Bach, J S: Fugue in C minor on a theme by Legrenzi, BWV574

Volume 6 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 featuring major works, a trio sonata, a concerto and a selections of chorale preludes.

The first disc features one of the worlds most iconic historic organs, built in 1738 by Christian Müller, in St Bavo’s church in Haarlem. The second disc features the large 2004 Bernard Aubertin organ in St Louis-en-l’Île, Paris. Built in eighteenthcentury German style this instrument is a similar size to the one in Haarlem and offers a fascinating comparison.

Repertoire includes some of Bach’s largest works for organ, with the Prelude and Fugues in Eminor (‘Wedge’) and B minor at Haarlem and the Fantasia and Fugue in G minor at Paris.

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.

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.