Bach, J S: Chorale Prelude BWV730 'Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier'

Volume 5 of Margaret Phillips’ on-going and critically-acclaimed cycle of the complete organ works of JS Bach, featuring the best of historic instruments.

Two CD set at ‘two-for-one’ price.

This volume includes the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor BWV565, the ‘Dorian’ Toccata and Fugue BWV 538 and a varied selection of large- and small-scale works which form a satisfying self-contained recital of Bach’s organ music on each of the two CDs.

This is volume 6 in this series and Schauerte plays these works on the organ of the Reformed Church of the Bouclier, Strasbourg.

2 discs for the price of 1

Hyperion’s Bach piano transcription series, which has done so much to illustrate the unique effect of Bach on the nineteenth-century mind, has reached volume 7 with the complete transcriptions by Max Reger.

Reger was described by his contemporaries as ‘the modern-day Bach’, partly because of his frequent use of fugue and other characteristic forms. His skills as a pianist were matched by his abilities as an organist—a situation that influenced his a profound understanding of Bach’s counterpoint. Therefore it is fascinating to see the composer’s direct response to his predecessor.

In the young German virtuoso Markus Becker we have the ideal performer: he has already recorded the complete original piano works of Reger. As Francis Pott writes in his comprehensive booklet notes: ‘In adopting a balance of linear and polyphonic clarity with the full expressive resources of the piano and of virtuoso technique, Markus Becker respects the historic significance both of Bach’s original inspirations and of Reger’s transcriptions as documents of their own time’.

Weimar was a place of happy and fruitful activity for Johann Sebastian Bach - as was Köthen for his chamber music. For a brief period (in 1703) Bach worked as one of the court musicians here at the tender age of 18 before becoming court organist in 1708. Here he could devote himself entirely to playing organ and harpsicord and composing for these instruments, as well as broadening his education through travel. This CD brings togehter a number of particular "blossoms of the Weimar period", above all the mighty Passcaglia in C Minor BWV 582.