L.L. Jan Sweelink - Organ Fantasy

Sweelink is a Dutch composer born in 1562 and died in 1621. In his lifetime he was considered the organist against which all other organists were measured. His styles seemed to straddle that of the High Renaissance and the Early Baroque, and his uses of counterpoint, stretto, and organ pedal technique undoubtedly look ahead to the music of J.S. Bach.

The organ fantasy is a series of dramatic episodes ranging from the very profound to the pastoral. The opening section seems almost rather like a tone poem than anything too rigorously organized. Then follows a very fast and virtuosic contrapuntal, though not fugal area. This is succeeded yet again by a very profound and uplifting fughetta. The piece closes with an improvisatory and rigorously contrapuntal toccata-like section.

The performer I of the recording I heard was none other than Glenn Gould. Gould commands what could seem to be a set of unrelated passages within the guise of a fantasy into a fantastic sense of unity.