Bach, J S: Fugue in C minor, BWV575

Any collection of recordings of Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) must include a good proportion of his compositions for the organ on which he must have been a master-performer and for which he provided a treasure trove of works. With organs requiring large acoustics they are usually to be found in churches, but such is the expense of maintaining them and the buildings in which they are housed that some are falling in to a state of disrepair or are being removed to be replaced by modern electrical or electronic instruments which, for all their good workmanship, completely fail to match the majesty of the original. Recordings, therefore, on a fine Hi-fi system are a superb alternative to travelling long distances to sit on often uncomfortable pews in cold churches (however that is not to say that they should completely replace the chance of hearing an original in real life, like other forms of music a live performance has added dimensions, it is just that it is becoming harder to attend such occasions). Lionel Rogg, in this second of several planned sets, brings together the remainder of the more extended works which are either a Fantasia, Prelude or Toccata followed by a Fugue, together with works which are Fantasias and Preludes without Fugues and some Fugues on their own.

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.

Later, when Johann Sebastian Bach was a choir boy at St. Michael´s School in Lüneburg, he will certainly have been strongly influenced by Georg Böhm, the organist at the towns Church of St. John, and Bach at the same time made frequent trips to Hamburg, where he could hear Johann Adam Reincken. In 1705 finally, Bach made his pilgrimage to the Church of St. Mary in Lübeck to see Dietrich Buxtehude, who towered above all other organists of his day, and with whom Bach spent quiet some time studying the masters works. Accordingly, Bach´s early works for organ clearly show the influence of Dietrich Buxtehude both in the free works as well as those wedded to a chorale, and that of Georg Böhm, especially in the chorale partitas. Some of these early compositions are also heard on this CD.