Bach, J S: Passacaglia in C minor, BWV582

Hyperion’s Bach Piano Transcriptions series reaches volume 8, and continues to surprise and delight with a disc containing many first recordings. The controversial figure of Eugen d’Albert was one of the greatest pianists of his day and, although largely forgotten now, a composer of genuinely international renown. A sometime student at the Royal College of Music, d’Albert rejected his British upbringing and nailed his colours to the mast of German music. Bach was an important part of his performing career—and like other great nineteeth-century pianists, d’Albert saw in the monumental scale of the organ works an opportunity to synthesize the works of the Master with the expanded capabilities of the modern piano.

Bach’s glittering reputation as a virtuoso organist was based primarily on his extraordinary abilities as an improviser, echoes of which we can hear in the Passacaglia in C minor: its 20 virtuoso variations over a repeating bass carefully overlap one with another and lead ultimately to an imposing double fugue that brings a satisfying textural and harmonic catharsis. BWV549 and 561 both follow the prelude– fugue–postlude form. In BWV549 the centre of gravity lies in the fugue, whose delightfully quirky subject is treated with an almost reckless playfulness. In BWV561 it is the postlude that captures the imagination: the composer (possibly not Bach) waits until then to introduce the pedals, above which he develops brilliantly figuration. The coda of the Fugue in C minor BWV574 is even more striking, and has the rhetorical drama of a semi improvised toccata.

The chorales BWV639–41 are taken from the Orgel-Büchlein (‘Little organ book’), which collects 46 chorale arrangements Bach wrote while he was organist at the court of Weimar in 1708–17. Herzlich tut mich verlangen, the so-called Passion Chorale, is harmonised no fewer than four times, each time differently, in the St Matthew Passion; here Bach treats it to delicate melodic embellishment.

Accordion wizard Mika Väyrynen’s new release includes J.S. Bach/ French Suites 1–3, Praeludium XXIV in B minor and Passacaglia in C minor. On this Bach CD it’s all about high-quality playing by one of the world’s best-known and most highly-acclaimed Finnish accordionists! Remember also Väyrynen’s previous Bach release The Goldberg Variations (ABCD 191) which was a great success.

Buxtehude and Bach deeply marked the Baroque world of which they were unquestionable heroes. This CD features Ivana Vallotti’s sublime performances of Buxtehude and Bach organ works, both striking for their exuberant creativity, wonderful contrasts, and palpable joy.

On 6 August 1840, Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy gave his legendary concert with works by Johann Sebastian Bach at the organ of St Thomas Leipzig. Mendelssohn Bartholdy concluded the evening with an improvisation which acted as a window onto the past: herein, he relates the musical expressivity of his own time to Bach’s compositions.

Mendelssohn’s concert programme is the basis for this new CD: 171 years later, the composer Hans-Joachim Hespos reopens this window, and performs his piece Luftschattengelichte at the very same moment in the programme at which Mendelssohn Bartholdy had begun to improvise. While Mendelssohn had tried hard to highlight the connections with the musical past, to present Bach’s music as living heritage, the composer Hespos instead chooses to emphasise the ‘non-connections.’ Luftschattengelichte is constructed from sounding events, from islands of sound, the order and inner design of which by and large can and have to be determined by the performer. On the present recording, Oliver Kluge performs at the Marcussen organ at the Pauluskirche Hanover.

The programme on this recording includes some of J.S. Bach's most famous organ works, as well as a number of chorale fantasias, including one discovered quite recently. Indeed, the opening bars of “Wo Gott der Herr nicht bei uns hält” were all that we knew of the score of that piece until March 2008, when a fair copy turned up at a public auction...

Volume 7 of Margaret Phillips’ on-going and critically-acclaimed cycle of the complete organ works of JS Bach Two CD set at ‘two-for-one’ price, each disc is a self-contained recital.

This set features two very different instruments by two of the finest organ builders of Bach’s time, both beautifully restored in the last few years. CD 1 features the 1728 Zacharias Hildebrandt organ in St Jacobikirche, Sangerhausen. The second disc features the 1735 Gottfried Silbermann organ in the Petrikirche Freiberg.

Repertoire includes the Preludes and Fugues in G major, A minor and C minor and the great Passacaglia in C minor.

The organist and musicologist Hubert Meister died at the end of 2010 and in his memory MDG is making three of his recordings available for the first time on a double CD. Meister recorded the music from the period between 1701 and 1744 on Mathis organs in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Anyone who plays a pedal harpsichord for the first time is inevitably fascinated by its possibilities. We know that Bach himself preferred a rich, resonant sound and this CD celebrates the repertoire.

Luc Beauséjour is renowned for the elegance, virtuosity and expressiveness of his playing.