue Geistliche Musik“ (International Study Week for New Sacred Music), a festival for contemporary music in the church.

When Bares was given notice at Sinzig in 1985, this festival was continued for another 10 years in Bonn and Cologne. In 1992 Bares became organist at the Kunst-Station (Art Station) St Peter in Cologne. He retired in 2008. Since 2004 the festival has been continued as “orgel-mixturen” at St Peter.

In 1974 Bares won the bronze medal at the Haarlem improvisation competition. He wrote over 3,000 pieces of music, most of them have never been published in print.

At St Peter in Cologne Bares realized a big organ (in fact two instruments, playable from one console) especially for contemporary organ music with percussion stops, very unique mutation stops, and accessories like “Organumkoppel” (chose several notes within 2 octaves to program a Mixture), “Tastenfessel” (keys pressed are hold even when fingers are released), and “Winddrossel” (reduces wind from blower). Even the churchbells can be played from the console.

For more information on Bares see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Bares and http://www.peter-bares.de. For information on „his“ organ see http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/St._Peter_(Köln)#Orgeln. Unfortunately, the information is only in German.

The 12 miniatures, composed in 1988, are available from Verlag Dohr (http://www.dohr.de). The score has no indications, so that tempo, dynamics, articulation, and registration are entirely left to the player.

All Hauptwerk organs lacks the special effects mentioned above, so my rendition is rather traditional. Furthermore, this is my first attempt to play music in this style.