This is my entry for the secrets of Organ Playing Contest, Week 100. I play Rudolf Löw's fugue in c minor, the newest publication on my website. As far as I could find Löwe's music has not been printed before, so this performance might well be a world premiere. Now, there's a nice thought 😀
Rudolf Löw (1832 - 1898) was a Swiss organist and composer. He was a student of Carl Ferdinand Becker (Orgel) and Ignaz Moscheles (Piano). In 1864 he became first organist in the newly build Elisabethkirch. As composer he wrote mostly in a style inspired by the old masters of counterpoint like Bach and Händel. With the exception of a few Lieder, his output as a composer was never printed.
The Sächsische Landes- und Universitätsbibliothek in Dresden posesses a manuscript of 12 organ compositions by Löw's hand. It is his opus 1, which he dedicated to his teacher Carl Ferdinand Becker. Almost a year ago I published the choral prelude sfrom this manuscript. Now it is time for the reamaining three compositions in this manuscript.
The fugue in c minor is the first of these three. It is intruiging to note that each time one of the voices plays the fugue theme, it is silent for one or more bars before it starts playing the theme. Almost as if Löw was afraid the listener would not notice the theme otherwise and draws the listener's attention to it.
The recording was done with the Hauptwerk software and the sampleset, made by Sonus Paradisi, of the Cavaillé-Coll organ in the St. Omer church in the city of St. Omer (http://www.sonusparadisi.cz/en/organs/france/st-om.html).
Score available here: http://partitura.org/index.php/rudolf-low-fuga-c-moll-op-1-nr-10
