For his second volume of German organ music, Joseph Payne has selected works representative of Renaissance, Baroque, and Classical styles of organ writing. The majority of these pieces reflect the dominance of the Lutheran chorale, and the treatments of these melodies -- as chorale preludes, fantasias, and variations -- are central to this disc's program. In the works of Renaissance composers, such as Arnolt Schlick and Hieronymus Praetorius, the melody is elaborated with simple counterpoint but kept rather close to the strict Catholic tradition of composition over a cantus firmus. The flowering of the chorale in extended forms reaches its high point in the works of Johann Pachelbel, Dietrich Buxtehude, and J.S. Bach, and Baroque organ literature is replete with examples of their sweeping influences. But the advent of the Classical era, with its emphasis on secular forms, brought a decline in organ composition, and composers such as Johann Gottfried Walther, Johann Christian Kittel, and Johann Ludwig Krebs were among the last to add anything original to the chorale genre until Mendelssohn's nineteenth century revival. Payne's informed and sensitive performances are appropriate to the various styles, and the instruments he played for this recording -- located in Massachusetts, Iowa, Stockholm, and Wiesbaden -- are almost as varied in their registrations. ~ Blair Sanderson, All Music Guide
