This picture shows the Aeolian-Skinner organ at the Pasadena Presbyterian Church, the site of a program featuring nine organists performing the complete organ works of Mendelssohn on Sunday, June 25, 2006.

Mendelssohn lived to only 39, dying in 1847 after a series of strokes. The world would be much poorer without the brilliant set of sonatas he had completed just two years earlier—arguably the most powerful, lush, compelling works in the entire organ oeuvre.

An interesting feature of the PPC organ is the so-called “Echo organ” of 14 ranks in the rear of the church. Such multiple-organ setups often work less than ideally, but is an absolutely perfect fit here, especially for Mendelssohn’s favored loud/soft counterpoints, in the first and other sonatas.

This entry was posted on Friday, May 26th, 2006 at 08:55 and is filed under music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.