Symphonie

Instrumentation: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, english horn, 2 clarinets in Bb, 2 bassoons, contrabassoon, 4 horns in F, 2 trumpets in Bb, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, cymbals (pair), bass drum, organ, strings

The parts can be borrowed from Edition Stretta. The complete recording of the premiere can also be made available. If you are interested, please use our contact formular to get in touch with us.

Wolfgang Seifen's Symphony adds an important and sonorous work to the rather limited repertoire for orchestra and organ. Apart from a few solo passages, the organ is on an equal footing with the other orchestral instruments. The main protagonist in this symphony is the orchestra, enriched by the many delightful possibilities of tonal interaction between orchestra and organ.

The symphony was composed in the first half of 2022. Wolfgang Seifen, best known as an organ improviser, composed the work to mark his farewell as titular organist of the Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedächtniskirche in Berlin. The work was premiered in this church on 10 February 2023 by the Symphony Orchestra of the Humboldt University of Berlin, with the composer at the organ, conducted by Constantin Alex.

In the first movement, a first thematic complex unfolds over a sustained double-bass and organ pedal, which quickly climaxes and then subsides to give way to a second. Rather than memorable melodies, this movement is characterised by recurring motifs that complement each other contrapuntally. The climaxes, which are approached again and again after great build-ups, often end up in a loop, turning back on themselves, as it were, by repeating the same measure several times.

The slow second movement is characterised by an expressive theme that is first introduced by a number of woodwind instruments and then moves through the entire orchestra.

The third movement, the dance movement in the classical symphony, is here a danse macabre, a dance of death. The idea of skeletons dancing on their graves at night has many an antecedent in music history. Here, too, the appeal of the musical representation of the rattling of bones is fully exploited - before the music, driven by brass, organ and timpani, degenerates into a veritable St Vitus's dance.

At the beginning of the fourth movement, the ghosts still seem to haunt us a little before, after an initial brief climax and cymbal crash, a quieter theme is heard - which turns out to be a return of the theme from the second movement. Motifs from the first movement also reappear, not literally, but implied. The gesture of the music then changes abruptly and a double fugue is heard, a form rarely found in symphonies but very familiar to the organist Seifen. Finally, the symphony segues into an organ-led chorale, bringing it to a glorious close.