FRANK MORANA
AmerOrganist 37/7

MAX GULBINS, Sonate Nr. 4 C-Dur, op. 28. Paulus, Ein Charakterbild (Sonata No. 4 in C major, op. 28. St. Paul, A Character Portrait). Sinfonische Orgel, Band 6, Bärenreiter 8453. This new edition of a 1904 work by an obscure East Prussian organist-composer, Max Gulbins (1862–1932), is an important example of the high-romantic and the neo-baroque, counterposed within a suitable programmatic subtitle, and it has much to commend it as a welcome addition to the repertory. It is in three movements, “Sehr schwer” (very heavy), “Adagio,” and an introduction and double fugue. The first two movements and the introduction to the third movement flow in a flawless, tonally restless style that is obviously beholden to the Wagnerian techniques that were ubiquitous at that time in the German-speaking countries. The first movement depicts the conversion of Saul, in the preponderant sonority of the augmented triad. The composer pays token homage to sonata form by beginning and ending in the “right” tonalities at conspicuous structural points, and a fugato section is almost completely absorbed into the prevailing texture without calling undue attention to itself. The dramatic atmosphere is so highly charged that, in one passage, the composer inscribes the words of the voice from heaven, “Saul, Saul, was verfolgst du mich!” (Saul, Saul, why dost thou persecute me?), and one can easily imagine a big Wagnerian voice-part entering at this point. The succeeding movements are more generic in their programmatic implications: Paul prays––in a selfstanding adagio incorporating an earlier theme, but not without a variety of motifs, rhythms, and textures; and in the exultant finale, he is chosen to become an apostle. It is this finale that, for Gulbins and many others, presented a viable but temporary solution to the problem of having worked so arduously, skillfully, effectively––and stagnantly––within the well-defined Wagnerian mold. That solution involved tapping long-antiquated forms and textures such as the old dance movements, and especially, the fugue. Seen in this light, Gulbins’s double fugue is an effective foil, both aesthetically as well as programatically and structurally. His first subject is taken from the very opening of the first movement, and the second subject (with its own exposition entirely in the dominant) is in faster motion, with an obvious sense of its latent contrapuntal relation to the first subject. The two re-expositions are both approached from a contrasting, meditative adagio section, but the contrapuntal texture is strictly and masterfully retained to the end.