Prelude C

Andreas Bibl (1797–1878) was an Austrian composer and organist. A native of Vienna, he was a member of the St. Stephen’s Boys’ Choir and received his musical training from Albrechtsberger and Preindl. By the age of 19, he was already serving as organist at the Leopoldstadt Church, and two years later at St. Peter’s and at the “Main and Metropolitan Church of St. Stephen”—as indicated in the handwritten score of his Prelude in C major from 1848. He was a personal friend of Franz Schubert. His son Rudolf also became famous as a Viennese court Kapellmeister and composer.
For this Romantic Prelude in C major, I chose the Wegenstein organ at the Reformed Church in Kronstadt (RO) and complemented the powerful sound of the 8’ Principal and English Horn with additional gentle 8’ and 4’ stops. The Austrian Carl Leopold Wegenstein (1858–1937) learned his craft in Vienna. After years of traveling and apprenticeship with renowned organ builders in German-speaking regions, he settled in 1880 in my hometown of Timișoara, then part of the Hungarian section of the Dual Monarchy, where he worked for the organ builder Josef Hromadka, who also originates from the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. He married Hromadka’s daughter and later took over the workshop.
Carl Leopold Wegenstein, along with Otto Rieger in Budapest and Josef Angster in Pécs, is considered one of the three most important organ builders in the Hungarian part of the Danube Monarchy. His instruments are regarded today as tonal and technical masterpieces of Romantic organ building. The renowned Wegenstein organ-building workshop (Carl Leopold Wegenstein and Sons) in Timișoara is estimated to have built more than 400 organs and harmoniums. Most of these instruments are now located in the Banat and Transylvania, as well as in the neighboring countries of Hungary, Serbia, and Croatia, and also in Slovakia and Ukraine.
The company was taken over and closed by the communists after World War II.

https://youtu.be/tHGKMcqMiHM