David's monothematic musical thinking led him to serial techniques in the 1950s, shaping his 'new' organ music.
Instruments
The 'Bruckner Organ' at St. Florian, where this album was recorded, was known to David since his choirboy days and he highly valued its post-war reconception.
Composer Biography
Johann Nepomuk David, the composer, was an "unassimilated, antagonized loner and artistic nonconformist" in an alienated world.
Performer Biography
Roman Summereder, the organist on this album, was the last pupil of Anton Heiller, a renowned Austrian organist and composer, and has made the world's first complete recording of Heiller's organ works.
Critical Reception
David's dodecaphonic organ works appeared at a time when the avant-garde rejected compositional work with related pitches, leading to the "absurd narrative of a contrapuntal ghetto."
Composition History
The 'Schnitter Tod' Partita, composed in 1946/47, links two cantus firmi: a song from the Thirty Years' War and the Dies irae sequence from the Mass for the Dead.
Recording & Production
This album is the third volume in a series of recordings featuring the selected organ works of Johann Nepomuk David, performed by Roman Summereder.
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