FRANK MORANA
AmerOrganist 35/4

8402. Of these two Bach and Handel forerunners, only Johann

Krieger left behind a substantial legacy of organ and

keyboard music. Johann Philipp Krieger, an older brother,

was the more cosmopolitan, and composed more than 2,200

church cantatas as Capellmeister at the court of Saxe-

Weissenfels (a post that Bach later assumed in an

honorary capacity). But of the prodigious keyboard

repertory that must once have existed, only three or

four youthful and unrepresentative works survive, and these

might better have been relegated to an appendix, rather than

to have been given equal billing in the main body of what

is, essentially, a thorough critical edition of Johann

Krieger's work. This Johann Krieger toiled fifty-four years

as an organist and choirmaster at Zittau, and his organ and

keyboard music survives in numerous manuscripts and through

his two published collections, the Musicalische Partien

(1697) and the Anmuthige Clavier-Übung (1699). The first is

a set of six Clavier Partitas intended primarily for

amateurs. The second is a collection of twenty-five

Preludes, Ricercari, and Fugues, and a Chaconne and Toccata,

these intended primarily for professional organists. The

Toccata, according to the editors, holds the distinction of

being the very first piece of published organ music with an

indicated obbligato pedal. The Preludes were probably

intended by the composer to have been paired with respective

Ricercari or Fugues in the same key, but were jumbled in

the original edition. The original editions were also

faulty with respect to the musical texts (which were never

proofread by the composer), and in the disposition of the

barlines (Krieger seems to have used them normally only once

every second measure ). The present edition represents

the first major source study of the works of Johann and

Johann Philipp Krieger since Max Seiffert's complete edition

in Denkmaler der Tonkunst in Bayern (1917), and Volume 1

comprises both the Partien and the Clavier-Übung. As to the

quality of this music, Johann Mattheson perhaps said it best

when he declared in 1739 that Johann Krieger "merits being

remembered at the forefront of the best and most thorough

contrapuntists of the century, and whoever has an

opportunity to study his fugues will obtain great benefit

therefrom, albeit the [sense of] galanterie is not as

abundant therein as the solidity of workmanship." In other

words, while the Preludes, Ricercari, and Fugues will serve

perfectly well in their intended capacity as functional

music for the professional organist, the Clavier Partitas

may serve somewhat less well in their intended capacity, as

music for the delectation of the (21st-century) musical

amateur. Two works stand out as possible additions to the

concert repertoire, both of them for the harpsichord: the

Fantasy in C (no. 1) is a stately rondo with "fantastic"

episodes that are a model of invention, variation, and

continuity, while the Chaconne in G minor is a wonderful

admixture of melancholy and brilliance. A Fuga à 4. Themati

(no. 23) is a Fugue in C major with four subjects in

invertible counterpoint that ought to be required fare for

every student pianist. A second volume, Barenreiter 8406,

contains those works of Johann Krieger transmitted through

manuscript, rather than print sources, and the entire extant

keyboard repertory from Johann Philipp Krieger, of which an

eight-measure Aria with 24 variations is perhaps the most

interesting.