Psalm 94 is a grim psalm indeed, lamenting the victories of the wicked and calling on God to wreak vengeance. Julius Reubke's Sonata for organ in C minor, written as a musical illustration of this psalm, is appropriately dark and taxing. But the work itself also reveals a fiery creative mind, influenced by the composer's teacher Franz Lizst but bursting with an incipient genius of its own. Reubke, sadly, died at age 24, only a year after completing and performing this sonata.

The opening words of the Psalm are "O Lord God, to whom vengeance belongeth, show thyself," and in the opening of Reubke's sonata the theme shows itself, moving from ominous, subterranean harmonies into a momentary blaze of light. This theme, pulsing with some unspeakable grief, is the only one in this sonata; Reubke moves it through a fantasia, first in Larghetto and then in Allegro con fuoco tempo, then a calmer Adagio, then a spaciously conceived Allegro fugue. The Larghetto section has a feeling of awful expectation about it, occasionally slipping into the relief of the major mode before settling back into dissonance and angst. A cascade of notes prepares for the launch into a quicker tempo. Where the Larghetto section brooded, the Allegro con fuoco rails, perhaps reflecting the text "Lord, how long shall the wicked triumph?" Savage dissonances pile up and multiply, creating huge, anguished chords of Wagnerian grandeur and passion. Even when the melodic line has calmed somewhat, bass chords continue to roil and storm, leading to a climax with fortissimo, sustained, bright chords over thundering successions of chords in the lower registers. The Adagio which follows provides some amount of relief, as the bass occasionally drops out and the slower-moving chords partake more of limpid sadness than consuming rage. Reubke does bring back the theme, unadorned, at one point, then fades into ambiguous chords to prepare for the fugue. The fugal exposition is remarkably straightforward for what has been such a chord-intensive work; Reubke proves here that he can handle counterpoint with authority as well. The work grinds inexorably to a close on a decisive, thundering minor chord, showing musically how the Lord "shall bring upon them their own iniquity, and shall cut them off in their own wickedness." This sonata is possibly the finest programmatic work for organ of the Romantic era, and needs no sentimental affection for a talent lost to be counted as a major achievement.

© Andrew Lindemann Malone, Rovi