Adam Brakel plays the organ built in 1962 by Rudolf von Beckerath of Hamburg, Germany, with 4 manuals, 67 stops, 97 ranks, at St. Paul Cathedral, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Niels Wilhelm Gade: Drei Tönstucke, op. 22

No. 1 in F Major

No. 2 in C Major

No. 3 in A Minor

Charles-Marie Widor: Mvt. 1 Allegro vivace from Symphony No. 5 in F Minor for organ

Three Passacaglias:

Dietrich Buxtehude: Passacaglia in D Minor, BuxWV 161

J. S. Bach: Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 582

Vincent Rone: Passacaglia in F Minor

Nicolaus Bruhns: Praeludium in G Major

Nicolas de Grigny: Récit de Tierce en taille from Premier Livre d’Orgue

Petr Eben: Moto Ostinato and Finale from Sunday Music

Reviews James Hildreth in The American Organist, July 2015:
For this, his second CD (the first, Romantic and Virtuosic, was reviewed in the Oct. 2014 TAO), Adam Brakel has chosen a substantial, eclectic program that follows a historical path, documenting times of crisis and instability in society, as reflected in music. Brakel's fellow Duquesne University alum (and composer of one of the works on this program) Vincent Rone has written thoughtful, perspicacious program notes relating the music of each historical period to salient social conditions of that time. These include the 30 Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, the French Revolution of 1789, the 1848 Revolution and the rise of nationalism in the 19th century, "program music" versus "absolute music," the decline of French organ music after the early 1700s, and the conflicts arising from the issues surrounding the world wars and the rise of communism during the 20th century.
The repertoire, in order of performance, includes the Drei Tonstucke of Niels Wilhelm Gade, considered the foremost Danish composer of the 19th century. These works, full of rich harmonic, melodic, and contrapuntal invention, deserve much more recognition than they presently receive. Brakel performs them with drama and virtuosic flair. The Allegro vivace from Widor's Symphony No. 5 that comes next is given an exciting, animated performance with controlled rhythmic drive. Three passacaglias follow: the Passacaglia in D Minor of Buxtehude. Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, and the Passacaglia in F Minor composed by Vincent Rone in 2006. The latter work is influenced by works in the same genre by Reger and Willan, as well as parts of Howard Shore's score for Lord of the Rings. It is a well-constructed, compelling work that rightfully deserves its place alongside other major passacaglias. Brakel performs the demanding work with conviction and aplomb. Other early works are Praeludium in G Major of Bruhns and de Grigny's Recit de tierce en taille from the Premier Livre d'Orgue. Brakel's performances of the early works are historically informed without being bound by pedantic adherence to the "rules" of authenticity. They are rendered with a natural musicality that highlights the elements of affekt and stylus phatasticus that permeate these works. Hisregistrations in the passacaglias and praeludium are varied and stylistically appropriate, utilizing many of the Beckerath's tonal resources that are congenial to the music. Brakel concludes the program with spellbinding performances of Petr Eben's Moto Ostinato and Finale from Sunday Music. He intrepidly renders the notoriously difficult passages with apparent ease and clarity. These are among the best recorded performances of Eben's music.
Brakel was associate organist of St. Paul Cathedral in Pittsburgh during his time as a student at Duquesne. It was on this organ that he began his professional career. Ideally located high in the gallery, it is an instrument with which he is clearly familiar and that he holds in high regard. This was the first mechanical-action organ to be installed in a North American cathedral in the 20th century. The wide swath of repertoire provides Brakel an opportunity, which he brilliantly seizes, to explore the many facets of tone available on the large instrument. The recording highlights the spacious acoustical environment into which the organ speaks from its lofty position, giving the listener the effect of hearing it from below, in the nave.
Adam Brakel is quickly earning a well-deserved reputation as one of the finest young organists in the profession. His playing is distinguished for its energy, passion, transcendent virtuosity that serves the music without distracting, and, most importantly, musical maturity and communicative power. Here are stunning performances by one of the finest young organists on the scene, on one of North America's finest instruments.

Reviews James Palmer in The Organ, Feb-Apr 2015:
   " . . . Adam Brakel 's programme is particularly interesting, as the title suggests, although one may query certain elements in terms of 'times of crisis', in that the point could probably be stretched to apply to almost any era in European history from the last half-millennium.
    But the choice of repertoire from over 300 years is particularly unusual, and the opening Drei Tonstucke by Niels Gade is a real find - not often heard - the music fits this fine instrument very well indeed. Brakel is a truly fine musician and admirable technician, an organist with an intriguing approach to programming in terms of planning individual programmes.
    The concluding movements from Eben's 'Sunday Music' are particularly well conveyed, the subdominant writing in the Moto Ostinato is very well done, and although some may feel the Finale outstays its welcome - though not in this perfor:mance - the trilogy of passacaglias make a suitable centre-piece in this recital, most effectively in Vincent Rone's F minor impressive composition (one would be keen to hear more music by this composer). An excellent CD.

The Organ

The first mechanical action organ to be installed in a North American cathedral in the 20th century, this organ was the dream of Paul Koch, the Music Director and Organist 1949-1989 of St. Paul Cathedral. The death of G. Donald Harrison in 1956 as well as cost overages and delays led to cancellation of a contract with Aeolian-Skinner which had been signed in 1955 for construction of their op. 1318 to have been completed by August, 1957, with four manuals and 73 ranks. After visiting mechanical action organs by many prominent builders in Germany, Denmark and Switzerland, the dialogue with Beckerath to build the organ at St. Paul Cathedral began in earnest. Paul Koch asked Beckerath to come to Pittsburgh and the rest is history. Robert Noehren, Paul Koch and Rudolf von Beckerath were in consultation on a regular basis about the instrument. The dedication week was filled with music including concerts by Paul Koch, Robert Noehren, E. Power Biggs, and Fernando Germani.

The organ is a four manual and pedal design with a divided Rückpositiv on the gallery railing.

The organ was restored in 2009 by Taylor and Boody of Staunton, Virginia. George Taylor had met Rudolf von Beckerath at St. Paul Cathedral as the organ was being completed in 1962, and arranged an apprenticeship with Beckerath to commence two years later after Taylor’s graduation from Washington and Lee University in Lexington, Virginia. In 1961, Taylor had visited the Beckerath organ and the crew installing it (but not Beckerath, himself) at the University of Richmond. The Hamburg apprenticeship of Taylor lasted three and one-half years.

The restoration included replacement of the original pneumatic slider motors with electric ones, installation of a 256-level combination action (26 general pistons, 6 divisional pistons, 4 Pedal division pistons), and addition of the Great to Pedal coupler. Restorative work included replacement of seventeen collapsing 32’ Principal pipes of zinc with new pipes of tin, replacement of five collapsing interior 32’ Principal pipes, restoration of the console, strengthening of the sides and back of the case, cleaning and repair of all pipes, and  polishing and lacquering all facade pipes.

1962 Rudolf von Beckerath, Hamburg, Germany
St. Paul’s Cathedral, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Great (C-g3)

16’ Principal

8’ Principal

4’ Octave

2-2/3’ Quinte

2’ Octave

V  Mixture

IV Scharf

16’ Trumpet

8’ Trumpet

4’ Trumpet

Swell/Great

Rückpostiv/Great

Solo/Great

Swell (C-g3)

16’ Quintadena

8’ Violflöte

8’ Flute

8’ Gemshorn

8’ Gemshornceleste

4’ Violflöte

4’ Nachthorn

2-2/3’ Nasat

2’ Blockflöte

VI Mixture

V Cornet

16’ Fagott

8’ Oboe

4’ Schalmei

8’ Trompette-en-chamade

4’ Clairon-en-chamade

Tremulant

8’ Principal

8’ Quintadena

8’ Rohrflöte

4’ Octave

4’ Blockflöte

2-2/3’ Nasat

2’ Octave

2’ Gemshorn

1-1/3’ Quinte

V Scharf

II Sesquialtera

16’ Bärpfeife

8’ Cromorne       

Solo (C-g3)

8’ Gedackt

4’ Principal

4’ Rohrflöte

2-2/3’ Quintflöte

2’ Waldflöte

1-3/5’ Tierce

1-1/3’ Nasat

1’ Sifflöte

III Cymbel

8’ Vox Humana

4’ Musette

Tremulant

Pedal (C-g1)

32’ Principal

16’ Principal

16’ Subbasse

16’ Flute

8’ Octave

8’ Spielflöte

4’ Octave

4’ Rohrflöte

2’ Nachthorn

VI Mixture

III Rauschpfeife

32’ Posaune

16’ Fagott

16’ Posaune

8’ Trumpet

4’ Trumpet

Sw/Ped

Gt/Ped (2008)

Adam Brakel

Adam Brakel pursues the dual career of concert artist and church musician, playing frequent organ recitals in the U. S. and abroad as well as directing the music program at St. Frances Xavier Cabrini Parish in the Diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida.

Having transitioned from prodigy to mature musician, Brakel completed in 2010 the Graduate Performance Diploma from Peabody Conservatory, Baltimore, where he had earlier completed the master’s degree, studying with Donald Sutherland as the recepient of multiple scholarships. While at Peabody, Brakel was guest assisting organist at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC.

Adam Brakel was awarded an American Guild of Organists scholarship as a junior in high school and then enrolled at Duquesne University where he studied organ with John Walker and David Craighead as well as harpsichord with Rebecca Rollett, graduating magna cum laude in 2006 and receiving the Andre Marchal Award for Excellence in Performance. While a student at Duquesne, Brakel became the associate organist at St. Paul Roman Catholic Cathedral in Pittsburgh and was seen and heard throughout western Pennsylvania during several weekly television broadcasts as he played for Masses and accompanied the choir.

He then enrolled at Juilliard, receiving numerous awards including the John Dexter Bush Scholarship and the Alice Tully Award. In New York, he became assistant organist at the Church of St. Ignatius Loyola, playing for choral performances, masses, rehearsals and concerts. He also performed at St. Patrick’s Cathedral and Central Synagogue. At age 25, he was appointed director of music and organist at St. Ignatius Cathedral in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, becoming one of few young directors of cathedral music programs in the world, serviing two years before promotion to another post in St. Petersburg.

As a performer and a top prize winner of many competitions, Adam Brakel distinguished himself in the Albert Schweitzer Organ Competition, the Reuter/Augustana Arts Undergraduate Organ Competition, the Gruenstein Memorial Organ Competition, the John Rodland Memorial Scholarship Competition, the French Organ Music Seminar Competition, and the Carlene Neihart International Organ Competition. He played concert tours in Europe in 2009-2014 and studied in France in 2008, performing in Toulouse.

Starting musical studies at the age of four and declared a prodigy in his youth, Adam Brakel was compared to Liszt, Gould, Bernstein, and Paganini. National Public Radio in Florida called him “an absolute organ prodigy, with the technique and virtuosity that most concert pianists could only dream of, and having the potential to be the leading organist of his generation . . . the Franz Liszt of the organ.” The internationally known organist Gillian Weir said of Brakel, “He is to be commended for his devotion to the art of performance, and to music itself.”                                www.adambrakel.com

In Times of Crisis

Notes by Vincent Rone

While many scholars have taken the well-trodden path of reading the social into music, themes of crisis have consistently generated interesting, sometimes contentious, and often provocative discourse. For good reason, too. Music, like any true art, has never ceased to anticipate and codify the state of societies we construct and inhabit. Adam Brakel musically traverses critical and fluctuating periods of history through the vehicle of the pipe organ. This instrument has endured to tell of such stories through its vast body of music that can offer us a glimpse into a dynamic past when played by an imaginative and historical musician. Adam chose a variegated repertory and narrates times of crisis that have transcended both the instrument and its compositions. His music-making ushers the careful listener into these social and aesthetic transformations in medias res. And there is perhaps nowhere more fitting to begin a theme of crisis framed through organ music than in the seventeenth century.

The economic crisis of the first half of the seventeenth century, culminating in the Thirty Years’ War and the Peace of Westphalia of 1648, critically affected all areas of European life. With regard to music, the dramatic, mercurial shifts of figuration, texture, harmony, and form paralleled a constantly shifting political and economic terrain. In fact, instrumental music from this time proffers a delicious irony. On the one hand, the steady production of art between patron and craftsman (e.g. composer) suggested authority and stability in a society that conspicuously lacked and longed for it. On the other hand, emerging practices in instrumental music mapped the disintegration of old and the introduction of new social procedures through several examples: the shift from modal to nascent tonal language; the negotiation between established polyphonic and emergent homophonic textures. Finally, textless instrumental music did not possess the structural and “representational” support that texted music had. As music reflected these critical shifts in European society, composers inevitably sought new, different means of expression.

Nicolas de Grigny (1672–1703) followed in the French tradition of compiling books of his compositions, and his “Récit de Tierce en taille” belongs to the Premier Livre d’Orgue Contenant use Messe et les Hymnes des Principales Festes de l’Année (1699). Among the composers of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century French Organ School, de Grigny’s works most successfully navigate the transition from polyphony to homophony, as he organically alternates between the two textures. He incorporates more pedal writing and more contrast in stop registration when compared to his contemporaries. Originating as a vocal genre, the Récit’s opening melody—a descending arpeggio—appears among the voices in the hands, suggesting polyphonic treatment. Toward the middle of the piece, however, de Grigny subtly shifts texture to homophony as the tenor melody receives a richly ornamented and scalar melody, while the accompaniment recedes. Finally, these two sections demonstrate harmonic polarity, as well. On the one hand, the polyphonic sections are in the Phrygian mode. On the other hand, the central homophonic section takes a turn towards tonality with its circle-of-fifths harmony. The “Récit de Tierce en taille” has remained one of de Grigny’s most popular pieces for its expressivity and seamless shifts between contrasting textures and harmony.

Nicolaus Bruhns (1665–1697), however, starkly juxtaposes this textural binary in his sparkling Praeludium in G Major. Modeling the preludes of his mentor Buxtehude, this multi-sectional work also shows the interplay between gestures of restraint and abandon in the stylus phantasticus of the North German School. First appearing in Athanasius Kircher’s treatise Musurgia universalis (1650), the “fantastic style” is bound to issues of rhetoric and speech. An explicit feature of vocal music now was made implicit in instrumental music, illustrative of the seventeenth century’s crises. For example, the homophonic sections of the Bruhn’s Praeludium suggest the freedom of a recitative, while the imitative sections receive deliberate formal expositions akin to an aria. The fugal subject in this selection show Bruhns’s formidable technique via six-voice imitation, replete with double pedal, and the North-German penchant for repeated notes and his own for dance-like melodies.

Dances have also enjoyed a privileged status among seventeenth and eighteenth-century instrumental music. The seventeenth-century Spanish passacaglia began as a guitar improvisation between strophes of a song. These improvisations eventually acquired some general features over the next century. They typically had a basso ostinato, embellishments of I–IV–V–I harmony, and were in triple meter but not always. In the hands of the North German School, the passacaglia became especially effective for highlighting moments of tension and release because of its repetitive nature.

Dietrich Buxtehude’s (1637–1707) passacaglia conspicuously shifts between homophonic, almost overt vocal writing to florid contrapuntal writing. Most likely written after 1690, his overarching harmonic organization also charts the Early-Modern period’s transition from old to new as seen in the decline of modality and the rise of tonality; Buxtehude outlines the tonic triad in this D-minor passacaglia, symmetrically divided into four sections of seven ostinato repetitions (twenty-eight statements total). The first seven begin in D minor, followed by seven in F major. The next set is in A major, returning to D minor. Within this overall harmonic plan and his use of localized harmonies, Buxtehude’s passacaglia enforces an emerging tonality that Bach was to codify in 1722 with the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier.

By the time J. S. Bach (1685–1750) wrote his famous Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor BWV 582 (1706/13), his characteristic dense and imitative counterpoint and seemingly endless musical lines were becoming passé in the first half of the eighteenth century. Many consider Bach’s organ music to summarize seventeenth-century practices. His passacaglia, therefore, almost systematically exhausts the rhetorical and vocal-made- instrumental figurations of this epoch. Performers and scholars have even grouped the variations into seven groups of three, each “hiding” quotations of various chorale melodies. The piece also demonstrates how much musical material the composer can yield from a simple eight-bar theme. Bach states the melody twenty-one times before subjecting it to a culminating double fugue, which accounts for one of his most dramatic and important organ works. Bach took the passacaglia to expressive heights with his one and only example. Throughout the eighteenth century, however, the passacaglia experienced a crisis of its own and fell into disuse until Johannes Brahms revived it in the finale for his Symphony No. 4 in E minor, Op. 98. The passacaglia began to resurface in works like Joseph Rheinberger’s Organ Sonata No. 8, Op. 132; Cesar Franck’s B-Minor Chorale; Arnold Schoenberg’s “Nacht” in Pierrot Lunaire; Anton Webern’s First Symphony; and, of course, Max Reger, who wrote six in his oeuvre (Op. 16, 33, 63, 96, 123, and the famous D-minor passacaglia without opus number from 1900).

Reger’s D-minor Introduktion und Passacaglia, Healey Willan’s Introduction, Passacaglia, and Fugue in E-flat Minor, and, interestingly enough, Howard Shore’s score to The Lord of the Rings constitute the immediate models for the following work. Taken from Vincent Rone’s (b. 1980) larger Prelude, Toccata, and Passacaglia in F-minor, “The Fall” (2006), this work completes Adam Brakel’s trio selection of this musical form. Breaking tone and theme for a moment, it is difficult to see any kind of historical situated-ness of a piece so new. Second, since I composed the work, I admittedly hesitate to write about my own music in the company and history of such great composers. As for the work’s history, Adam and I were students together at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. and we both learned the Reger passacaglia under our mutual mentor John Walker, the dedicatee of the work. It was also first performed by another student of his, Katherine Scott, in 2006 and 2008.

The gradual crescendo of the organ, accretion of texture, and development of figurations betray study of the Reger and Healey Willan models, but the harmonic plan and part of the basso ostinato melody owe two scenes in the The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. The first is Shore’s harmonic progression after Gandalf’s fall in Moria: i–VI–III–VII in minor (or iv–IV–I–V in major). The second traces a similar but elaborated harmonic pattern sung by treble voices in the “Farewell to Lorien” scene of the film’s extended version. I elaborate on these references, but they appear most deliberately in the eighth variation as the hands play chords atop moving triplets in the pedal. Shore’s choral excerpt made its way into the passacaglia, though situated within a nineteenth-century harmonic idiom.

Nineteenth-century composers, like those in the seventeenth century, were preoccupied with expressing Affekt as a general reaction to the effects of the French Revolution of 1789. The 1800s proper, however, felt its share of crisis and conflict. The 1848 Revolution and the rise of nationalism exerted tremendous influence on composers and fueled a growing debate over music’s capabilities: can it represent anything other than itself? On the one hand, the New German School—figures like Liszt, Wagner, and Smetana— represented the well-known “program music” aesthetic, while those who advocated what would later be called “absolute” music were initially based in Leipzig, Schumann and Mendelssohn and, later, Brahms. Much of Niels W. Gade’s (1817–1890) music figures largely into this aesthetic crisis of the mid-nineteenth century, as it aligns with the “conservative” composers.

Gade enjoyed a hugely successful professional life and was internationally recognized and hailed in his lifetime. He remains the premier nineteenth-century Danish composer, though Mendelssohn’s close association with him and championing of his music was critical for Gade’s success. They met in 1843 and Gade became the assistant director of the Gewandhaus Orchestra as well as professor at the Leipzig Conservatory. After Mendelssohn’s death in 1847, Gade briefly succeeded him as principal conductor at the Gewandhaus Orchestra. His Drei Tönstucke, Op. 22 (1852/3) reflects his musical relationship with Mendelssohn in several ways. In these three pieces, Gade privileges traditional forms (rounded binary and A-B-A), regular phrasing, rigorous counterpoint, and imitation of themes. The musical energy results from the composer’s masterful, transparent architecture, which deftly reflects the influence of his years in Leipzig. Composed in Leipzig, the Drei Tonstücke also offer a glimpse into this politically divided landscape. Bound to these pieces are the nascent “program vs. absolute” trope, the legacy of German musical aesthetics, and, the emergence of composers who represented entre nations with their music.

In addition to issues of national identity situated within musical discourse, France also experienced a number of crises in the nineteenth century. The decline of French organ composition after the early 1700s and France’s almost century-long precedent of written trivialities and organists’ almost exclusive reliance on improvisation raised major questions concerning the organ’s future. Several composers sought to construct a stable repertory that could revive the instrument in France as well as reestablish the French Organ School. While César Franck is traditionally recognized as the progenitor of this movement, Charles Marie Widor (1844–1937) contributed ten organ symphonies that almost systematically detailed the reinvention of the repertory and technique. Framing another crisis of the organ’s legacy, Widor wrote into these works the scope and color of the then modernized orchestra, which attempted to sustain the instrument’s capabilities and relevance within a highly competitive musical market.

Out of this context, his Symphony No. 5, Op. 42 (1887) proved to be the most popular and enduring of his works. A sort of instant classic, it has remained among the best-known compositions in all of organ literature. Widor establishes in the first movement an aggressive, chordal yet rhythmically supple theme—almost pianistic—to a substantial set of variations; here he demonstrates his pedagogical and aesthetic mission as well as his melodic inventiveness. Finally, flagging yet another musical crisis, Widor’s central variation historically speaks to chorale writing. Chorale writing, being intimately associated with Christian ritual and the instrument, contributed to the instrument’s decline in post-Enlightenment France. This history partially accounts for the reason why composers like Widor sought to revivify the instrument within a symphonic tradition. It is remarkable, then, that he uses this type of writing in the heart of an organ “symphony.”

The music of Czech composer Petr Eben (1929–2007) adequately reflects the time and crisis in which he lived. He was born in the Renaissance town of Ceský Krumlov and acquired a musical language that incorporated fifteenth through seventeenth-century musical techniques: double leading tones, landini cadences, modality, Gregorian chant citations, and echoing techniques. He also absorbed contemporary compositional techniques, which many have described as a paradoxical blend of German expressionism and French impressionism: octatonic and whole-tone based melodies with quartal and chromatic cluster chords. What situates this music into a theme of crisis, however, is that he composed Sunday Music not long after his internment at the Buchenwald concentration camp. The music also testifies to his choice to remain a Christian in resistance to Czech communist oppression. Being best remembered for his organ works, his Sunday Music (1957–9) presents the listener with a polystylistic, complex apparatus of socio-historical and religious conflict.

One can hear several of these old and new musical tropes at play in the “Moto Ostinato.” Characterized by an almost omnipresent rhythmic propulsion—Eben builds the entire piece on a one-bar motive—the performer must quickly shift manuals to simulate an echoing effect amidst jarring sonorities. The result is a thrilling alternation of light and dark flashes. The good-evil binaries seem even more apparent in the “Finale.” The opening theme juxtaposes two similar intervals, the tritone and the perfect fourth: a medieval-renaissance tonus diabolicus and post seventeenth-century tonal motion, respectively. Second, after a densely chromatic and almost violent opening, Eben steadily sheds the complex harmonic language as he approaches the center of the piece, becoming distinctly modal, “clearer,” as if it were paraphrasing plainchant. Eben returns to a torrential recapitulation of the main theme, presenting massive technical challenges to the performer before culminating in a canon of the “Salve Regina” chant. Eben’s music is often paired with that of Olivier Messiaen for the dramatic juxtaposition between light and dark. It is not difficult to perceive Sunday Music in the same vein as, say, Messiaen’s “Combat de Mort et de la Vie” from Les Corps Glorieux. And like much of Messiaen’s music, Eben’s conception of crisis in “Finale” resolves with a suggestion of religious transcendence.

Although these notes have framed discussion of these pieces within a theme of crisis, a clear, accurate communication of art—in this case a musical performance—transcends such contingencies and constructions. Adam Brakel presents the listener with starkly contrasting pieces. His thrilling interpretation of these pieces, however, highlight an artistic and historical sensitivity to social conditions in which these pieces were written.