Karl Hoyer Chorale Preludes op. 57, Volume II Edited by Martin Weyer (3) BA 9217 € 27.95

Karl Hoyer (1891-1936) was a highly regarded student of Max Reger and Karl Straube, the Kantor of St. Thomas’s Leipzig, and held several positions including that of Professor at the famous Institute for Church Music in Leipzig. For a long time the Chorale Preludes op. 57 were only available in libraries or second hand bookshops, but now Bärenreiter is publishing a complete edition of them. These pieces are characterised by formal variety, brevity for practical purposes, and are mostly modest in their technical demands. They were extremely well-known amongst organists during Hoyer’s lifetime, a period which marked the transition from late Romanticism to that of the German Organ Movement. The keys correspond with those in the Evangelische Gesangbuch and Gotteslob. Two further volumes are in preparation.