Bartmuß Richard: Organ Sonatas 1 & 3 - Chorale Fantasiasias (SACD)

It was only natural that an artist with such an encyclopaedic bent as Friedhelm Flamme would one day turn his attention to the work of the organist and composer Richard Bartmuss (18591910). On the one hand, forays into the late Romantic period are likely to provide a welcome counterbalance to the organ music of the North German Baroque, which cpo has recently released on a total of 22 CDs; on the other hand, the work of this contemporary of Mahler and Strauss, who served as court organist in Dessau starting in 1890, deserves attention not limited to occasional music. To date, only a fraction of Bartmuss's surviving compositions have been published. Friedhelm Flamme's small but dramaturgically successful selection opens up a vast, promising field that urgently needs to be explored. The two (of four) sonatas, the two great chorale fantasies, the powerful Prelude and the magnificent Toccata from Opus 36 are convincing testimonies to this.