Böhm, G: Vater unser im Himmelreich, WK ii, 132

Bernard Foccroulle here continues his exploration of the north German organist composers with a recording of the works of Georg Böhm, a composer with whom J.S. Bach had come into contact at the end of his adolescence. At the foot of a manuscript dated around 1700 in which he had copied out pieces by Buxtehude, Reinken and Pachelbel that served as models for his own compositions, the young Johannes Sebastian Bach wrote that he was a pupil of Georg Böhm in Lüneburg. The organ works of this north German master foreshadow the young J.S. Bach’s first compositions in many respects; it was also clearly thanks to Böhm that Bach came into contact with the various genres of French music of the period. The Schnitger organ of the Grote Kerk in Alkmaar lends itself particularly well to this repertoire thanks to the power and the quality of its solo registers.

The members of this trumpet ensemble play on copies of the trumpet by Wolff Birckholtz (Nuremberg, 1650) discovered in a church in Belitz. Jean-Francois Madeuf and his ensemble have researched which pieces could have been performed in Northern Germany on these instruments.

Agnes Luchterhandt and Thiemo Janssen play the world-famous Arp Schnitger organ in St.Ludgeri’s Church in Norden. This husband and wife duo present the marvelously beautiful tone colors of East Friesland’s most magnificent organ, recorded in superb sound, in selections by Bach and his Northern German models Buxtehude and Reinecken.