Karl Hoyer (1891-1936) was a highly regarded student of Max Reger and Karl Straube , the Kantor of St. Thomas’s Leipzig , and held several positions including that of Professor at the famous Institute for Church Music in Leipzig .
For a long time the Chorale Preludes op. 57 were only available in libraries or second hand bookshops, but now Bärenreiter is publishing a complete edition of them.
These pieces are characterised by formal variety, brevity for practical purposes, and are mostly modest in their technical demands. They were extremely well-known amongst organists during Hoyer’s lifetime, a period which marked the transition from late Romanticism to that of the German Organ Movement. The keys correspond with those in the “ Evangelische Gesangbuch ” and “ Gotteslob ”. Two further volumes are in preparation.
