Organ Bach Sielbermann

Over the course of the last 12 years Simon Preston has been recording Bach’s organ music for DG, and while some of these discs have been released individually during that time, many are appearing here for the first time. More than that, some of the earlier recordings have been rejected in favour of more recent ones: I’m glad that his 1992 recording of the ‘Schubler’ Chorales (6/92) has been substituted by an altogether more relaxed and elegant version, recorded in late 1999, in which he not only seems more in sympathy with the music but also feels less inclined to treat it as the latest Olympic athletics event; BWV645 takes the best part of a minute longer in this new recording and benefits enormously from it. A total of 10 organs has been used (every one, as they say, a winner) and the booklet includes adequate historic information, specifications and photographs (although none of Preston’s registrations is detailed), as well as brief, rather basic notes and a somewhat superficial interview with Preston himself.

Of all the liturgical reconstructions that Paul McCreesh has been offering over the past decade, this is easily the most elaborate. It's astonishing to think that Bach's parish church would have celebrated Epiphany (the 12th day of Christmas, January 6, usually a weekday) as elaborately as this program, and it's fascinating to think of the congregation of the Thomanerkirche anticipating the event around 1740. The entire service is included in the recording, much like the Catholic Masses on record that include the celebrant's prayers and Preface before the Sanctus (chanted in Latin even here), the Scripture chanting (in German here, of course), and all the odd versicles. The sermon is only six minutes long, just a hint of a longer discourse (it would have been at least an hour long, according to the notes).

Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (1710‐1784) was the first son of Johann Sebastian Bach and Maria Barbara Bach. He was taught by his father and soon he became proficient on several instruments. Although he was an organist for 20 years in Halle, he was one of the first musicians who strived for an independent life, trying to earn his living as a composer, performer and teacher. He struggled all his life, not helped by his difficult character, and he died in poverty in Berlin, totally forgotten.

Masaaki Suzuki was an organist before he was a conductor, and his recordings of Bach's organ works have made a delightful coda to his magisterial survey of Bach cantatas with his Bach Collegium Japan. This selection, the second in a series appearing on the BIS label, gives a good idea of the gems available. You get a good mix of pieces, including a pair of Bach's Vivaldi transcriptions. Fans of Suzuki's cantata series will be pleased to note the similarities in his style between his conducting and his organ playing: there's a certain precise yet deliberate and lush quality common to both. And he has a real co-star here: the organ of the Kobe Shoin Women's University Chapel, built in 1983 by French maker Marc Garnier. The realizations of Bach's transcriptions of Vivaldi concertos fare especially well here, with a panoply of subtle colors in the organ. Sample the first movement of the Concerto in D minor, BWV 596, with its mellow yet transcendently mysterious tones in the string ripieni. BIS backs Suzuki up with marvelously clear engineering in the small Japanese chapel, and all in all, this is a Bach organ recording that stands out from the crowd. Highly recommended.

Some impressive pianism may be found here, both from Piers Lane and prior to that from Eugen d’Albert. The latter was a virtuoso pianist and transcriber, also a composer whose opera Tiefland (1903) has remained popular in Germany. He was, however, born in Glasgow of French and English parents and began his career in England. Eventually he publicly renounced all things Anglo-Saxon, much to the annoyance of his mentor, Sir Arthur Sullivan, and settled in Berlin to concertize, performing the great masters: Bach, interwoven with Spohr and Beethoven.

Norwegian folk musician Sinikka Langeland, singer and player of the kantele (the Finnish table harp) is a distinctly non-traditional traditionalist, redefining "folk" in successive projects. 'Maria's Song' finds her in the company of two distinguished classical musicians - organist Kare Nordstoga and "giant of the Nordic viola" Lars Anders Tomter - and on a mission to restore Marian texts to sacred music, weaving folk melodies in between the timeless strains of J S Bach. Langeland made a lot of friends with her sparkling ECM debut Starflowers: "There are jewels everywhere on this arresting example of ego-free music-making. One of the albums of this or any other year" raved the Irish Times. Where Starflowers brought Langeland into the orbit of jazz improvisers, Maria's Song is a meeting and cross referencing of folk and 'classical' energies, and also a righting of historical 'injustice': Religious folk songs are amongst the most distinctive elements of the Norwegian folk tradition, yet the Virgin Mary rarely appears in them.

The organ has been regarded as an orchestra from its earliest beginnings, and over the years many composers have transposed vocal and orchestral works for the instrument.