Organ Workshop in Arnstadt

Workshop with Prof. Pieter van Dijk (Alkmaar/Amsterdam, NL), Dr. Christine Blanken and Dr. Markus Zepf (Leipzig Bach Archive), Dr. Tomasz Górny (University of Warsaw) and walk through the unique Bach city of Arnstadt

Workshop for interested laypeople, part-time organists and students
- Active participation: € 110
(additional enrolment at: orgelworkshop@bach-leipzig.de) – 10 people max.
- Passive participation: € 88
Both include transport and meals.
Course languages: mainly English

Start: 8.30 am (from St. Thomas, main entrance), return: aprox. 7.00 pm

Active participants have 30 minutes on the instrument to work on one piece Pieter van Dijk. Please let us know which piece you have prepared by writing to orgelworkshop@bach-leipzig.de (contact persons: Christine Blanken and Markus Zepf)

About the programme

The 18-year-old Johann Sebastian Bach was appointed organist of the Neue Kirche, or »New Church«, in Arnstadt in 1703. This is where his compositional style becomes apparent for the first time. Unlike many organists of his time, he not only improvises but also allows his ideas to mature. He consciously drafts them as compositions. In doing so, he strikes a tone all of his own, having previously appropriated a multitude of techniques from old masters such as Pachelbel, Böhm, Buxtehude, or his own organist ancestors, Johann Michael and Johann Christoph.

The chorale partitas are some of the most extensive organ works by the young Johann Sebastian Bach. Here, Bach takes up the old organistic tradition of playing a well-known hymn using a multitude of different stylistic means in virtuoso style. The works that we will be hearing during the course and concert date from his time in Arnstadt (1703–1707):

Christ, der du bist der helle Tag, BWV 766
O Gott, du frommer Gott, BWV 767
Ach, was soll ich Sünder machen, BWV 770
Herr Christ, der einig Gottes Sohn, BWV 1176

The course will focus secondly on the free organ works from this period. Many of these preludes exist in several versions, in which Bach tries out different forms and figuration patterns and continuously changes details. The fugues are based on thematic models, but whether they belonged to any given prelude at the time they were written is by no means certain.

Among these works is probably the most famous Arnstadt organ work: the Toccata in D minor, BWV 565. Besides this experimental and inspired organ work, the course and concert programme also includes the following works:

Prelude and Fugue in C major, BWV 531
Prelude and Fugue in E Minor, BWV 533
Prelude (early version) and Fugue in G minor, BWV 535

In the organ workshop, we will explore the distinctive features of these works: from the musicological perspective in the light of current Bach research and in their practical implementation on the Wender organ. All standard music editions are suitable.

Thematic focus
- Bach as organist in Arnstadt: instrument and tasks
- Problems with superiors, problems with pupils – challenges in the everyday life of an organist
- Biographical information about the Bach family in Arnstadt: a long tradition
- The chorale partitas: hymn texts, genesis of the compositions and Bach’s musical rhetoric
- The Arnstadt free organ works: Bach’s »stylus phantasticus« and his models
- Possibilities of expression through registration
- The Toccata in D minor, BWV 565: why is it so famous – and notorious? Is it by Bach at all?

About the organ
The two-manual organ by Johann Friedrich Wender (1703) in the Neue Kirche, now the Bachkirche (»Bach Church«), has features characteristic of Thuringian organ-building and offers a particularly wide range of tone colour. The instrument had a significant influence on the young Bach’s music. (Specification)

Photo: Markus Zepf

About the teachers
Prof. Pieter van Dijk has been Professor of Organ at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam since 1989 and in 1995 was appointed Professor of Organ, Liturgical Organ-playing and Methodology at the University of Music and Theatre in Hamburg. He is the town organist of Alkmaar and organist of Sint Laurenskerk there. During the last five years, he has recorded J. S. Bach’s complete organ works on historical organs (www.dmp-records.nl).

Dr. Christine Blanken has worked in the research department of the Leipzig Bach Archive since 2005. After completing the new index of Bach works, BWV3 (2022), one of the principal focuses of her work at present is the edition of the great organ chorales as part of the New Bach Edition – Revised: the first volume will be published by Bärenreiter in 2023. She also works part-time as organist of St. Laurentius’ in Leipzig-Leutzsch.

Dr. Tomasz Górny studied literature at Jagiellonian University in Kraków and organ at the Conservatorium van Amsterdam (under Jacques van Oortmerssen and Pieter van Dijk). Since 2016 he has been a research associate at the University of Warsaw (Institute of Musicology). He has had articles published in international musicology journals such as Early Music, Bach-Jahrbuch and Notes.

Dr. Markus Zepf has worked at the Leipzig Bach Archive since 2016. He is a part-time organist and qualified organ expert, and wrote his doctoral thesis on the organ. One main focus of his research work is instrument-building in the world of Johann Sebastian Bach. At the Leipzig Bach Archive he is responsible for the biannual Bach-Magazin and in 2021 published the Festschrift (commemorative publication) for the organ anniversary in Rötha