Detailed Information on Publication Record

Johann Baptist Wanhal (or Jan Křtitel Vaňhal in Czech) composed a huge volume of various keyboard pieces. Apart from chamber ensembles with keyboard, concertos and pieces for four hands, there are solo sonatas, sonatinas, caprices, short pieces, variations, dances, programmatic compositions, organ fugues, preludes, praeambula and cadenzas. Last mentioned organ pieces were published and survived in various collections, even copied after composer´s death in the 19th century. Fugues are contrapuntal, but shorter, not complicated, without pedal. Preludes and preambula are sometimes homophonic, some could be considered very pianistic. Until the early 19th century there were no clear borders between organ music and other keyboard pieces. Easy piano pieces were published over decades in Czechoslovakia, but that was not the case of organ music. Thanks to growing awareness of historically informed performance necessity of new edition emerged and several collections of Vanhal´s organ pieces has been published recently. The paper will present questions around Vanhal´s organ music in examples of selected collections on background of organ and sacred music in Central Europe (the Czech lands).