Organist Harold Julander

FOUR B'S AND JULANDER COMBINE IN STYLISH INCARNATION ORGAN RECITAL

Church of the Incarnation principal organist Harold Julander played a sterling recital of 16th-Century organ music Sept. 14 at Incarnation, titled Prelude and Fugues by Four Baroque B’s.

Those “B’s” were composers Boehm, Bruhns, Buxtehude, and Bach. The work of these four composers spanned the time 1661 - 1750 when a rich north European mercantile trade supplied the funding for both composers and the construction of grand pipe organs on a new scale of braggadocio.

Mr. Julander played the four preludes and fugues with the sensitive articulated touch and the educated nuances of timing necessary for interpreting the organ music of that time. That music was usually improvisatory and known as Stylus Fantasticus, alternatively bombastic and delicate. The music builds around simple melodic themes, repeated and inverted in each of four voices while wildly-repeated 16th notes embellish. Organ virtuosity was heard in Mr. Julander's ability to maintain the thematic material clearly while upholding auditory interest in the repeated ornamentation.

Boehm’s Prelude and Fugue in G Minor and Bruhn’s Prelude and Fugue in E Minor are similar in style, the Boehm opening with the motif in grand chords and the theme repeats with sprightly ornaments in the fugue. Bruhns repeats a chromatic theme in seven highly ornamented short sections, which avail to the organist an opportunity to choose a variety of colorful registrations. Buxtehude’s Prelude and Fugue in D Major is built on an even grander scale than that of the other composers with flying arpeggios and dancing octaves in the pedal bass.

Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in B Minor (BWV 544) is music more tightly woven than that of his predecessors and is totally balanced in counterpoint. This work is one of the five called the Great Preludes and Fugues, written in his final years in Leipzig. It has a Vivaldi style with alternating complex contrapuntal ascending and descending events. Julander chose to play the prelude with a quiet and soothing lyrical registration, followed by the grand marching fugue in full organ. It was a perfectly satisfying conclusion.

This recital of Baroque organ music required a grand instrument and an experienced artist, and we had both in the monthly AGO twilight mini recital recital by Mr. Julander.