Johann Christoph Oley: Organ Works
Jan Van Mol, organ
Pavane ADW 7314 [60:00]
The Thuringian organist tradition—that great, inexhaustible stream flowing from Bach through dozens of lesser tributaries—keeps yielding up names. Johann Christoph Oley is one of them. Born in Bernburg in 1738, he studied with Bach himself in 1749 (though the old master had only a year left), then settled into respectable obscurity as organist at Aschersleben, where he had the good fortune to preside over a decent instrument. Four books of chorale preludes constitute his legacy. This disc samples them.
Jan Van Mol plays the 1727 organ at Steinfeld Basilica, and the marriage of instrument and repertoire could hardly be more apt. The tuning—and this matters enormously in this repertoire—is exemplary, the meantone temperament lending these preludes their proper color and bite. You hear it immediately in the opening chorale: those thirds have the right sweetness, the right edge when the harmony shifts into remote territory.
The preludes themselves? Competent, often quite lovely, occasionally predictable. Oley had absorbed his Bach lessons well enough—the part-writing is clean, the chorale melodies emerge with clarity—but the inventive spark flickers rather than blazes. Where Bach transforms a chorale into an architectural marvel or a theological meditation, Oley provides tasteful embroidery. Which is not nothing. The best preludes here (I’m thinking particularly of those in the minor mode, where Oley seems less constrained by propriety) have genuine pathos, a sense of harmonic adventure that suggests what might have been had this composer pushed harder against convention.
Van Mol’s performances are unfailingly musical, though I wish he’d taken more risks with registration. The chosen stops are appropriate—perhaps too appropriate—and there’s a certain sameness of texture that sets in around the halfway mark. In a few preludes the pedal line does indeed lag slightly behind the manual work, as if the mechanism were sluggish or Van Mol’s coordination momentarily uncertain. It’s a minor blemish in otherwise secure playing.
The recorded sound captures the Steinfeld organ’s silvery clarity without excessive reverberation—a relief, given how many engineers seem to think Baroque organs require cathedral acoustics. The booklet provides full stop specifications and a handsome photograph of the instrument, though one wishes for more substantial notes on Oley’s life and the chorale traditions he inherited.
This is music for specialists and for those Sunday mornings when you want the comfort of the German Protestant tradition without Bach’s overwhelming genius. Oley knew his craft. He served his congregations well. Whether that’s enough to warrant repeated listening is another question—but for explorers of the organ literature’s byways, Van Mol’s performances make a decent case for this modest, thoroughly competent composer.
