Or-Ce-Kla Suite (2020)

Burkhard Mohr (b. 1955) — Or-Ce-Kla Suite (2020) for organ

1) Preludio
2) Capriccio
3) Toccatina
4) Sarabande (als Gruß an Reinhard Ohse)
5) A Jig

“Or-Ce-Kla Suite” (2020) was loosely inspired by the French suites of J. S. Bach, which the composer was practicing during the period of quarantine for the Coronavirus pandemic. As German concert life began again gradually, the composer imagined a keyboard work usable on either small organs or any other keyboard instruments (even including the electronic piano he was using for outdoor events.) The title thus refers to the music being playable on multiple keyboard instruments: ORgel (organ), CEmbalo (harpsichord), and KLAvier (piano). The fourth movement is a birthday greeting to the German composer Reinhard Ohse, whose 90th birthday occurred in August 2020.

German composer Burkhard Mohr (b. 1955) was born in Gambach/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.