Hesse, Lemmens: Organ Works

Adolf Friedrich Hesse (1809-1863) and Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens (1823-1881) are numbered among the most prominent figures in nineteenth-century organ music across France, Belgium and Germany. Although they were linked by a teacher-pupil relationship, Lemmens having studied with Hesse in Breslau between September and December 1846, it is well known that their mutual regard was marked by an unmistakable degree of rivalry. Particularly significant in this respect is the controversy prompted by certain statements made by François-Joseph Fétis (1784-1871), Lemmens’s mentor and principal champion, and published in no. 36 of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1852. In this interview with the Belgian pedagogue, Hesse found himself credited with the assertion that he had ‘nothing more to teach’ Lemmens. He promptly arranged for a denial to be published, pointedly observing that, even if he had indeed had nothing further to teach him, Lemmens had nevertheless left Breslau without warning and without so much as saying goodbye.

For his part, Lemmens lost no opportunity during the course of his career to acknowledge Hesse as his ‘mentor’, stressing his teacher’s place within the so-called Sainte Tradition, the circle regarded as the heirs to the musical tradition of Johann Sebastian Bach. According to the testimony of Lemmens’s pupils Charles-Marie Widor and Alexandre Guilmant, it was Lemmens himself who traced a genealogy of what were considered the ‘direct’ heirs to Bach’s musical legacy: Johann Christian Kittel (1732-1809), Christian Heinrich Rinck (1770-1846), Adolf Friedrich Hesse (1809-1863) and Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens (1823-1881).

The present anthology sets the styles and musical tastes of the two composers alongside one another through a selection of contrasting forms, chosen also for their ability to reveal the many tonal resources of the organ on which these works are performed.

Hesse’s Variations on the theme ‘God Save the King!’, Op. 67, were written for concert performance. As in the composer’s other variation works, the piece opens with a solemn introduction, followed by a statement of the theme in four-part harmony. In the ensuing variations, the theme is entrusted successively to the soprano in Variation 1, the tenor in Variation 2 and the bass in Variation 3. The fourth variation is in the minor and leads directly into the following one by means of an imperfect cadence. The fifth variation is structurally more elaborate than those that precede it. Its opening section is distinguished by virtuoso pedal writing, with semiquaver figuration and chromatic scales in double pedal. A brief transitional section subsequently recalls material from the opening introduction and prepares a finale in the form of an alla breve fugue.

Hesse’s Introduction, Op. 84, to Carl Heinrich Graun’s (1704-1759) oratorio Der Tod Jesu is a work whose intended purpose is made explicit by its title. The practice of introducing Graun’s oratorio with an organ prelude is also documented in works by other composers, including Heinrich Friedrich Enckhausen (1799-1885) and Gustav Flügel (1812-1900).

Hesse’s version consists of two clearly differentiated sections. In the first, marked Andante grave, a chordal opening is followed by a fugato in which Hesse develops the theme used by Graun to set the words ‘Seine Seele ist voll Jammer’ in the second movement of the oratorio. The following section presents instead the melody of the opening chorale, ‘Du, dessen Augen flossen’, better known in association with the text ‘O Haupt voll Blut und Wunden’.

Among Hesse’s fantasias for organ, the Fantasia Sonata, Op. 83, is both the longest and the most structurally complex. Its various sections are joined without interruption, so that there is no clear separation between the individual movements. Each section nevertheless possesses a sharply distinct form and character. A solemn opening Adagio, characterised by dotted rhythms, is followed by an Andantino in 6/8, a festive Allegro moderato and a brief Adagio in 3/4, after which the preceding Allegro moderato returns. The true finale, as is often the case in Hesse’s compositions, is entrusted to a four-part fugue marked Poco moderato.

The Grande Fantaisie occupies an exceptional position within Lemmens’s output, which is more commonly celebrated for the legato, yet consistently cantabile, style of its writing. The technique that gives the work its distinctive character is the musical imitation of a storm, a practice widespread among nineteenth-century organists. It is entirely plausible that Lemmens intended the piece as a tribute to Louis James Alfred Lefébure-Wély (1817-1869), the brilliant recitalist who was particularly admired for the sense of astonishment produced by his celebrated Orages. Contemporary reports relate that even Gioachino Rossini, after hearing Lefébure-Wély perform on the organ of the Paris church of Saint-Sulpice in April 1864, praised the beauty of the ‘storm’ presented on that occasion. The work follows a fairly elaborate design, in which sections of markedly contrasting character alternate with one another. The actual depiction of the storm occurs approximately halfway through the piece and is followed, somewhat unexpectedly, by a ‘prayer’.

The Pascale Sonata is the last of Lemmens’s three organ sonatas. Like Mendelssohn’s sonatas, the work took shape as a sequence assembled from pieces that had already been composed independently, with the exception of the third movement, the Final. An earlier version of the opening movement had been published under the title Fantasia in the Quatre pièces de style libre. It is a slightly shorter version of the same work, differing from the sonata movement by only a few bars.

The second movement, Adoration, is likewise drawn from the same collection, where it appears as part of the Offertoire de Noël, a work structured in five movements, of which the Adoration is the fourth. The third movement bears the title Final. Alleluja and is itself constructed on a comparatively elaborate plan. A chordal introduction marked Maestoso recitando is followed by a fugue of brilliant and festive character. At the centre of the movement appears the melody of the Gregorian Victimæ paschali laudes, harmonised in four parts and presented verse by verse. The work concludes with a coda of considerable brilliance and virtuosity, which in turn culminates in the return of the opening theme.

Luca Gorla © 2026