J.S. Bach on the Organ

[Mandryka]

What he said was as follows

Suzuki has no time or inclination for meditation; like a bull, he powers his way through this music, just itching to get on with the journey. I can't deny that there's a stern quality to the reading which could well turn off many listeners, but there are other sides to the performance. The levels of determination and inevitability are invincible. When the journey begins, you feel and join it. This is a "take no prisoners" version with sufficient poetry to be a great alternative to Rogg. Suzuki's hero is tough and posesses a no-nonsense attitude.

Don's position was that it's a game of two halves. First half Suzuki scores, in the second all he scores is an own goal. I'm listening to him do 678 and he's got me dancing round the room, clapping and shouting "praise the lordy" And OMG here comes 679 and I'm exhausted already!

[dissily Mordentroge]

Pieter Van Dijk has so far released 5 discs of Bach Organ works. Has anybody listened?

https://www.dmp-records.nl/nu-verkrijgbaar-album-5-van-bach-complete-organ-works-available-now-album-5-of-bach-complete-organ-works/

I suspect I'm not using the most accurate term in describing a dancelike stress on the downbeat as 'lilt' . I'm happy to be corrected. In the clip below it's evident Van Dijk understands the concept so often lost when organists imagine all Bach's organ works must exhibit a serious gravitas throughout. We know JS B himself did have a sense of humour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTa7JnAVIcQ

PS: Love the squeak the opening of the organ case makes at the beginning of this clip.

[Ratliff]

Dipped into the Koopman/Teldec. Probably not destined to be a favorite. Started with the Trio Sonata no 1. He chose registration which did not give equal weight to the two treble voices. One was dominant, the other I strained to hear. On the other hand, the Alla Breve came off well.

My references are Alain III and Johannson (Hanssler).

[Mandryka]

I suspect I'm not using the most accurate term in describing a dancelike stress on the downbeat as 'lilt' . I'm happy to be corrected. In the clip below it's evident Van Dijk understands the concept so often lost when organists imagine all Bach's organ works must exhibit a serious gravitas throughout. We know JS B himself did have a sense of humour.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTa7JnAVIcQ

PS: Love the squeak the opening of the organ case makes at the beginning of this clip.

He reminds me of Walcha's first recording. I'd buy a couple of the recordings -- CU3 and Leipzig Chorales -- but I can't work out how to order them!

[dissily Mordentroge]

He reminds me of Walcha's first recording. I'd buy a couple of the recordings -- CU3 and Leipzig Chorales -- but I can't work out how to order them!

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/artists/3011--helmut-walcha

[Dry Brett Kavanaugh]

Thank you for the helpful reviews, suggesting that the performance was jubilant and reminiscent of Walcha(!!), separately. Certainly I must take them as unusually positive reviews. I will try to make order of some discs.

[prémont]

Pieter Van Dijk has so far released 5 discs of Bach Organ works. Has anybody listened?

https://www.dmp-records.nl/nu-verkrijgbaar-album-5-van-bach-complete-organ-works-available-now-album-5-of-bach-complete-organ-works/

Are they available outside Holland?

[Mandryka]

You need to email them at info@dmp-records.nl

[bioluminescentsquid]

Anyone heard this one? Seems promising, but no samples online. (MDG's frustrating thing of not having any of their music on spotify etc., and only occasionally itunes)

Finally convinced myself to get this disc. Will post reactions, although it would be great for anyone familiar with it to tell us what to expect.

Based on the samples, Fischer's playing seems very "Dutch" - conservative and sober, but very nuanced. But also balanced by extrovert registrations e.g. the famous Friedrich Besser 32' reed in the pedal that Bach liked (well, at least what Flentrop imagines it to sound like) featuring throughout the E-flat major Prelude etc.

Any other good CU III's? This has been something I've wanted to explore, but haven't really gotten to. Surprise me - it seems like it's really hard music to play (let alone play well), and the recordings I've listened a lot to - Wiersma, Beekman at Nieuwe Kerk, to a lesser degree James Johnstone in Nidaros and Rübsam in Freiberg - have their respective high and low points.

A meaty - orgasmic almost - 552 by Kooiman at Weingarten (his recording of the Fugue is significantly less interesting, I think)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti6gEBMnsVE

I'm looking into Bert Matter too, but there isn't a lot of sound samples online and I will have to go through the relative hassle of ordering through Boeijenga (not their fault, just international shipping etc.)

[Marc]

[...]
Any other good CU III's? This has been something I've wanted to explore, but haven't really gotten to. Surprise me - it seems like it's really hard music to play (let alone play well), and the recordings I've listened a lot to - Wiersma, Beekman at Nieuwe Kerk, to a lesser degree James Johnstone in Nidaros and Rübsam in Freiberg ...- have their respective high and low points.
[...]

Availability might be a problem, but I've always liked Edgar Krapp.
He's playing the Joachim Wagner organs in Brandenburg and Treuenbrietzen.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000006LIZ/?tag=goodmusicguideco
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0000DC17O/?tag=goodmusicguideco

[Mandryka]

Cu 3 is one of those things I've collected, though I've managed to resist so far getting that MDG recording on the Flentrop. I think that you should try to hear Bert Matter.


But in truth I think there are loads of fabulous recordings of it - Coudurier, David Franke, Wiersma, Nordstoga, Krapp, Walcha, Astronio, Felix Friedrich, Kooiman on the Silberman organs and more . . . And in the sets there's Koopman and Foccroulle and Alain and others . . .

There's a lot of stylistic variety in the music, it's a compendium of styles really. The stile antiquo chorales at the start are, IMO, the hardest for organists to make fly off the page.

I wonder what you'll make of Jens Christensen.

[bioluminescentsquid]

A recording that Dominy Clements on musicweb recommended in place of Fischer, gave it a try. So far I have listened to around half of it.

It's a very gentle and loving CU III, performed very often on small, intimate registrations. Of course, smaller-scale pieces are more successful than large ones, which can get a little pedestrian. The organ, a modern marcussen, isn't a Schnitger or a Trost but still doesn't sound too bad or neo-baroque.

He does manage to build up a sense of nervous energy at the end that is quite nice, actually.

This might be the polar opposite of Jeremy Joseph's Cu III, which is hyper-masculine, jealous, and brooding - a bit of an old testament God.

even the cover looks quite ominous!

[dissily Mordentroge]

Either that shot's been Photoshoped to death, someone was silly enough to paint those pipes or it's a very, very peculiar alloy they're made of.

[bioluminescentsquid]

Either that shot's been Photoshoped to death, someone was silly enough to paint those pipes or it's a very, very peculiar alloy they're made of.

The Silbermann? I think it's just the old darkened tin facade pipes (Silbermann consistently made facades out of pure tin).

[dissily Mordentroge]

I've been listening and looking at them for decades but for some reason never noticed the dark coloration.
Now that I think about it most of them are dark but not so close to black in that previous shot.
I wonder if using pure tin is part of their unique sound?

[Mandryka]

Of course, smaller-scale pieces are more successful than large ones, which can get a little pedestrian.

One you may like to listen to is Damiani Pereti and Ekhardt Kuper, who use a c19 organ for the pedaliter chorales and a harpsichord for the manualiter music. The harpsichord music comes across well.

[bioluminescentsquid]

I've been listening and looking at them for decades but for some reason never noticed the dark coloration.
Now that I think about it most of them are dark but not so close to black in that previous shot.
I wonder if using pure tin is part of their unique sound?

Well, facade pipes in a lot of organs of the time were made in pure tin for prestige reasons - they take a good polish and are a good thing for the church/city to brag about because how much they cost. E.g. a lot of Schnitger organs have facade pipes of pure tin, although most of them were handed over in WWI for war supplies (meanwhile, the inner pipes were usually lead or contained a low amount of tin). Silbermann came from an 18th century French tradition that used a lot of tin, so he naturally did that too.
Of course subsequent voicing will have a bigger impact on the sound, but (as I understand it - I could be spouting nonsense) since the pipe body damps the vibration of the air column in the pipe (which produces the sound), the material will have an effect on the sound. Even the crystal structure of the metal (dependent on the conditions in which the metal cools) has an effect, which is why builders like Ahrend, Flentrop or Fritts now go great lengths to cast their organ metal on sand just like Arp Schnitger did.

A famous essay by Fisk on pipe metal, although I don't know how up to date it is in light of recent developments: https://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/pipemet.html

[dissily Mordentroge]

Well, facade pipes in a lot of organs of the time were made in pure tin for prestige reasons - they take a good polish and are a good thing for the church/city to brag about because how much they cost. E.g. a lot of Schnitger organs have facade pipes of pure tin, although most of them were handed over in WWI for war supplies (meanwhile, the inner pipes were usually lead or contained a low amount of tin). Silbermann came from an 18th century French tradition that used a lot of tin, so he naturally did that too.
Of course subsequent voicing will have a bigger impact on the sound, but (as I understand it - I could be spouting nonsense) since the pipe body damps the vibration of the air column in the pipe (which produces the sound), the material will have an effect on the sound. Even the crystal structure of the metal (dependent on the conditions in which the metal cools) has an effect, which is why builders like Ahrend, Flentrop or Fritts now go great lengths to cast their organ metal on sand just like Arp Schnitger did.

A famous essay by Fisk on pipe metal, although I don't know how up to date it is in light of recent developments: https://www.albany.edu/piporg-l/pipemet.html

This opens Pandora's Box. Do today's organ builders keep their formulations to themselves or is a body of available materials research in the public domain? I detect a tone from many Rieger instruments I can only describe as 'golden' and only from the metal ranks. Granted there are so many other variables I know nothing about.

[bioluminescentsquid]

This opens Pandora's Box. Do today's organ builders keep their formulations to themselves or is a body of available materials research in the public domain? I detect a tone from many Rieger instruments I can only describe as 'golden' and only from the metal ranks. Granted there are so many other variables I know nothing about.

I guess it depends, I think a lot of this knowledge is empirical and thus in-house. That's also why it got lost so quickly throughout the centuries. I know when Flentrop was commissioned to reconstruct the organ in Katharinenkirche Hamburg, one of the requirements on the contract was that they cast their pipes on sand. They had to figure it out details (e.g. what type of sand, how compact the sand had to be, casting speed, addition of oil, alloy etc.) themselves, despite a lot of work from "academic" sources such as GoArt to refer to.

Again, voicing matters much more than these, although as dry historians we do like to get things right down to every detail

Meanwhile, companies like Rieger, which focus on building organs in a "modern style" (Much less interesting, imho) without as much reference to historical models unlike Flentrop or Ahrend probably just do what they like.

[dissily Mordentroge]

I guess it depends, I think a lot of this knowledge is empirical and thus in-house. That's also why it got lost so quickly throughout the centuries. I know when Flentrop was commissioned to reconstruct the organ in Katharinenkirche Hamburg, one of the requirements on the contract was that they cast their pipes on sand. They had to figure it out details (e.g. what type of sand, how compact the sand had to be, casting speed, addition of oil, alloy etc.) themselves, despite a lot of work from "academic" sources such as GoArt to refer to.

Again, voicing matters much more than these, although as dry historians we do like to get things right down to every detail

Meanwhile, companies like Rieger, which focus on building organs in a "modern style" (Much less interesting, imho) without as much reference to historical models unlike Flentrop or Ahrend probably just do what they like.

My problem I suppose is I like what they do. Especially the instrument at Scot's Church, Melbourne. Somehow, in a less than perfect acoustic, they've built an instrument that has me spellbound though with the qualification have to sit directly oposite it, not in the main body of the church.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ajofs4waeL0