The period leading of Easter is the period of one of the most beautiful choral melodies I know: the melody “O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden”. That I;m not the only one who’s fond of this melody is shown by the fact that this melody was reused for several other chorals, for example “Lass mich dein sein und bleiben” and “Herzlicht tut mich verlangen”. And there is a very large body of music, based on this melody. Since Easter is only a few weeks away this is a good time to play some compositions from this enormous wealth of organ music, based on this melody.
Georg Philipp Telemann (1681–1767) was a German Baroque composer and multi-instrumentalist. After studying in Magdeburg, Zellerfeld, and Hildesheim, Telemann entered the University of Leipzig to study law, but eventually settled on a career in music. He held important positions in Leipzig, Sorau, Eisenach, and Frankfurt before settling in Hamburg in 1721, where he became musical director of the city’s five main churches.
Telemann was one of the most prolific composers in history (at least in terms of surviving oeuvre) and was considered by his contemporaries to be one of the leading German composers of the time.
He is not primarily known as a composer of music for organ. Nevertheless he did write a small body of chorale preludes.
The prelude to “Herzlich tut mich verlangen” has the choral melody in the bass voice. The manuscript indicates that it can be played with the pedals if the organist so choses. So that is what I do here.
The recording was done with the Hauptwerk software and the sampleset, made by Sonus Paradisi, of the Hinsz organ in the Reformed church in the Midwolda (http://www.sonusparadisi.cz/en/organs/netherlands/midwolda-surround-sample-set.html).
Score available here: http://partitura.org/index.php/georg-philipp-telemann-herzlich-tut-mich-verlangen-twv-3121/