Performance - The complete organ sonatas of August Gottfried Ritter
- Submitting institution
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Edinburgh Napier University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- 2143364
- Type
- I - Performance
- Venue(s)
- Kirche Altleisnig, Polditz
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of first performance
- September
- Year of first performance
- 2015
- URL
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https://portfolios.napier.ac.uk/view/view.php?t=u4MLdKgvlfAxE2wDnTpt
- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- Initial investigation involved research into suitable instruments and locations. Information from Henry Fairs, international recitalist, was helpful in directing me towards the organ in Polditz, the largest 3-manual instrument by Friedrich Ladegast in Saxony. Rehearsal on the instrument in Polditz developed a methodology for handling the instrument enabling a suitable degree of coherence of sound during the performance and recording process. This is where an understanding of how the individual sounds of the instrument combine was built up; always unique to any organ, but the added interest in this case was that the sounds were those of Ritter’s time. In addition without modern playing aids registrational practice needed more economy in terms of choice of sound, and the speed of the instrument’s action also dictated some areas of tempo choice.
Recording was made in September 2015.
Whilst there were some recordings of the sonatas available, none of these explore the important connection between the organs of Ladegast and the music of Ritter; Ritter the organist and teacher, born in Erfurt, and Ladegast, the most significant organ builder in Germany in the footsteps of Silbermann, born forty-five miles away in Hermsdorf.
This study and publication fits well into a corpus of work on historical organ performance practice in Scottish Universities, notably led by Professor John Butt at the University of Glasgow.
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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