On 6 August 1840, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy gave his legendary concert with works by Johann Sebastian Bach at the organ of St Thomas Leipzig. Mendelssohn concluded the evening with an improvisation which acted as a window onto the past: herein, he relates the musical expressivity of his own time to Bach’s compositions.

Mendelssohn’s concert programme is the basis for this new CD: 171 years later, the composer Hans-Joachim Hespos reopens this window, and performs his piece Luftschattengelichte at the very same moment in the programme at which Mendelssohn had begun to improvise.

While Mendelssohn had tried hard to highlight the connections with the musical past, to present Bach’s music as living heritage, the composer Hespos instead chooses to emphasise the ‘non-connections.’ Luftschattengelichte is constructed from sounding events, from islands of sound, the order and inner design of which by and large can and have to be determined by the performer.

On this recording, Oliver Kluge performs at the Marcussen organ at the Pauluskirche Hanover.