Although Robert Schumann’s public role in the Bach revival is less well known than that of Felix Mendelssohn, Bach’s music would play an influential effect throughout his life. Schumann would in turn, arrange and perform many of Bach’s works including adding piano parts to the Solo Violin Sonatas and Cellos Suites and trumpets to the St. John Passion! In 1843 he and Clara rented a custom-made pedalflügel - a dreadnought of an instrument combining a Friedrich Wieck grand piano with a pedal keyboard that enabled Schumann’s to play Bach’s organ music at home. During one of his periodic bouts of depression, Schumann became gripped by what he called Fugenpassion and shortly thereafter his obsession with Bach would blossom in the Canons and Fugues of Opp. 56 and 58. The curious name of this album references Carl Nielsen’s advice to fellow composer Ture Rangström, namely, to get down to the roots of a piece so that it would truly flower. And so following Nielsen’s advice, acclaimed organist Jens E. Christensen, a master of styles ancient and modern, dug deep to uncover the roots of Schumann’s imagination for this truly extraordinary program, a lovingly cultivated German-Danish, Piano-Organ, Baroque-Romantic hybrid, that will no doubt become a perennial favorite for fans of Schumann’s most florid contrapuntal creations.

The smallest fluctuations and nuances in Axel Borup-Jørgensen’s music can have the impact of an earthquake. It is a music born out of stillness. It is a quiet modernism, where the silences speak just as insistently as the few, but decisive, outbursts.The present recording provides an overview of Borup-Jørgensen’s small but highly distinctive oeuvre for organ. Borup- Jørgensen’s unique – and surprisingly numerous works for the “King of Instruments” set him apart from many of his contemporaries. In addition to writing highly individual solo works, six of the pieces recorded here call for additional musicians from Strophen (1962), an expressionistic setting of a text by Rainer Maria Rilke for voice and organ, to Portal for percussion and organ Opus 181 (2009), a work composed for concert in honor of his 85th birthday. Joining organist Jens E. Christensen on this sonic journey is percussionist Mathias Reumert, mezzo-soprano Pia Rose Hansen, harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani, bass-baritone Jakob Bloch Jespersen, and Lars Sømod, second organist on organo per due Opus 133.1 (1989). Christensen plays the historic organ at Vor Frelsers Church, Copenhagen, a glorious Baroque instrument built by the Botzen Brothers 1698-1700. Even silent, the instrument is an imposing structure, with over 4000 pipes, housed in an ornately decorated case sculpted by Christian Nerger, featuring a bust of King Christian V at the center.