12 Präludien op. 67, No. 6

Joseph Renner Jr (1868-1934) was born in Regensburg, Bavaria. He got his first lessons from his father (Joseph Sr) and became a student of Rheinberger in Munich later. In 1893 he became organist at the cathedral of Regensburg, in 1914 professor at the school of church music. He was highly estimated as a composer at his time, even by Reger and Straube. Today he is almost forgotten.

I suppose we can here his teacher Rheinberger - the rich melodies, the mastership in counterpoint, the elegance in leading the voices. Renner adds the splendid colors of late romantic harmonies and chromaticism.

On imslp.org we find two sonatas and three suites for organ besides collections of preludes, trios, and character pieces - all of them waiting to be rediscovered.

I think I will record a bit more of his music, although it is not easy to play on the Ladegast sampleset. The swell is not very effective (as on many German organs of that time), the positive is not expressive and the swell cannot be coupled to the positive to get dynamic changes. Thus, the many crescendos and decrescendos are hard to achieve, some by the expression pedal, some by subtle changes of the manuals (even voice by voice), some by pulling or pushing stops - and some have to be substituted by slight tempo changes.