The Organ Music of Bach

You were referring to this link?

http://www.ina.fr/art-et-culture/mu...-le-festival-international-de-musique.fr.html

(Walcha's part starting around 02:30)

Well, Walcha is (a.o.) known for his completion of the final fugue of Die Kunst der Fuge.
He picked the same Silbermann Organ in the Church of Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune (Strasbourg) to make a recording of it.
IMHO though, the Alkmaar organ (Van Hagerbeer/F.C. Schnitger) is more suitable for this piece. Therefore I prefer Walcha's unfinished performance:

 

Thanks for this link, Marc.

Yes certainly much more suitable for the serene majesty of this piece. And what more, I never found Walcha's conclusion that outstanding. Listening to Ritchie's version of Walcha's conclusion has not convinced me to change my mind.

 

Marc- Yes, that is the video to which I was referring. Sorry about not being more explicit. In the future I'll be better about adhering to protocol by providing the link. Hopefully you didn't have to use up a lot of your time looking for it.

 

No problem!
I only started searching last week.

Had not been visiting the forum for a while, either.

Funny to see the agreements i.c. the Alkmaar preference.

 

You have to distinguish between the Silbermann's. The organ of the Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune was originally built by Johan Andreas Silbermann (and later rebuilt by Alfred Kern), His instruments are influenced by the baroque French organ building and IMO not absolutely well suited for the organ music of Bach, partly because of the association with French music (in the same way a Schnitger organ is unsuited for French music), partly because the plenum sound is too massive and not transparent enough.

 

Yep.
And of the entire family, I prefer a certain Gottfried.

 

Agreement again - except for the Freiberg Dom organ.

 

I've been enjoying Leo van Doeselaar's BWV 546. He has a sober approach that doesn't get in the way of the music. There's no rushing. He seems to strike a good balance between being analytical and bringing out the emotional content of the music. The great organ of Alkmaar sounds excellent. I've learned from reading Marc's comments elsewhere that this recording is part of a 20-cd set entitled Orgels in Nederland. The recording can also be heard at Youtube.

 

Yes, that's a truly fine performance, part of a truly fine boxset .... which might be difficult to get though, especially outside the Lower Countries.



Here's a link to a Dutch bookshop that still has it in storage .... for a nice price!

http://www.nnbh.com/titels/Okke-Dij...ans-1511-1896/73/9789033605611.htm#9033605619

You can e-mail them, but they don't take orders from mail. But for those who are interested, maybe it's worth trying to send an e-mail and ask if they do deliver abroad:

[email protected]

 

Thanks very much for the information!

 

I mean not an introvert, very sound playing, but also a total lack of imagination and a certain dullness.

 

I came across Robert Clark's BWV 538 & 548 on the Hildebrandt organ in Naumburg (youtube). I really like his relatively objective approach. The organ's powerful, low sound is compelling. Unfortunately, the website selling the 2-cd recording Robert Clark Bach at Naumburg doesn't appear to have it currently in stock. On the recording he also plays, among other things, BWV 544 & 545.

 

For anyone interested, the recording is available here (although, as I wrote, it seems not to be currently in stock)

http://www.gothic-catalog.com/Bach_at_Naumburg_Clark_p/cd-041.htm

 

Listened to BWV 548 on YouTube: indeed, the organ is an impressive beast, and the church delivers very spatial acoustics. This means that both player and recording engineer have to practise thorougly beforehand to find out which way of playing and placing of microphones is best.
Especially in such a pleno work there's a great risk of letting the organ sound completely drown in the acoustics, which, in Bach, leads to a rather fuzzy contrapunt.
Unfortunately, IMHO, this is what happens here. With less legato and a better placing of microphones it could have been avoided.

For a better Naumburg recording I would suggest Volume 15 of Gerhard Weinberger's Bach integral, where the wide acoustics are still there, but the organ is more prominent sounding, and Weinberger offers better articulation (although in - mainly - different works).

 

Thanks for the feedback. I think you're, of course, correct. In some later listening to the BWV 538 fugue I began to wish for a bit less legato and maybe a slightly faster tempo. Given the nature of the acoustics, it does seem like less legato would have been preferable in order to better maintain contrapuntal clarity.

I had already planned to get Gerhard Weinberger's Volume 15. I've listened to his recording of the 6 voice ricercare and want the cd for that work alone.

 

Rodrigo de SÃi reviewed Robert Clark's 2cd Bach at Naumburg in the thread titled In Search Of The Bach Sound Ideal. The thread is located on page 15 of this forum (at the bottom). At some point, as other threads are added, it will be pushed over to page 16 (and so on).

 

Thanks for the info and for keeping the spirit alive around here!

Funny enough, some years later, in this Bach organ thread, Rodrigo was much more negative about the same instrument. Because we know that Bach liked this organ very much, Rodrigo even asked did Bach prefer sheer brute amount of sound over beauty and delicacy??

http://www.audiosmile.com/forum/showpost.php?p=207823&postcount=95

Tastes differ and opinions change ....

Btw, I just wished that Rodrigo, pe-zulu, tones, bat et al would come back and visit this board more often .... where have all the good times gone?

 

Thanks for the link. It's interesting to read that post alongside the earlier one.

I'll second your wish to see the return of the veterans to the forum. Perhaps it will rise again at some point.

 

There's some video of Lionel Rogg playing the BWV 542 fantasia over at youtube.

 

Jumping in years after this tread died a natural death I can't help expessing my doubts any valid judgement of a specific organs tonality, acoustic influences, action, macro and micro-dynamics etc can possibly be judged from Youtube Mp3 files played back over systems/earphones or whatever of unknown quality.