J.S. Bach on the Organ

[XB-70 Valkyrie]

Thanks for your efforts Premont--they add greatly to this forum (and my collection)!

I am interested in a thread on historical recordings of pipe organ music. I am not sure whether it is warranted, or if we should tack it on the other pipe organ mega-thread.

Thoughts on

Marcel Dupré
E. Power Biggs
Pierre Cochereau
Albert Schweitzer
Virgil Fox (stop laughing, I heard an interesting performance of Buxtehude from him.)

et al., would be very interesting!

[Mandryka]

You're fabulous Marc.

Well, I've ordered the two Bach Cds and they appear to ready to ship to the UK -- I've had a confirmation email and I await an invoice with bated breath.

The invoice number was 26 -- only 25 other people have used their website it seems!

The Dutch are unbelievably good at music. How can such a small nation have so many great musicians and so many great organs? I'm going to try to find a tour of Dutch organs with concerts.

Nothing came of this for me, no reply to my order. So the interesting Bert Matter remains a mystery.

[Mandryka]

A question for those who have heard dozens of recordings:
Which 5 (five) complete (for small values of complete, i.e. older boxes without Neumeister chorales etc. do count) and which 5 singles (1-2 disc sets/anthologies, can be part of complete set but have to be available separately and no partial traversals with >3 discs like Koopman/Novalis) recordings of Bach's organ music would have your highest recommendation/be considered essential/...?

I would get all the recordings Rübsam made for Naxos and Jens Christensen made for Kontrapunkt. And all of Leonhardt's organ recordings.



Oh and by the way, I disrecommend Heiller.

[Mandryka]

Re complete sets, what I would really like is that someone uploads one of the earlier Kooiman sets.

[Que]

Re complete sets, what I would really like is that someone uploads one of the earlier Kooiman sets.

A reissue would even be better!
Since the copyrights are in Dutch hands, my hopes are on Brilliant (which is also Dutch owned).

Q

[Marc]

Nothing came of this for me, no reply to my order. So the interesting Bert Maater remains a mystery.

I know of such mysteries, they have happened to me too... selling cds isn't the core business for most of those societies.
My advice is: send them an e-mail, refer to your order and ordering number, ask them how you have to pay for it when living abroad, and ask them how long it takes them to send the discs, et cetera and et al, of course everything in a polite manner.
Oh, and send the mail cc to: marieke.buiten@kpnmail.nl.
I'm not sure, but I think she's the librarian/documentalist of the Stichting Henrick Baderorgel.

Good luck!

[Marc]

[...]
Oh and by the way, I disrecommend Heiller.

OMG, somebody hacked the one and only Mandryka's account!

Anton Heiller's Orgelbuchlein and Leipzig Chorales have been transfered and are available from here

http://klassichaus.us/Organ-Keyboard.php

I've only listened to the energetic and jollly and uplifting Orgelbuchlein so far. This is basically a  celebration of God. The sound is very good.

I first got to know this organist through a wonderful Ermitage CD. He really has a face, a character, without being obviously quirky. The Vanguard CD is one of my most played Bach compilation CDs

I do know about these mysteries, too, btw.
Sometimes first favourites get overtaken by others.

[Marc]

A reissue would even be better!
Since the copyrights are in Dutch hands, my hopes are on Brilliant (which is also Dutch owned).

I fear not.
They already replaced the Fagius set for the new Stefano Molardi integral.

Maybe we should all write to Challenge Records and say that they should try to reiussue the Coronata Koopman, or try to get the publishing rights for that other very good Dutch integral by Bram Beekman (who, btw, died earlier this year). Those former Lindenberg recordings are superb, and the choice of organs is yummy, too.

[Harry]

A reissue would even be better!
Since the copyrights are in Dutch hands, my hopes are on Brilliant (which is also Dutch owned).

Q

Fear not, it's in the pipeline, although I do not know which recording they take, neither do I know the date Brilliant will release.
The Molardi set has not been the success they expected.

[Que]

Fear not, it's in the pipeline, although I do not know which recording they take, neither do I know the date Brilliant will release.
The Molardi set has not been the success they expected.

That is really great news!
Though judging from the reissue of the Weiss set by Cardin, it could take a year or two. Will be worth the wait.

We both had our doubts about Molardi in Bach - amazing talent wasted on the wrong choice of repertoire.... Or just too early in his carreer....
Though the IMO terrific  Kuhnau set is a good revindication.

Of course Brilliant already had a complete Frescobaldi keyboard works in their catalogue (Roberto Lorreggian), but something like that would  probably been a better choice.

Q

[amw]

I'm an incredibly shallow asshole where it comes to organ music, so my #1 concern is the sound of the instruments. So I basically looked at the set "on Silbermann organs" (i don't remember performer), Foccroulle and Weinberger, and I think I decided to get Foccroulle because I found the sound on the Silbermann set too "watery" and Weinberger just is spread out over too many damn CDs >_> I don't want 21 CDs of Bach organ music. For that matter I don't even want 16. I'd be totally fine with like, three. But I had never heard a single piece of Bach's organ music except some very shitty performances of the Toccata & Fugue and a couple of the other fugues on shitty modern organs, and had no idea what I was going to like enough to listen to repeatedly.

Anyway, no complaints with Foccroulle, lots of wonderful music in there that I'm probably going to listen to all of eventually. Atm my main method of listening is I just put all 303 tracks on shuffle and listen to whatever comes up until I get bored or have to go do something else. Idk whether this counts as a recommendation.

[Harry]

I heard "BACH - Saorgin, organ - O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde gross BWV 622" on internet, And frankly found it to be quite good! Anyone has more listening experience with this performer?

[Mandryka]

I'm an incredibly shallow asshole where it comes to organ music, so my #1 concern is the sound of the instruments. So I basically looked at the set "on Silbermann organs" (i don't remember performer), Foccroulle and Weinberger, and I think I decided to get Foccroulle because I found the sound on the Silbermann set too "watery" and Weinberger just is spread out over too many damn CDs >_> I don't want 21 CDs of Bach organ music. For that matter I don't even want 16. I'd be totally fine with like, three. But I had never heard a single piece of Bach's organ music except some very shitty performances of the Toccata & Fugue and a couple of the other fugues on shitty modern organs, and had no idea what I was going to like enough to listen to repeatedly.

Anyway, no complaints with Foccroulle, lots of wonderful music in there that I'm probably going to listen to all of eventually. Atm my main method of listening is I just put all 303 tracks on shuffle and listen to whatever comes up until I get bored or have to go do something else. Idk whether this counts as a recommendation.O

Weinberger is too variable. Listen to his Leipzig Chorales and see if you agree with me. They're spread on two discs on two organs, the first outstanding, some really fabulous Bach playing. The second CD, no good at all.

I think Foccroulle has highs and lows, the highs maybe not as wild as Weinberger but still very special - in the big sets of chorales for example.

[Harry]

My advice would be for all that seek Bach on the Organ, to listen to as many tracks as there are on internet. A good thing is also to buy cheap releases from people that have earned their place. It's far better as listening to the  bashing of performers for not doing this or that right, as if the best performers are on GMG or other forums.
Take into account the opinion of people that know, instead of those that pretend.

[Marc]

Fear not, it's in the pipeline, although I do not know which recording they take, neither do I know the date Brilliant will release.
The Molardi set has not been the success they expected.

That's great news, Harry!

To be honest: personally and selfishly, I would be 'better' off when they would re-release Kooiman's first (vinyl) integral, because I already managed to get the Coronata recordings between 2009 and 2011, with the help of organ friends, the library (Clavier-Übung 3) and (huhu) myself.

But I also have one or two 1980s recordings by Kooiman with Bach & other baroque composers, and it seemed to me that he was playing less 'free' in his earlier years, so for the 'general' organ lover it would be better that the Coronata discs were reissued.

Never expected that Brilliant would come out with a 3rd Bach organ set, but hey, it's great to be surprised!

[Marc]

I heard "BACH - Saorgin, organ - O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde gross BWV 622" on internet, And frankly found it to be quite good! Anyone has more listening experience with this performer?

His Orgelbüchlein is indeed a classic (and also mentioned by Premont in the first post in this ongoing thread).
It's been some time since I last listened to it, but I liked it a lot.

[Harry]

His Orgelbüchlein is indeed a classic (and also mentioned by Premont in the first post in this ongoing thread).
It's been some time since I last listened to it, but I liked it a lot.

Then I will give it a go. Thank you!!

[amw]

Weinberger is too variable. Listen to his Leipzig Chorales and see if you agree with me. They're spread on two discs on two organs, the first outstanding, some really fabulous Bach playing. The second CD, no good at all.

I think Foccroulle has highs and lows, the highs maybe not as wild as Weinberger but still very special - in the big sets of chorales for example.

I picked one from each album to test: BWV 658 and 659. Part of the problem is that I don't know either piece. I found the performance of BWV 659 enchanting and that of BWV 658 rather boring. I guess that's the exact opposite of your opinion though. >_>

BWV 657 was much better than 658. BWV 660, comparatively with 659, seemed a bit of a mess though still quite interesting. (I've apparently heard 657 once and 660 also zero times. in fact iTunes informs me I've heard exactly 3 of the Leipzig Chorales.) I'm probably listening for the wrong things and judging performances too much by their registrations or something.

[Mandryka]

I picked one from each album to test: BWV 658 and 659. Part of the problem is that I don't know either piece. I found the performance of BWV 659 enchanting and that of BWV 658 rather boring. I guess that's the exact opposite of your opinion though. >_>

BWV 657 was much better than 658. BWV 660, comparatively with 659, seemed a bit of a mess though still quite interesting. (I've apparently heard 657 once and 660 also zero times. in fact iTunes informs me I've heard exactly 3 of the Leipzig Chorales.) I'm probably listening for the wrong things and judging performances too much by their registrations or something.

Well at least we agree that he's variable!

[Marc]

I picked one from each album to test: BWV 658 and 659. Part of the problem is that I don't know either piece. I found the performance of BWV 659 enchanting and that of BWV 658 rather boring. I guess that's the exact opposite of your opinion though. >_>

BWV 657 was much better than 658. BWV 660, comparatively with 659, seemed a bit of a mess though still quite interesting. (I've apparently heard 657 once and 660 also zero times. in fact iTunes informs me I've heard exactly 3 of the Leipzig Chorales.) I'm probably listening for the wrong things and judging performances too much by their registrations or something.

Nah, I think ur just following your own taste. Nothing much wrong with that.
I'd like to add though, that at first I wasn't all that fond of many of the reed stops.
Well, that certainly changed over the years.