Bach, J S: Chorale Prelude BWV727 'Herzlich tut mich verlangen'

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.

Kempff's Baroque pedigree stemmed from the influence of his father, also named Wilhelm Kempff, and his grandfather Cantor Friedrick Kempff, both of whom were organists, and who taught the budding prodigy much of the organ's core repertoire. In fact, Kempff's youthful debut as an organist took place before his first recital as a pianist in 1907. With help from the great German violinist Joseph Joachim, the nine-year-old Kempff was awarded two scholarships at the Berlin Hochschule: one in composition with Robert Kahn, the other studying piano with Heinrich Barth, who also taught Arthur Rubinstein.

While most of Wilhelm Kempff's recordings were made for Deutsche Grammophon, his early Decca LPs and EPs are collector's items. Here issued internationally on CD for the first time is the LP of his Bach recital coupled with a delicious record of miniatures by Couperin, Rameau and Beethoven, including the latter's ubiquitous Fur Elise. In his liner notes, Jed Distler compares Kempff's arrangements of Bach with those of Busoni, and his performances with those of Hess and others. 'Fur Elise gently soars from Kempff's fingers in full-throated, legato arcs that might convince you that the piano has lungs in addition to hammers and strings,' he writes, and concludes, 'The warm, naturally balanced and timbrally true sonic image typical of Decca's piano recordings of this vintage only enhance Kempff's singular artistry. Whatever one makes of his style, his spirit defines authenticity.'

"...excellently recorded programme of arrangements made by Kempff himself..." Gramophone.

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’.

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.

On the 100th anniversary of the foundation of his ‘jungle hospital’ at Lambarene, Rondeau Production dedicates a very special Bach recording to Albert Schweitzer.

Ullrich Böhme performs works by Johann Sebastian Back at the Silbermann organ at St Thomas, Strasbourg.

Bonus track features a historic recording of Schweitzer in 1936 performing Adagio in A minor from Bach’s C major Tocccata at the church of Sainte-Aurélie Strasbourg.