Bedřich Antonín Wiedermann – Pioneer of the Organ as a Concert Instrument

The most important organist in Czechoslovakia between the wars was Bedřich Antonín Wiedermann (1883–1951). He was a teacher and composer, but above all a great performer. After arriving in Prague in 1911, he began playing in regular recitals at the Emmaus monastery. Then from 1920–1932 he played at the Sunday matinee concerts at the Prague Municipal House. In these performances, he made the case for the organ as a concert instrument and chose the compositions he played with that in mind. He also performed at the Hussite church in Dejvice and Vinohrady, and later at the church of St James in the Prague Old Town. As the only Czech organist of the era to perform outside his own country, he travelled to England, the United States, Germany, Sweden and Belgium. Wiedermann was of fundamental importance for the development of organ music and organ performance in the Czech Lands.


Wiedermann's church concerts
Wiedermann first performed as an organist in 1905. He was the organist at the cathedral in Brno for 10 months, but we have no mention of any concert performances from this time. He left for Prague in 1911 and became the organist of the Benedictine monastery of Emmaus, where he remained active until 1917. Here he regularly played at church concerts lasting roughly an hour. These were all devoted to particular themes, e.g. Christmas music, organ music by Czech, German, or French composers, and sacred music. 2 From 1917 to 1919 Wiedermann worked as organist at the church of Sts Cyril and Methodius in Karlín, but held no concerts there. At Wiedermann's suggestion, in 1941 the essentially Baroque organ at the church of St James the Great (sv. Jakub Větší) in the Prague Old Town was rebuilt and expanded to 75 registers by the Tuček firm of organ builders, based in Kutná Hora. Thereafter, throughout the 1940s, Wiedermann often performed at recitals at St James. These took place on Wednesday evenings, and were organised by themes. Wiedermann's sacred compositions for voices and instruments were also performed in this church. Wiedermann performed not only in Catholic churches, but also in Protestant ones: in Prague, principally at the Czechoslovak Hussite churches in Dejvice and Vinohrady, and this was not well received by the priests at the church of St James. With his typical humour, Wiedermann joked, "I have to play concerts wherever they build organs. If they build one in a bordello, I'll play there too." 3 It is also notable that it was Wiedermann's concerts at the Hussite church in Dejvice which were broadcast on the radio.
Wiedermann was an advocate of the unit pipe organ, which he had met and become enthusiastic about in the course of his concerts in the United States. The first church organ of this type in Czechoslovakia was built in 1934 by the firm of Rieger, following Wiedermann's design suggestions, at the above-mentioned Hussite church in Vinohrady. Wiedermann began to perform there soon afterwards. 4 Two years later he worked out another specification for a unit organ, this time in consultation with two of his colleagues at the conservatory, Karel Douša and Antonín Elšlégr. One of this design was built by Rieger in 1936 at the Prague Conservatory, with financial support from the Ministry of Education, where it was used for teaching and for school performances. 5 Wiedermann continued to maintain a steady schedule of concerts in Prague churches even after the Second World War, especially at the church of St James, where he was often joined in performances by the Czech Radio Choir, the choir of St James, and vocal soloists from the opera of the National Theatre.

Concerts at the Prague Municipal House
Wiedermann believed that the organ was the Cinderella of instruments, very little or even badly publicised. In churches, organs were mostly used exclusively for voluntaries at religious services and for accompanying singing during such services. 6 Wiedermann therefore insisted on frequently playing concerts not only in churches, but also in secular venues. His teacher Josef Klička had been the first Czech virtuoso organist to organise this kind of concert, performing at the Prague Rudolfinum on the Sauer organ built in 1885. 7  These performances and venues may have been Wiedermann's inspiration to hold regular concerts outside of churches after the creation of Czechoslovakia. In 1920 he began to give Sunday matinee concerts, billed as "popular organ concerts", in the Smetana Hall at the Prague Municipal House. These morning concerts took place once a month for twelve years, i.e. until 1932, and in total, Wiedermann appeared in 102 of them. Some were complete recitals given by him; some were mixtures of solo pieces for organ with pieces for vocal and instrumental soloists; some even included choirs and orchestras. For these concerts Wiedermann recruited a group of fellow artists, with whom he performed quite regularly. Among the singers and instrumentalists with whom he regularly gave concerts were the soprano Jarmila Novotná (later famous in the USA), the mezzosoprano Gabriela Horvátová, the baritone Emil Burian, the violinists Bohuslav Šich and Jaroslav Pekelský, the cellist František Berka, and the harpist Bedřich Dobrodínský. Original compositions for the organ were premiered, as well as transcriptions for the instrument, sometimes including instruments or voices. Some of these pieces were sacred, while others, such as opera arias, were secular. 10 An extensive report on one of Wiedermann's Sunday matinee concerts at the Prague Municipal House was written by the Slovene Srečko Koporc (a composer, conductor, and musical theorist, and the son of an organist). He attended the concert on 1 April 1928 and reviewed it in the Slovenian periodical Cerkveni glasbenik ('Church Musician'): "The greatest contemporary Czech organ virtuoso, Bedřich Wiedermann, prepares so-called 'popular' organ concerts for the Smetana Hall of the Municipal House. The goal of these concerts is to acquaint the listeners with modern organ music, which is a lofty aim in itself. Unfortunately, the concerts are poorly attended. (If the weather is wet, the hall is full, but in fair weather people prefer to be out in the countryside.) One such concert took place on 1 April. Because I had heard so many flattering reports and favourable opinions from various people at the conservatory, my curiosity began to be piqued, not only about these concerts, but about Prof. Wiedermann himself. They said that he was a phenomenon on the organ, a master of inexhaustible combinations of registers, a virtuoso, a perfect sovereign of the pedals etc. I was able to meet the master personally, thanks to his student Alexander Moyzes, a short prelude of whose was played at the concert.
I arrived with a friend shortly before the concert began. In spite of worthwhile programmes, interesting guests and the approval of professionals, these Sunday matinee concerts suffered from poor attendance, and, owing to this insufficient interest, the last ones were held in 1932. 12 The magazine Cyril also published a retrospective account of these concerts: "On 7 February this year [1932], Prof. Wiedermann has celebrated the hundredth of his popular organ matinee concerts, through which he has been enriching and beautifying the musical and cultural life of Prague for many years. This has occurred not only by means of a striking overview of worldwide and Czech organ music, but also thanks to the uniquely excellent level of the performances. Wiedermann's universal outlook has manifested itself in the systematic, expert choice of programmes, including representative organ music from all eras and styles, from the predecessors of Johann Sebastian Bach to our own times. A wide and honoured place has been given to Czech organ masters and their compositions for the king of instruments. The jubilee concert featured a chronological journey through Czech organ music, and Wiedermann gave the audience an opportunity to follow its development over the last three centuries, in music ranging from Černohorský, Zach and Seger, through Skuherský, Musil, Klička, and Mikoláš,

Performances abroad
Alongside his intense concert activity in Czechoslovakia, Wiedermann was the only Czech organist to perform in other countries between the wars. In autumn 1924, he appeared in England, but principally in the USA, as Frederick Wiedermann. He gave recitals in the Wanamaker Auditorium and the Town Hall in New York. Richard Aldrich, the well-known critic of the New York Times, reviewed his concerts, and other reviews were published in the Sun and in the Musical Courier. In 1925 he performed in Germany, and a year later in Sweden, where his performance at Stockholm's Konserthuset was even attended by the King of Sweden and the royal family. Reviews of his concerts, and other information about them, appeared in Dagens Nyheter, the Social-Demokraten, and the Svenska Dagbladet. In 1935 he performed in Belgium. Critics praised his exceptionally even and brilliant technique, his registration, his strongly contrasting dynamic effects, and his exploitation of the tone colours of the instrument. His concert was labelled a magical experience. Wiedermann was counted among the greatest masters of the organ. 14

Wiedermann's repertoire
During his life Wiedermann studied and performed an enormous quantity of compositions of many kinds. At the forefront of his interests lay the great organ repertoire, from which he nonetheless made his own selections. He played Bach's toccatas, preludes, fugues, and effective and expressive chorale preludes. Among his favourite pieces were many from the Romantic era: the Frenchmen César Franck, Guilmant, Widor, 15 Saint-Saëns and Vierne, the Italian Marco Enrico Bossi, and the Germans Rheinberger, Schumann, Mendelssohn, and Brahms, and even Max Reger to a limited extent. He also liked to play the music of Liszt, both the original organ works and some of the piano works that he had transcribed himself. He also played organ transcriptions of piano pieces and orchestral works by Chopin, Berlioz, Wagner, Rachmaninov and others. He devised thematic programmes centring on particular composers (Bossi, Liszt, Reger, Bach, Handel, Dvořák, Brahms, Mendelssohn) or particular countries (Germany, Austria, Italy, England, Poland, Russia, America). He devoted special attention to Czech music from the Baroque to his own times. He performed compositions by his own teacher Josef Klička (Legend in D major, Fantasy on the St Wenceslas Chorale, Fantasy on Motifs from Smetana's Vyšehrad), Vítězslav Novák (including the 1942 premiere at the Prague Municipal House of the St Wenceslas Triptych, which he also included in later programmes), J. B. Foerster, Eduard Trégler or Miroslav Krejčí. Wiedermann was also a pioneer, perhaps even the discoverer, of the older repertoire. Not only did he occasionally play music by Bach's German predecessors, such as Buxtehude and Bruhns, and music by Bach's contemporaries, but he also performed older music from other countries, including Georg Muffat, the French organists of the 17th and 18th centuries, Frescobaldi, and Polish composers from the Renaissance (Marcin Leopolita and Mikołaj of Kraków). From among the older Czech composers, he played pieces by Zach, F. X. Brixi, Jan Křtitel Kuchař, and Bohuslav Matěj Černohorský.
Unlike most Czech organists, Wiedermann was also very active as a composer. He wrote about 400 pieces, of which 94 were for organ. 16

Interpretation
Wiedermann was considered a musician of exceptional ability. He was an organ virtuoso of the Romantic type, but had a very personal approach to performance. He concentrated on the basic musical material of each work. 17 Today we might consider his performances of early music anachronistic, and we might not even agree with his performances of early 20th-century works. In any case, his approach was rooted in the Romantic tradition. He had a phenomenal technique, especially in his finger dexterity, and was strikingly skilful in choosing stops and providing colour in performance.
Wiedermann's pupil Josef Kubáň characterised his teacher's interpretation thus: "He did not bow down to any particular style of performance. He was guided by an infallible musical instinct in his choice of registration, which enabled him to give any composition, within the range of possibilities of the instrument, unexpected expressiveness and charm". 18 Only three recordings of Wiedermann's playing have survived his Toccata and Fugue in F minor, and two organ transcriptions of orchestral pieces: the Largo from Dvořak's 9 th symphony and Fibich's idyll At Twilight. 19 This sampling is too small to enable us to evaluate Wiedermann's style of interpretation reliably, so we must depend on the testimony of critics and other witnesses from his time.
In order to have as comprehensive a picture of Wiedermann as possible, it should be mentioned that he was also a sought-after accompanist. He performed together with a series of singers, instrumentalists, and orchestras, as was mentioned above. Nor should we forget that he was an excellent improviser. His organ improvisations were well-thought out and comprehensive, giving the impression that they were written-out compositions. 20 was founded by Bedřich Antonín Wiedermann, a great artist, a phenomenal teacher, and an exceptionally kind man." 21 In conclusion, we can say that Bedřich Antonín Wiedermann was the first modern Czech organ virtuoso. He acquainted his audiences with compositions from the Czech lands and the rest of the world, from the Baroque to his own times, in concert halls and in churches. He performed frequently both in Czechoslovakia and abroad (and indeed, he was alone at that time in exporting Czech organ music). He was, clearly, a pioneer. He recognised the neglect that the organ was suffering at that time in the musical and cultural life of Czechoslovakia, and he strove to raise the organ to the level of prestige it had enjoyed during the Baroque. He therefore sought to spread knowledge of the organ, and performed in many different places all over the country, but especially in Prague. Thanks to him, the public had access to a wide organ repertoire, from the Baroque or even earlier, to contemporary compositions, all performed at the highest level. His importance is confirmed by the wide appreciation of his international performances, and it would not be amiss to rank him alongside other organ virtuosi of the time, such as Karl Straube or Marcel Dupré. 22