German, Cologne-based organist-composer-improviser (and also singer-songwriter) Annie Bloch and cellist-composer-improviser Emily Wittbrodt deconstruct and recompose German composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s Prelude and Fugue in C Minor for organ, «Präludium und Fuge in c-Moll op. 37 Nr. 1», which acknowledged J.S. Bach’s compositional legacy.
The Mendelssohn-Project is introduced by a faithful, reverent interpretation of Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s «Präludium und Fuge in c-Moll op. 37 Nr. 1» by organist Ralf Borghoff (the deanery church musician for the Archdiocese of Paderborn in Erwitte) with Wittbrodt. The following seven irreverent variations, composed and played by Bloch and Wittbrodt, use Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s composition as a starting point and attempt to play with its time-conception and open and stretch its motives, through their own personal aesthetic and languages.
The album was recorded at the Liebfrauenkirche in Hamm and uses its space’s acoustic qualities as an integral element in Bloch and Wittbrodt’s variations. Their perspectives on Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s composition are spiced by quotes from the original compositions, and fed by their own experiences of playing classical and contemporary music, jazz, free improvised, and folk music. They allow the music to gravitate organically into meditative soundscapes, experimental drones, provocative improvisations, and catchy, song-like forms that stress the lasting beauty of Mendelssohn Bartholdy’s composition as well as the free spirit of Bloch and Wittbrodt. They again in Bloch’s singer-songwriter album I Depend (Papercup,
Eyal Hareuveni
Annie Bloch (organ), Emily Wittbrodt (cello), Ralf Borghoff (organ)
