Kerll: Complete Harpsichord and Organ Music

Featuring

Matteo Messori
Łukasz Dulewicz
Johann Caspar von Kerll

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Composer Biography

Kerll converted to Catholicism and served as court organist in Brussels and later as Kapellmeister in Munich, where he taught Agostino Steffani.

Compositional Technique

Kerll's toccatas take the virtuoso technical innovations of Girolamo Frescobaldi to an extreme, featuring long trill passages in both hands and rapid descending octaves.

Composer Biography

Johann Caspar Kerll, born in 1627, was a German composer whose early musical abilities led him to study with Giovanni Valentini in Vienna and Giacomo Carissimi in Rome.

Notable Performances

Kerll's incredible talents as a keyboard performer were showcased in 1658 when he improvised on a subject given by Emperor Leopold I during his coronation in Frankfurt.

Critical Reception

Kerll left his post in Munich in 1673 due to a major controversy with Italian court singers who could not accept his unusual intervals and audacious passages.

Recording & Production

This album features performances on historically appropriate instruments, including an Italian harpsichord copied after Giovanni Battista Giusti and an organ built by Johann Ignaz Egedacher in 1732.

Cultural Impact

Kerll's keyboard music significantly influenced composers like Johann Pachelbel, Johann Krieger, and even Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handel, who adapted his works.