Rudolf Löw, Nun komm der Heiden Heiland

This is my entry for the Secrets of Organ Playing contest, week 49. I thought I was through my list of possible publications of this year's Christmas period. Luckily I found a manuscript containing three new compositions for the Christmas period, hitherto unpublished. This is the first, and I thought it a nice idea to make it an entry for this week's contest.

Rudolf Löw (1832 - 1898) was a Swiss organist and composer. He was a student of Carl Ferdinand Becker (Orgel) and Ignaz Moscheles (Piano). In 1864 he became first organist in the newly build Elisabethkirch. As composer he wrote mostly in a style inspired by the old masters of counterpoint like Bach and Händel. With the exception of a few Lieder, his output as a composer was never printed.

The Sächsische Landes- und Universitätsbibliothek in Dresden posesses a manuscript of 12 organcompositions by Löw's hand. It is his opus 1, which he dedicated to his teacher Carl Ferdinand Becker. I intend to publish all 2 compositions, starting with the three chorale preludes suited for the Christmas period.

The first one of these (it's actually the seventhe composition in the manuscript) is a fugue on the first phrase of the chorale melody "Nun komm der Heiden Heiland". Firmly set in the style antico, though with more modern harmonies, it shows Löw's versitality in counterpoint. Each of the four voices plays the theme three times: first in the exposition, then in the course of the middle part, and finally in the concluding stretto. The order in each of the three presentations of the theme, exposition, middle and stretto is the same: soprano, alto, tenor and bass.

It is a well written piece, though a bit dry and scholarship like. Nevertheless, with the Advent period near, it can come in handy for any organist looking for something new. As far as I know this composition has never been published before.

The recording was done with the Hauptwerk software and the sample set, made by Voxus, of the Van Dam organ (1832) in Tholen (http://www.voxusorgans.com/en/tholen).

Score: http://partitura.org/index.php/rudolf-low-nun-komm-der-heiden-heiland