Organist renowned for his interpretations of JS Bach
DANIEL CHORZEMPA, who has died aged 78, was a teenage musical prodigy who matured into one of the finest organists of his generation.
After his debut recital at the Royal Festival Hall in 1969 he was acclaimed by critics and audiences alike. Closely modelling himself on the 19th-century virtuoso Julius Reubke, Chorzempa, like his hero, enjoyed equal status as a pianist, organist, harpsichordist and composer. While Reubke had the influential Hans von Bülow as his patron, Chorzempa benefited greatly from the support and patronage of the renowned English organist Ralph Downes.
Daniel Walter Chorzempa was born on December 7 1944 in Minneapolis, the younger son of a Polish father and French mother. Soon able to converse in eight languages, he remained a true cosmopolitan. Though he had intentions of studying architecture, he had begun his piano studies aged four, took over violin lessons from his elder brother at seven, and was at the organ console of the city’s Episcopalian cathedral by the time he was 12.
He studied music at the University of Minnesota from 1962 until 1965, then a Fulbright Scholarship took him to Europe and the Cologne University of Music. Making his home there, he became a member of the Studio für Elektronische Musik made famous by Karlheinz Stockhausen.
He attracted wider acclaim in 1968 by carrying off the Bach Prize at the Leipzig International Organ Competition; his playing impressed the chairman of the jury, Ralph Downes, who immediately took him to London to take part in the popular series of recitals he organised every Wednesday evening at the Royal Festival Hall.
Chorzempa soon became a regular performer there, and he added further to his burgeoning reputation in 1970 when, given a few days’ notice, he successfully deputised for an indisposed Fernando Germani at St Paul’s Cathedral. Quickly learning a whole new programme, he tamed the mighty Willis organ there.
Chorzempa made his debut as a solo pianist performing Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata and Diabelli Variations at Oxford Town Hall in May 1971 as part of the English Bach Festival.
Twelve months later, at the Royal Festival Hall with the New Philharmonia Orchestra conducted by John Pritchard, he was the soloist in Grieg’s Piano Concerto, before moving in the second half to the organ console for a stunning performance of Saint-saëns’s Third Symphony.
He was noted for his clean-fingered technique and rock-steady rhythmic sense, and both qualities translated easily to the harpsichord. While championing the music of JS Bach, Chorzempa also did much to promote his protégé, Johann Philipp Kirnberger.
He leaves behind an extensive and diverse discography. His debut disc, for Philips, featured the organ music of Franz Liszt, and Chorzempa appears as a soloist on three recordings of the Saint-saëns symphony, most notably with Zubin Mehta and the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra.
As the leading attraction of Philips’ Living Baroque series, he also explored Bach’s organ works. Seeking an instrument resembling an English organ of Handel’s time for his recording of the Organ Concertos, he turned to a Dutch chamber organ. For Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier, unusually, he used harpsichord, clavichord and chamber organ.
His prolific output as a composer was dominated by electronic music, though organists remain indebted to him for his long overdue scholarly edition of Reubke’s Sonata on the 94th Psalm, published by Oxford University Press in 1975. A Patron of the English Bach Festival, Chorzempa also served as a member of the board of directors of the Neue Bach Gesellschaft, or New Bach Society. Latterly, he lived in Florence.
Daniel Chorzempa was unmarried.