Something for a Friday: All of Bach

[Bryn]

I can’t remember hearing 1022 before, I’ll listen later. But I can see there’s a connection now to CPE from²

How you getting on with the Apartment House number pieces? My finger’s twitching over the order button.

As with other recordings Simon has made with Apartment House, they are pretty idiomatic and well captured. Yesterday the Another Timbre discs of Cage's Two² dropped through my letterbox. That is also very much to be recommended. If you are on FB, take a look at https://www.facebook.com/simon.reyne...61417623574745

I would just add that I think it best to order direct from Another Timbre, rather than via Bandcamp. It is cheaper and Simon will get a higher proportion of that lower cost. I made the mistake of paying £1 more for the Bandcamp download than getting the CDs direct would have cost.

[hmvman]

It's been a while since I visited this project so I've some catching up to do but there's a cracking Brandenburg 2 this week!

https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-1047/

[Padraig]

It's been a while since I visited this project so I've some catching up to do but there's a cracking Brandenburg 2 this week!

https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-1047/

I think that's the first time I have actually SEEN a performance of Brandenburg 2, yet the Brandendurgs were among my first Bach purchases. I mentioned before that my very first Bach record was a 7 inch EP of No 3.

[hmvman]

I think that's the first time I have actually SEEN a performance of Brandenburg 2, yet the Brandendurgs were among my first Bach purchases. I mentioned before that my very first Bach record was a 7 inch EP of No 3.

Funny enough, I haven't seen that many either. Going back 40 years or so I used to go to the London Bach Orchestra concerts at QEH and they did a complete Brandenburgs cycle a couple of times.

Coming back to this week's video, I'm not sure why they chose to present it in very muted colour so it's almost black & white. I don't think it adds anything artistically. But apart from that I've found it hugely enjoyable and played it twice last night!

[Padraig]

Try as I might I cannot warm to Bach's organ music, and this piece is particularly hard for me to follow. It might be the liturgy attached and the zeal of the music; or the surroundings; in this case - those great doors opening to welcome you, and shutting behind you as you leave the august presence. At least I heard, I think, the Bach sound of the mighty organ and I appreciated the enthusiasm of the organist and his skill, but there I stand. Sorry.

[oddoneout]

This one? https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-552/
Nothing that says you have to like everything Bach wrote Padraig, and even for Bach enthusiasts the organ music may not be favoured for listening experience as the instrument isn't for everyone.

[Keraulophone]

Try as I might I cannot warm to Bach's organ music, and this piece is particularly hard for me to follow.

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Try this short chorale prelude, 'Ich ruf zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ' BWV 639, from the ‘Little Organ Book’. The simple chorale melody in the RH is accompanied by an undulating stream of consoling semiquavers. IMO it’s one of the most beautiful things that flowed from Bach’s pen. Busoni’s transcription for piano even adds to its feeling of the ‘nostalgia of a distant God’, to quote a YT comment, especially with the repetition of the last line (not in the original) with the melody in the tenor. Organist Leo van Doeselaar comments: ‘this is not your usual lament, it is thoroughly, thoroughly sad’ and mentions Bach’s rare use of F minor being reserved for his saddest moments, a good example being the F minor 3-Part Invention, an extraordinary piece. For me, though, the piece transcends sadness to provide consolation and hope.

Talk: https://youtu.be/dt2Pt4b15UQ

Performance: https://youtu.be/fLLEumabTPA

Busoni transcription: https://youtu.be/PKO-ri9YD7w

Translation:

I call to Thee, Lord Jesus Christ,
I pray, hear my complaining,
bestow Thy mercy at this time,
let me not fall into despair.
The right way, O Lord, I think,
Thou wilt surely show me,
in order to live for Thee,
to be of service to my neighbour,
and to always keep to Thy Word.

[cloughie]

This one? https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-552/
Nothing that says you have to like everything Bach wrote Padraig, and even for Bach enthusiasts the organ music may not be favoured for listening experience as the instrument isn't for everyone.

As with most composers there will be a mix of the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s up to you where you pick!

[Joseph K]

Two of my favourite organ works -

the little fugue in G minor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bbox4oi6HjA

the passacaglia and fugue in C minor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S2pm1g70DI

The passacaglia & fugue is haunting and profound.

[Keraulophone]

the passacaglia and fugue in C minor - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7S2pm1g70DI

The passacaglia & fugue is haunting and profound.

A unique masterpiece, going far beyond its Buxtehude model. This performance by Michel Chapuis is rather severe, and fairly typical of its late-1960s origins. There were several complaints on this MB when an insensitive recording of one of Bach's organ masterworks (was it the Fantasia in G minor?) was played one morning - it turned out to be Prof. Chapuis.

All-of-Bach's performance is more in line with current practice: https://youtu.be/zzBXZ__LN_M
Commentary by organist Reitze Smits: https://youtu.be/ekjHssVeaoo

[Padraig]

This one? https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-552/
Nothing that says you have to like everything Bach wrote Padraig, and even for Bach enthusiasts the organ music may not be favoured for listening experience as the instrument isn't for everyone.

Yes, O1O, it was last Friday's All of Bach, Prelude and Fugue in E flat, BWV 552. I listened a few times.

Thanks for the response, and to cloughie, Joseph K and Keraulophone, as well. I listened to all your suggestions again and I appreciate all your efforts to convert me, or excuse me. Some Bach organ pieces appeal to me more than others, and you don't have to worry about my loyalty to Bach himself. Reprobate that I am, I mostly enjoyed the Busoni piano arrangement of all the items sent, plus, the translation Keraulophone, which I took to heart. Incidentally, I now know why I pained you Keraulophone, with my post, being unaware of your own closeness to the king of instruments.

[Keraulophone]

I mostly enjoyed the Busoni piano arrangement of all the items… Incidentally, I now know why I pained you Keraulophone, with my post, being unaware of your own closeness to the king of instruments.

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Padraig, I was pleased you liked the Busoni. Although I’ve been playing the original organ version since my early teens, Busoni’s transcription has really captivated me - I just can’t stop playing it, particularly the final reiteration of the chorale in the tenor, which of course Bach does not do. Here, it helps to have a piano with a singing tenor register, often a limitation of smaller grands. The diminished penultimate chord might seem surprising at first, but to my mind it’s a minor stroke of genius, conveying last-minute doubt of salvation. There is also the vexed question of whether the piano is a more expressive musical instrument than the organ. I once heard Marcel Dupré playing a Chopin Prelude on the organ, but it wasn’t pretty. (I don’t have an organ at home, but I do have two pianos - an indication of my preference.)

Regarding Keraulophones, they are a relatively undistinguished horny-reedy-stringy type of organ stop of gentle-to-moderate loudness, with salicional-style holed or slotted pipes, that were popular in the later C19th but have since faded away. There was a particularly characterful one in St Peter’s, Clapham Junction (now demolished), where I occasionally deputised for the organist during the school holidays. I snapped my avatar at Béziers Cathedral while on a choir tour.
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[Joseph K]

[Joseph K]

[RichardB]

Perhaps it's time to bring up once more Mauricio Kagel's claim that "not many people believe in God any more but every musician believes in J S Bach".

I don't find myself immediately attracted to the sound of organ music in general, but the problem is that so much wonderful music has been written for the instrument (and not just by Bach of course) that often I feel I just have to get myself over that threshold somehow, and usually I find it's worthwhile. I think a lot of aversion to organ music has to do with the drab associations it conjures up. For example, my OH, having been brought up in an Orthodox environment where churches don't contain organs, is happy to listen to any amount of organ music, viewing it instead as something rather exotic and special. Last time I was in Leipzig a few years ago I attended a choral/organ concert at the Thomaskirche; I didn't have any choice about the date so it happened not to involve any Bach, but I have to say I was something akin to transported by the performance of L'Ascension that formed the programme's climax.