Vol. 3 - Sunday Music, Two Chorale Fantasies, Laudes, A festive Voluntary

Gunther Rost at the Schuke organ in the Neubaukirche Würzburg, Germany
(Motette 2005, a co-production with Bavarian Radio Bayerischer Rundfunk)

The third volume of the Petr Eben series with Gunther Rost was produced in cooperation with the Bayerischer Rundfunk. In this production for the first time multichannel technique was used for making an SACD. The Graz organ professor chose the Schuke organ in the Würzburg university church for this recording. Besides Eben's best known piece, the Sunday Music, it includes the Two Chorale Fantasies, the Laudes and A Festive Voluntary-Variations on Good King Wenceslas.

- Comprehensive booklet with commentary on the works and music examples,
in German and English -

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Sunday Music

In 1957/58 Petr Eben wrote the Sunday Music, his first great organ cycle, although the organ, traditionally an instrument of the church, had largely been banned from the cultural life of his home country for political reasons. "I felt that I had to write something for the organ [...]; however, I was aware and almost expected that the score would be locked up in my desk", Petr Eben writes. What is more remarkable, the Sunday Music turned out to be one of Eben's most frequently played compositions - habent sua fata libelli! [i.e. "Books have their own stories" - a Latin saying quoted by Eben in this context.]

Two Chorale Fantasies

Written for the 1972 Prague Spring festival organ competition, the Two Chorale Fantasies are both marked by virtuosity.

The first fantasy is called O Bože veliký. For the second fantasy the composer chose an ancient Bohemian tune (Svatý Václave), traditionally sung on the occasion of the coronation of the Bohemian kings, which is still popular today.

Although the two songs are different in character, the two pieces still form a unity.

Laudes

Petr Eben's preface to Laudes (1964) contains the key idea to his composition:

The cycle is rooted in the idea that our century is utterly ungrateful: ungrateful towards the people around us, towards the world and most ungrateful towards its creator. And so perhaps the most urging task of the arts is it to praise the Lord, otherwise "the stones would cry out" as the Scripture says. So therefore, "Laudes" [i.e. may you praise].

A Festive Voluntary - Variations on Good King Wenceslas

A Festive Voluntary - Variations on "Good King Wenceslas" is a composition Eben was commissioned to do for the consecration of the renovated organ at Chichester Cathedral. Its joyful and festive character demonstrates the richness of tone colors of the renovated instrument.

With the English Christmas carol about King Wenceslas, a Czech national saint, Eben forges links between his and his patrons' home country.

SACD

SACDs, Super Audio CDs, are a special type of DVD developed by Sony and Philips. SACDs carry only tonal information (music, language, sounds) and are thus the successor medium of the conventional audio CD.

With high-quality headphones or loudspeakers, SACDs achieve noticeably better sound reproduction than digital audio CDs thanks to significantly higher sampling frequencies, broader frequency spectrum and expanded dynamics.

The Super Audio CD format utilizes multichannel Surround Sound and Dolby Digital with up to six channels. As so-called hybrid discs, SACDs can be played on conventional CD players, with reproduction reduced to CD quality.

Gunther Rost, Orgel / organ
(Universitätskirche Würzburg)

PETR EBEN: DAS ORGELWERK III / ORGAN WORKS VOL. 3