Classical markus emanuel zaja
wie jehan die erste insel umrudert

"Journey of the Angel Jehan through the Aegean" - A Memory to A Friend in four Parts

1
How Jehan rowed around the first island

There is no manuscript with fountain pen for this. I had simply memorized everything the entire time. I focused on the old sagas, and the beautiful islands, and some more.

The first island provided all the material for the others. I knew I would go all the way to the Gates of Hell, and then just see what happened....

Fortunately, that summer the organ was still sufficiently tuned. However, I did use a few tricks: Block chords octavated two-handed, because of the timbres, absurd registration, completely un-liturgical, sub-bass fifth without root, so grumbling sound in the bass (10 2/3' and 8' without 16' hehehe...), following the fantasy. Individual notes seem to jump from left to right, that's just good organ building with division into C and C sharp windchest ...

Everything is hand-registered, i.e. there are no preset registrations that were called up by pressing a button. The horror for "practical professional organists in community service" , haha...

Somewhere it says: "Freedom of the imagination was Robert Schumann's deepest creative reason" ...

And yes, I'm good with "Chekov's Gun" ....

(recorded 1996, organ by klais, III/ped - 49 stops)
photo: benedikt johannes zaja, 1993