Three Pieces by Old South German Organ Masters

Piece One begins at time 0:00--Toccata quinta (oder funfftes musicalisches Blumen-Feld) by Johannes Speth from 10 Toccaten (1693). I quite like how Speth gave each toccata the description of a musical field of flowers. Each one of the ten toccatas is pretty short, and it gives the listener indeed an idea that each is meant to be an exploration of various soundscapes. This fifth one is in C major.

Piece Two begins at 1:55--Kyrie eleison (ca. 1530) by Johann Buchner. As this piece is from the Renaissance period, I changed the tuning to Pythagorean just intonation. In this Kyrie, Buchner sets the unornamented cantus firmus in the tenor voice. This piece is in the mode D Aeolian.

Piece Three begins at 5:21--Toccata in E Minor, P. 462, by Johann Pachelbel. A flashy piece with an exciting introduction, this piece has two main sections with contrasting material. The primary first section has similar figurations to the included Speth toccata, but they are highly ornamented here in Pachelbel's. The second section is based on an arpeggio pattern that builds to the end as it goes around the circle of fifths. This piece is in E minor.

The goal of this recording is to show off the different sounds and registration combinations possible on this typical South German Baroque organ. I utilized the historical format included in the software, with short octaves in all three divisions, and no coupling to the pedal.

For the Speth toccata, I used the positive's 4' principal and all pedal stops. For Buchner's organ setting of a Kyrie eleison, I used the 8' quintadena and 4' flute on the positive for the soprano and alto voices. Those are coupled to the great division where I added the two aliquots to beef up the tenor voice cantus firmus. The pedal is simply the combined 16' and 8' flue stop (labeled Petal). Finally, I build up the plenum throughout Pachelbel's toccata using stops from both divisions, but playing only on the great.