Organ Bach Sielbermann

The culmination of 14 volumes of recordings by David Goode, all made on the organ of Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge. The Complete Organ Works by JS Bach performed magnificently here by David Goode showcases the masterpieces of Bach himself, but also the virtuosity and class of renowned organist David Goode.

With this volume 4 in a complete recording of Bach’s keyboard works whose ingenuity has been underlined by every reviewer (e.g. Gramophone, July 2020), Benjamin Alard continues to explore the Weimar period, known as that of his ‘early mastery’. After À la française, we turn to Italy, where the Vivaldian concerto reigned in Venice. The young Bach created here a wonderful space of freedom between the transcriber and the improviser. For ‘if transcription is a matter of freedom, it is also a matter of powerful imagination: each piece on this recording transports us into a Venetian universe that fascinated Bach as much as it inspired him’, as Benjamin Alard demonstrates on three exceptional instruments.

Born within a couple of years of each other, Gottfried Silbermann and Johann Sebastian Bach were acquainted, and we know that Silbermann in 1736 invited the composer to inaugurate the new organ that he had built in Dresden’s Frauenkirche. That instrument was destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in 1945, but some thirty of Silbermann’s organs are still extant. From robust pedal stops providing a sturdy bass fundament to silvery flute stops, his instruments were famous for their distinctive&&& sound and contemporary sources often made use of a play on the name of their maker as they praised their ‘Silberklang’.

Amid the never ending list of available recordings of Bach's organ works, it's nice to see a new SACD being released that brings all of his brilliant Toccatas together on one disc. These works, which capture a snapshot of Bach letting his hair down, showcase the essence of the composer at his best. Highly spirited music, brimming with expressive freedom bordering on the ecstatic. Organist Christoph Schoener certainly perceives these elements within the music and delivers up-tempo, animated and exuberant readings of all the pieces that call for it. The highlight for me on this disc is the account of the Toccata in F, BWV 540. A brilliant work, even by Bach's standards, with outstanding harmonic development throughout, underpinned by solid and long-sustained pedal notes upon which Bach constructed cathedrals of sound.

Two great organists on two famous organs - and then Bach! Leo van Doeselaar and Erwin Wiersinga approach the Saxon master in an interesting and original way, and the fact that the two titular organists at their Martinikerk in Groningen have at their disposal one of the most important baroque organs from the workshop of the jubilarian Arp Schnitgers makes this new publication a current as well as exciting experience. Elaborately produced for multi-channel playback on Super Audio CD, this new release is a delight with its three-dimensional, high-resolution sound, which allows the spatial distribution of the two instruments to be experienced embedded in the cathedral sound of the Gothic church.

Hyperion's series of recordings of Bach transcriptions continues with this superlative release by Hamish Milne. While earlier volumes had featured the transcriptions of Busoni, Feinberg, Friedman, and Grainger, this volume features transcriptions by Russian composers. And, as with earlier volumes, the transcriptions reveal more about the transcriber than they do about the composer. In the case of Siloti's transcriptions of the Prelude in B minor and the Air from the Third Orchestral Suite, we find a transcriber of strength and delicacy, of massive sonorities and ethereal melodies.

"Bach - Sonatas" is the fourth recording in Kåre Nordstoga's series of Bach's complete organ works. The main works on this double-CD are the six "Trio Sonatas".