Programme:
Lepnurm, Dupré, Guilmant, Lemmens, Hesse, Rinck, Kittel, Bach

The concert title points to a rare continuity in the music world—a direct lineage connecting Estonian organist and composer Hugo Lepnurm with Johann Sebastian Bach. Lepnurm studied in Paris under Marcel Dupré, whose teacher, Alexandre Guilmant, trained with Jacques-Nicolas Lemmens. Lemmens’ mentor Adolf Friedrich Hesse had in turn studied with Christian Heinrich Rinck, a pupil of Bach’s favorite student, Johann Christian Kittel.

Through these mentor-student relationships, performance artistry and musical ideals were passed down across generations. A prime example is Bach’s long-forgotten pedal technique, which Lemmens used to amaze Parisian audiences in 1852. This unbroken organ lineage—with Piret Aidulo having studied under Professor Hugo Lepnurm at the Tallinn State Conservatory—proves that classical music is not just history, but a living tradition.