The organ and harmonium music of Joseph Jongen

The Sonata Eroïca, perhaps the Prélude et Fugue, Op. 121, or a small character piece such as Chant de May, possibly even the Symphonie concertante. Most Dutch organists who are asked, à l’improviste, to compile a list of works by the composer Joseph Jongen will probably get little further than these pieces. In Belgium, where Jongen was born, our colleagues may know rather more, and the chamber music and song repertoire of their compatriot have not been entirely forgotten. Perhaps the Liège-born composer will receive more attention in the coming decades, now that the German publisher Bärenreiter, some three-quarters of a century after Jongen’s death, has brought out three volumes of his L’Œuvre intégrale for organ and harmonium. A fitting occasion, therefore, to dwell at greater length in Het Orgel on the life and work of our southern neighbour, naturally with particular emphasis on his activities relating to the organ. And what does the new Bärenreiter edition have to offer us?