Under the rubric „Organ Triaton“ from 20th to 24th August 2011, Dresden was host to a 5-day organ marathon. Three lecturers, three courses, three organs, three recitals, and participants from Germany, the Netherlands and Denmark brought together and organised by ORGANpromotion. To open the event Wolfgang Zerer played in the Church of the Cross and Course 1 assembled there with the organist of the Church of the Cross, Holger Gehring on the Jehmlich organ built 1963. The programme for this course was works of the Dresden organ tradition and those of the birthday celebrants August G. Ritter (200th), Jehan Alain (100th) and Franz Liszt (200th). Day two was an excursion to view the Silbermann organ in Reinhardtsgrimma (built 1731) with a further recital by

Wolfgang Zerer followed by a continuation of the course by Holger Gehring with works by J.S. Bach. Day three the course continued in the Court Church on the Silbermann organ (1755) with the organist of the Church of Our Lady, Samuel Kummer. We were later joined by the organist of the Court Church Thomas Lennartz, who led the course on his own organ. Each lecturer had a different approach to the music and to the active participants. Together with the different organs, this proved to have an extremely fruitful effect on the musical results. In the evening the course was rounded off by the the third organ, newly built (2005) by Kern of Strasbourg, in the Church of Our Lady with Samuel Kummer and French organ music. The penultimate day was again at the Church of the Cross and in the Court Church. The programme here was those organ pieces we had been working on, plus improvisation.. Thomas Lennartz succeeded in imparting a great deal of the art of improvisation , both in a set style and in free, modern manner.

This successful and enjoyable course was rounded off with a morning recital on 24.8. in the Court Church. Three course participants played works by Bach, Alain, Rinck and Mendelssohn Bartholdy to a large audience. In the afternoon there was an excursion to Wegscheider's organ workshop, including a viewing of the two Wegscheider organs in Dresden-Wilschdorf and Dresden-Loschwitz, where Holger Gehring and Samuel Kummer gave the course participants a demonstration on the instruments. In the organ evensong of the Church of Our Lady, Samuel Kummer and Jong-Hi Fries from Munich played works by A. Guilmant and free improvisations. All participants were agreed that this course had been very successful, both musically and socially. It had been an organ Triaton in beautiful Dresden, which had not been felt to be a marathon, but had been very enjoyable.

Christoph Koscielny (Munich)

Translation: Peter Kirk