Brahms: Organ Works

Johannes Brahms's organ works in a sense "frame" his whole oeuvre. He wrote several preludes and fugues and the chorale prelude "O Traurigkeit, o Herzeleid" in the mid-1850s, at a time when he was making an intensive study of counterpoint. The Eleven Chorale Preludes op. 122, on the other hand, are Brahms's final work, composed in 1896, immediately before and after the death of Clara Schumann. This revised Henle Urtext edition presents all of Brahms's organ works in a single volume, following the musical text of the New Brahms Complete Edition, and with a preface and a commentary that reflect the latest scholarship. The early versions of two of these pieces are also given in an appendix.