Kleine Sommermusik (Little Summer Music) (1998)

Burkhard Mohr (b. 1955) — Kleine Sommermusik (Little Summer Music) (1998) for organ

1) Preludio parvule
2) Bordun
3) Tänzchen

“Kleine Sommermusik (Little Summer Music)” (1998) is a suite of three movements, each with a bright, “summery” mood. The first movement, “Preludio parvule” (small prelude), contrasts light, bouncing musical ideas with more lyrical chorale-like ones. The title of the second movement, “Bordun,” refers to the drone bass (in the manner of a medieval bagpipe) that runs throughout. The third movement, “Tänzchen” (little dance), is jovial and energetic with perhaps a slight flavor of Eastern European folk music.

German composer Burkhard Mohr (b. 1955) was born in Gamsbach/Oberhessen and was educated in Frankfurt where he studied music and theology. He also attended the Darmstadt new music courses with Stockhausen, Kagel, Ligeti, and Xenakis. He has worked as a church musician in Frankfurt-Höchst and Wiesbaden and also taught music for many years at the technical university in Frankfurt. Mohr has composed numerous musical works in many genres, including several operas and orchestral works along with much chamber music and music for choir and organ. Mohr’s music usually concerns itself with the blurry boundaries and connections between atonal (12-tone) and tonal (triadic) materials and with the unexpected (or traditionally extended) formal designs that can result from teasing out these connections.