Manuals-only repertoire

 

Note: More ideas for finding manuals-only organ music – including readers’ suggestions – at the bottom of Survival skills for the reluctant organist.


The JS Bach Short Preludes and Fugues (not to be confused with the Short Preludes and Fugues BWV 553-560 which have full pedal parts) are an excellent introduction to the Inventions or the Wohltemperierte Klavier, and were composed by Bach for this very purpose.  They make good short service voluntaries – some are quite easy, others less so.  Mine is a Peters Edition (Nr 200a), and you’ll probably find them catalogued under piano music.

If you have already learned them on the piano, many of the movements of Bach and Handel’s suites transfer nicely to the organ -the Allemande from Suite No.4 BWV 815 for example.

Handel 7 Kleine Fugen fur Orgel oder Cembalo
I downloaded mine from Werner Icking Music Archive
Edited by the indefatigable Pierre Gouin/Les Editions Outremontaises.

Handel The Aylesford Pieces
This is a slightly miscellaneous collection of pieces – some like the Toccata are great little miniatures, others are a bit humdrum.  You can download them under a Creative Commons licence from the Mutopia Project website. (And if you browse around the Mutopia site you may well find other pieces that take your fancy.)

Much of the music in the recent Bärenreiter Easy Handel Organ Album, edited by Daniel Moult, is manuals-only – see my review here

All the early English keyboard repertoire is very useful: for example
Weelkes 2 Voluntaries and Tomkins Verse
From Early Organ Series Vol 2 Edited by James Dalton
Faber Early Organ Series (print to order)

For something to fill a short gap (lasting only 8-10 bars) try the Anon 11 Versi per organo  from a manuscript in the Civico Liceo Bibliografico Musicale Bologna, and dating from the end of seventeenth century.  Download them under a GNU Free Documentation licence from the IMSLP website here.  And some similar short pieces from Zipoli: 1716ZipoliVarious.

Cesar Franck‘s L’organiste is a collection of 59 short works written in 1889 and 1890 for the harmonium, but often played on organ. He originally intended to produce 7 pieces for each note of the (chromatic) scale, but came to a halt in the middle of A flat.  Download a public domain facsimile of the original edition published by Enoch (Paris) in 1892, here

More French music for harmonium/organ found via Robert Fielding’s excellent Volunteer Organist site – eight volumes first published in 1912:  Maitres contemporains de l’orgue

I get a few raised eyebrows, but I am a fan of Henry Coleman!  Look out for his books of Voluntaries for American Organ or Harmonium.  Some are still in print, though I also found some on ebay.  I particularly like the practical optional cuts/repeats in some of his pieces.

Elgar  Vesper Voluntaries  Op.14
No3 for example is playable manuals only, except for a pedal F for the last few bars.

Look at the Oxford Service Music for Organ series compiled by Anne Marsden Thomas. Books 1 and 2 Manuals only.

I can’t get excited about many of the pieces in the huge number of Kevin Mayhew books of new music written for manuals-only organists. However their Essential Organist for Manuals has been a life saver (particularly the very first piece in the book, which is a manuals-only transcription of Jerusalem). I have no problem in using easy transcriptions, while I find my feet – the congregation would rather hear an easy piece played well, than listen to someone struggling.

Another Kevin Mayhew I have found useful is Preludes & Verses, a collection for manuals, edited by Adrian Vernon Fish.  Buxtehude, Bach, Couperin, Sweelinck, Reinhard – good stuff.

And another Kevin Mayhew – A French Collection for piano, organ or manuals.  Eases you into the French repertoire, from Couperin and Charpentier to Boellman and Franck.

Caleb Simper wrote reams of harmless manuals-only organ music, and it’s published by Stainer & Bell.  Full details in my recent review here.

A listing from the Royal School of Church Music of organ music for manuals only, including much from the early English repertoire, with suggested editions, and also German, French and Italian music from 16th to 20th century: download it from their website, or here Organ_music_for_manuals_only RSCM  (Listing remains copyright of Royal School of Church Music)