A forgotten performance practice in romantic music

by Christo Lelie | Het ORGEL | Year 117 | (2021) | Issue 5

Franz Liszt, 1860

The Fantasie und Fuge über den Choral “Ad nos, ad salutarem undam“ is not only the earliest organ work of Franz Liszt (1811-1886), but is also his longest, technically most demanding, and musically most complex.  This composition, on a theme from the opera LeProphète by Giacomo Meyerbeer (1791-1864), is the first large 19th-century organ work in which pianistic virtuosity and a symphonic structure are combined.

The scholarly study of Ad nos by the Swiss pianist, organist, and composer Bernhard Ruchti is apparently de first monograph on this work in book form.  The author claims that he has rediscovered, through his study of sources, the original performance manner of Ad nos.

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