Organist Korndörfer’s Impressive Debut in Davies

Organist Jens Korndörfer (photography by Bonnie Nichol, courtesy of the San Francisco Symphony)

Yesterday afternoon in Davies Symphony Hall, the Organ Recital Series prepared by the San Francisco Symphony (SFS) continued with a debut performance by Jens Korndörfer. Korndörfer has an established international reputation; but he is currently based in Atlanta, where he is Director of Worship and the Arts and Organist at First Presbyterian Church while also teaching at both Georgia State University and Agnes Scott College. He prepared a stimulating diverse program that spanned, chronologically, from Johann Sebastian Bach to the San Francisco (West Coast?) debut presentation of a recent composition by Pamela Decker entitled “Windows of the Spirit.” (For the record, Decker has also visited Davies to perform on the Ruffatti Concert Organ.)

However, these “bookends” do not do justice to the full breadth of Korndörfer’s program. A total of eight composers were represented, not counting a ninth for the encore selection. There were only two compositions from the nineteenth century. The program began with Max Reger’s coupling of a D minor passacaglia preceded by an introduction, composed in 1899 and never given an opus number. The concluding selection was Alexandre Guilmant’s Opus 42 (first) sonata in D minor, composed in 1874.

All of the other selections were composed during the twentieth century. The composers were, in “order of appearance,” George Thalben-Ball (a set of variations on the notorious 24th caprice for solo violin by Niccolò Paganini, composed to be performed almost entirely on the pedal keyboard, 1962), Arthur Foote (the 1923 revision of his “Oriental Sketch,” the fifth of the pieces collected in his Opus 41), Marcel Dupré (the Opus 20 set of variations on a French carol, 1922), and Valéry Aubertin (“Sonatine pour les étoiles” from the Opus 6 collection Le Livre Ouvert, 1994). The encore selection was by Bach’s French contemporary, Louis-Claude Daquin. Korndörfer played the last of his twelve published Noëls, which Daquin called the “Swiss” Noël. The Bach offerings were the BWV 659 chorale prelude on “Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland” (come now, Saviour of the heathen) and the BWV 541 prelude and fugue in G major.

On the surface this may have seemed like more diversity than mind could manage. Nevertheless, the selections were, for the most part, of moderate duration; and Korndörfer provided concise and informed spoken introductions to guide the attentive listener through the breadth of stylistic techniques. This was his first encounter with the Davies Ruffatti, and there was one minor incident in which an incorrect stop preset led to a false start.

For the most part, however, his command of the Ruffatti’s complexity was right on the money. In general he showed keen awareness of how stop selection facilitated guiding the attentive listener through the key thematic material, even when the overall context might involve more pipes than the ear could manage. Indeed, the only shortcoming came at the very beginning of the recital with the massive dissonant chord that opened the Reger selection. This was more of a primal scream than ambiguous dissonance, but Korndörfer quickly recovered his footing to make sure that the thematic material had its proper say. With that one exception, this performance delivered one of the clearest accounts of the many interleaving timbres being presented in each of the compositions; and I, for one, look forward to another opportunity to explore Korndörfer’s interests in repertoire.