Theophil Andreas Volckmar was one year younger than Bach and

was an organist in Danzig (now Gdansk) when he published

his Kirchen-Sonaten auff eyne und drey Clavieren

und Pedal bestehende Orgel (1717), from which these three

short volumes are drawn. The compositional "ingredients" in

these works—sonorous chords, runs, pedal solos,

arpeggiandi, alternating tempos, repeated note fugue

subjects, a traditional fugue subject, dynamic coloration,

and obliggato writing for separate claviers—suggest the

style of the North German toccata, but they seem to aspire

more toward concerto-like writing, though without any

straightforward tutti-solo scheme such as Bach was fortunate

to have encountered, in Vivaldi and others, some years

earlier. These works might therefore make a good complement

to, say, one of the shorter transcriptions in Bach's solo

concerto repertory. It not always clear whether some of the

long stretches of bass are meant to be taken by pedal or

manual, but there are indications, in places, of an

interesting performance practice in which given passages are

taken by both.

© The American Organist