Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing

Laukvik’s organ method Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing has become established as a standard work. It is aimed at organists who want to incorporate the latest thinking on historical performance practice into their interpretations of works. The three volumes provide a practical introduction in a detailed, rigorously scholarly and comprehensible form, by giving organists as precise a picture of the interpretative traditions and aims of previous eras as possible. The editions are aimed not only at organists, but also at organ teachers who are looking for a manual to use in their teaching.

The second part of Jon Laukvik’s organ method Historical Performance Practice in Organ Playing focuses on the interpretation of organ music in Germany and France in the period from 1800 to 1930. With the advent of the Romantic compositional style, there was also a change in playing technique – from the differentiated non-legato of the Baroque and the Classical styles towards a more fundamental legato. In addition, between 1830 and 1845 the first true "Romantic" organs opened up completely new sound perspectives to organists and composers, thanks to the brilliant and sensitive feeling for sound which their builders possessed (particularly Walcker and Cavaillé-Coll).