Collectors keeping tabs on CPO’s ongoing survey devoted to Sigfrid Karg-Elert’s complete works for harmonium will get a special kick out of Volume 4. About 105 of its 130 minutes are devoted to a remarkable series of Portraits (Dreiunddreissig Portraits Op. 101 Books 1 and 2), short pieces deliberately written in the style and spirit of major composers throughout music history–that is, if Palestrina, Rameau, Haydn, Johann Strauss Jr., Tchaikovsky, Berlioz, Chopin, Debussy, and others had written solo harmonium pieces. It turns out that Karg-Elert possessed a keen ear for musical mimicry, and if you know the originals well enough, chances are that you’ll be able to guess the portrait subjects without a score card, so to speak.
Weber’s florid note-spinning is mirrored in an ersatz clarinet concertino, while a wistful serenade adds up to a Tchaikovsky crash course. If you’ve longed for a three-minute Bruckner Adagio (as opposed to the usual 15 to 25 minutes), Karg-Elert delivers an eerily perfect replica. There’s a fake Wagner Vorspiel, a clever Bach chamber cantata, and a wickedly accurate burlesque of Reger on a chromatic bender. In “Abstraction”, Karg-Elert starts out to imitate Schoenberg, but winds up expressing himself. And the Sinding and Macdowell take-offs transcend their original inspiration tenfold. The remaining smaller pieces filling out the discs need no special comment, other than that their charm is self-evident. The sweet-toned, evenly regulated harmonium d’art made by the Victor Mustel Company in 1913 comes engagingly alive under the assured fingers and caring musicianship of Johannes Matthias Michel. Moreover, his excellently researched notes are both vivid and informative. Fascinating stuff.
