J.S. Bach on the Organ

[bioluminescentsquid]

Continuing to explore Thruringia a bit more, today I'm visiting Arnstadt, listening to the Wender organ at New Church, which Bach played as a teenager. According to Christoph Wolff and  Markus Zepf in The Organs of J.S. Bach, A Handbook (I've just bought it and I'm very glad to have it)  it's well tempered.

This is a performance of the Vivaldi/Bach D minor concerto -- an anonymous organist, but I like the registrations. And the pedal at the end of the first movement is impressive!

https://www.youtube.com/v/DBRajRFydPA

and this is a strange performance of the lento from the G major trio sonata, but I think it's interesting because it shows how well balanced the organ is

https://www.youtube.com/v/cFyP3FLpoUo&t=70s

There's only one disc of it on record according to France orgue -- by Helga Schauerte, I'll listen to it tonight

Got to play this organ a while back,  very charming bright sounds in there. It's mostly reconstruction; there are only a few complete stops left from the original organ, but it is very successful. I think it's quite a shame that there are not more recordings on this (and other similar Thuringian) organs, less imposing but much more colorful than their Northern and Dutch counterparts.

edit:
This was recorded there too

[Mandryka]

What's that?

Not quite. It's Leonidas Melnikas

I think that Wolff and Zepf use the term Well Tempered to mean any of the Werckmeiser Temperaments.

I saw a reference to Leonidas Melnikas in the notes after I posted but when I searched on the web for some sort of verification I couldn't find anything.

[Mandryka]

Got to play this organ a while back,  very charming bright sounds in there. It's mostly reconstruction; there are only a few complete stops left from the original organ, but it is very successful. I think it's quite a shame that there are not more recordings on this (and other similar Thuringian) organs, less imposing but much more colorful than their Northern and Dutch counterparts.

edit:
This was recorded there too

What's caught my attention listening to the Thumbergian organs is the great variety of symphonic timbres. I think in the past I've let the sound of Northern organs too much dominate my expectations about what Bach should sound like.

What did you make (if you've heard it) of Wilfrid Von Promnitz's AoF at Gräfandrola?

I haven't explored the Bach Contextueel recordings at all.

[prémont]

I think that Wolff ans Zepf use the term Well Tempered to mean any of the Werckmeiser Temperaments.

Maybe. I have seen it used a couple of times for Werckmeister III.

I saw a reference to Leonidas Melnikas in the notes after I posted but when I searched on the web for some sort of verification I couldn't find anything.

The nearest we come may be this, but without mention of the instrument used (and possibly not the Arnstadt instrument):

https://www.amazon.com/Organ-Works-1-Bach/dp/B00003TFLD

and this:

https://www.amazon.de/Organ-Concerto-Minor-After-Vivaldi/dp/B075ZP62WN/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1537782387&sr=8-3&keywords=leonidas+melnikas

[prémont]

What's caught my attention listening to the Thumbergian organs is the great variety of symphonic timbres. I think in the past I've let the sound of Northern organs too much dominate my expectations about what Bach should sound like.

The idea of Schnitger (or similar) instruments being ideal for Bach probably only holds true of the youthful works inspired by the North German school (works like BWV 531,532, 533, 535, 549, 550, 551, 565, 566 and a number of early chorale preludes/fantasies).

[Marc]

The idea of Schnitger (or similar) instruments being ideal for Bach probably only holds true of the youthful works inspired by the North German school (works like BWV 531,532, 533, 535, 549, 550, 551, 565, 566 and a number of early chorale preludes/fantasies).

I'm happy that I do not have any idea, actually.
If the reports are all authentic, then Bach has been positive about a more types of organs.
(I suffer from the same .)

[Mandryka]

Here's the sort of sound that Bach would have known well I guess, on the Altenburg Trost

https://www.youtube.com/v/JY_VrJ2T8DM&feature=youtu.be

And what about this? Would he have been used to this sound on the Naumburg Hilderbrabdt (this is not for the squeamish)?

https://www.youtube.com/v/Bpr3JZIbejI&feature=youtu.be

[prémont]

I'm happy that I do not have any idea, actually.
If the reports are all authentic, then Bach has been positive about a more types of organs.
(I suffer from the same .)

Of course I did not express my own opinion in my former post.

[Marc]

Of course I did not express my own opinion in my former post.

I understood.

(I did, though. )

[Marc]

Here's the sort of sound that Bach would have known well I guess, on the Altenburg Trost

https://www.youtube.com/v/JY_VrJ2T8DM&feature=youtu.be

And what about this? Would he have been used to this sound on the Naumburg Hilderbrabdt (this is not for the squeamish)?

https://www.youtube.com/v/Bpr3JZIbejI&feature=youtu.be

Thanks for both of them.

[André]

Any comments on that one? Klais instruments have an excellent reputation.

[prémont]

Here's the sort of sound that Bach would have known well I guess, on the Altenburg Trost

And what about this? Would he have been used to this sound on the Naumburg Hilderbrabdt (this is not for the squeamish)?

Maybe even Bach was a bit surprised by the massiveness of the Naumburg organ, - just a thought. If he wasn't, he wanted his music to sound completely different from what we usually think, but how?

[Mandryka]

Maybe even Bach was a bit surprised by the massiveness of the Naumburg organ, - just a thought. If he wasn't, he wanted his music to sound completely different from what we usually think, but how?

It's a very indulgent improvisation that, wallowing in the Unda Maris. In Wolff's book on Bach's organs he has a translation of Bach's report on the Hildenbrandt organ at Naumburg - Bach singles out the Unde Maris for special mention, "a stop named Unda Maris has been provided" - in English that sounds as though Bach is distancing himself a bit from it, as if it's something new and strange for him. I don't know if there are the same connotations in the original.

There is an Unda Maris stop at Waltershausen but I can't work out whether it was added after Bach died.

[Marc]

Any comments on that one? Klais instruments have an excellent reputation.

Klais makes organs of various types and styles/periods, but yes, it's a famous building company.

Apart from that: at least the cover of this twofer is kinda titillating.
'Ordered' at the library.

[Mandryka]

Claudio Astronio's essay on The Leipzig Chorales

The Manuscripts

During his last years, Bach seems to have felt com-pelled to set his organ works in order - both recent and earlier - in complete cycles. 1739 saw the publi-cation of the chorales of part III of the Klavieruebung, in 1746 Bach transcribed six from the Schuebler collection and in 1747-49 he took a series of chorales written thirty years before in Weimar, (probably after the incomplete Orgelbuechlein cycle), and put them in a composite manuscript containing the following works: six trios, seventeen chorales, the canon variations on "Von Himmel hoch da komm ich her" and the unfinished chorale "Wenn wir in hoechsten Noeten sein / Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit". These versions of the Weimar chorales are more elaborate than their prede-cessors - in ornamentation, size and, in some cases, considerably expanded. The only Weimar chorale Bach did not modify was the chorale of the thanks-giving hymn "Nun danket alle Gott".

Several chorales have ornamentation in the soprano part, ("Komm heiliger Geist" BWV 652, "Schmuecke dich o liebe Seele"BWV 654, "Nun danket alle Gott" BWV 657, "Nun komm der heiden Heiland" BWV 659 e 660, "Allein Gott in der Hoch sei Ehr" BWV 662), two in the tenor, ("An Wasserfluessen Babylon" BWV 653, "Allein Gott in der Hoeh sei Ehr" BWV 663) and the others employ the Fantasia technique, (the opening "Komm heiliger Geist, Herre Gott" BWV 651, "Nun komm der Heiden Heiland "BWV 661, the two "Jesus Christus, unser Heiland" BWV 665 - 666 and the fmal "Komm, Gott, Schoepfer, Heiliger Geist" BWV 667) the Trio concertato, ("Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend" BWV 655) and ornamentation in the two
bass parts, ("Nun komm der Heiden Heiland" BWV 660 and "Allein Gott in der Hoeh sei Ehr" BWV 664). There is just one manualiter chorale, "Jesus Christus unser Heiland" BWV 666 and "0 Lamm Gottes, unschuldig" BWV 656 - the longest work in the collection - has three verses: the first two are manualiter, with the first being repeated due to the demands of the text, and the last is pedaliter with a powerfully tense chromatic passage. All the verses are in ternary rhythm (3/2, 3/2 e 9/4).

A Number of Considerations

Bach intended to combine the works in this manu-script into a new cycle, just as he had done for part III of the Klavieruebung, the Schuebler collection and the unfinished Orgelbuchlein and may have wanted to publish an edition. Inexplicably, however, this attempt at a collection seems to lack that unify-ing factor apparent in Bach's previous ones. The Orgelbuechlein was clearly supposed to be for church services throughout the year, part III of the Klavieruebung for the two masses and two cate-chisms and the Schubler collection demonstrated the composer's new ideas on the nature of church music. Yet the Leipzig manuscript has nothing markedly organic about it - the only detail being that the series of seventeen chorales opens and closes in the name of the holy spirit, (the two "Komm heiliger Geist"BWV 651 e 652 and "Komm, Gott, Schoepfer, heiliger Geist" BWV 667). The eye disease from which Bach began to suffer and which would kill him meant that his son-in-law Johann Christian Altnickol copied out the last two chorales and an anonymous copyist produced the first three lines of the unfinished "Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit"BWV 668. Which means that the Leipzig chorales number sev-enteen plus one with not a few considerations regard-ing the so-called eighteenth. "Wenn wir in hoechsten Noeten sein" is supposed to have been Bach's last work, dictated by the blind composer to a friend and put into the manuscript after his death by an anony-mous copyist with the title "Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit", a change justified by the two different texts being for use with the same chorale melody. But the composition is curiously unfinished and the complete version was inserted by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach into the posthumous edition of the Art Of The Fugue with the title "Wenn wir in hoechsten Noeten sein"BWV 668a." This naturally became known as the Stterbechoral, i.e. the chorale which is preparato-ry for death, and the mythology which arose con-cerning it was probably intended to do so. The work already existed in the Orgelbuechlein and, like many others, had already been subject to innovation. The fact that the same melody was used with two differ-ent texts - the one in question consolatory and the other a Morgenlied or morning prayer, led some friend or acquaintance to make a choice they felt appropriate to the situation and so giving rise to the legend of the chorale dictated by the composer on his death bed.

The Music, The Organ, The Choir, Bach and The Present Recording

The emotional impact I constantly experienced dur-ing the evening recording sessions of the chorales left me feeling rather puzzled and undecided when it came to editing the present recording. The power of
each piece and perpetually twirling geometry of the musical and rhetorical phrases coming together and moving apart led me to record several versions of the same chorale almost without realizing it. Playing one of these compositions a hundred times over would never lead to a definitive, "correct" performance. I had to accept that every time I played one, Bach's ideas would constantly be generating others like an infinite kaleidoscope and the only way to get to grips with them all would be to keep playing. I thus chose the versions I felt best suited to this notion of the infi-nite yet which also best conveyed the human quality of this music. I allowed myself to improvise some divisions in the ritornelli, such as the extraordinary sarabande of "Schmuecke dich.." and its fantastic image of the sould intent on adorning itself to be pre-sentable to God, or in the infinite peace of the adagio pf "Allein Gott...", a Gloria in excelsis in which all three versions have a light, angel-like pathos rather than anything boomingly celebratory. I chose the takes for musical reasons of course, yet also for the connection I felt was made with the text - the prima-ry source of inspiration for the music itelf. I often kept tempi slow and recording soft, which I felt suit-ed the density of the music and the need to experi-ence fully the phantasmagorial ornamentation of the songline and the tension of the counterpoint. I chose the organ not only for the quality of its sound but also for its character - immediate and up-front yet pro-foundly gentle. We tend to hear external noises, such as moving air and mechanical parts, as something that goes against our standard notions of ascetically clean recorded sound, but I found they actually helped me keep an expressive hold on that subtle yet strong vein of down-to-earth humanity which I heard in this music and it is this very idea which led me to alternate the voices with the organ. Urban Stillhardt and I decided the choir should sing the text of "Vor deinen Thron...- in the eighteenth chorale while we called the organ version "Wenn wir in hoechsten No eten sein". Earlier considerations on these matters aside, whatever one's musicological beliefs, the peacefully luminous simplicity of this chorale is per-fectly suited to both texts - certainty and consolation in the face of difficulty in "Wenn wir.." and serene confiding in God in "Vor deinen Thron..." - does indeed appear to have been intended as an evocative, perfect conclusion to a marvellous cycle.

Claudio Astronio translated by Nicholas Boini

[prémont]

Claudio Astronio's essay on The Leipzig Chorales

Which organ does he use? A modern Italian organ?

Is the recording worth a listen for one who owns at least 50 complete sets already?

[prémont]

Any comments on that one? Klais instruments have an excellent reputation.

A pity that one has got to accept a whole Glass CD too.

I have listened to some clips. The organ is a typical post-war equally tuned German all round organ, which adds a degree of colorlessness to Bach's music. The interpretation is informed but other than that rather run-of-the-mill. I choose to pass it by.

[Marc]

Which organ does he use? A modern Italian organ?

Is the recording worth a listen for one who owns at least 50 complete sets already?

Another one I 'ordered' at the NL lib. On the lib site no more info was given.
Did a quick search, but it's difficult to find information on the world wide web... one site mentioned a Verschueren organ (Dutch).

[prémont]

Another one I 'ordered' at the NL lib. On the lib site no more info was given.
Did a quick search, but it's difficult to find information on the world wide web... one site mentioned a Verschueren organ (Dutch).

According to JPC's site:

Orgel Radiokapelle St. Benedikt Convento Muri-Gries di Bolzano

https://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/art/Johann-Sebastian-Bach-1685-1750-Chor%E4le-BWV-651-668-Leipziger-Chor%E4le/hnum/7734691

And according to WIKI:

Die heutige Orgel stammt von der Orgelbaufirma Manfred Mathis & Co. aus dem Jahr 1971.

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abtei_Muri-Gries

[Mandryka]

And according to the booklet Astronio played the organ chorales on an organ made by Verschueren Orgelbouw in 2002, in a place called St Paolo in the South Tyrol. The "Radiokapelle St. Benedikt Convento Muri-Gries di Bolzano" was where they recorded the singing, but the booklet doesn't mention the organ there.