The grandeur of Bach’s organ wiring coms across viscerally in this recording, but so dos its brilliant. Masaaki Suzuki, famous for Bach Collegium Japan and his Bach Cantata recordings (plus stupendous St Matthew and St John Passions also on BIS), reveals his expertise in this simply phenomenal recording. The is the fifth volume in Suzuki’s Bach series for BIS.
Suzuki plays on the 1737 Christoph Treumann the Elder organ of Stiftskirch St Georg, Grauhof, Germany, one of the most important of surviving instruments from Bach’s time. It was built between 1734 and 1737. Suzuki has selected pieces from the Orgel-Büchlein (literally, “little organ book”), explained by the documentation as …
… a collection of 45 short chorale preludes on melodies from the Lutheran hymn book, a project that came into being in connection with Bach’s appointment as organist and chamber musician at the Duke’s court in Weimar in 1708. Presenting chorales for different periods of the church year, this collection serves as a general guide to text-based composition focusing on word- sound relationships and content-specific musical expression.
Three Preludes and Fugues complete the disc, illustrating the principle of variety and structure historically practised by concert organists in order to demonstrate the tone colours and expressive possibilities of their instrument.
The disc opens with the magisterial, and magisterially exciting, Prelude and Fugue in D-Major, BWB 532. As the fugue, a monument to counterpoint, reaches its climax, just listen to Suzuki’s footwork and how clarity is maintained via the choice of organ and the fantastic recording. For the Prelude, Bach uses sumple scales to maximal effect. Here’s both:
There follows some seven chorales for Easter and Pentecost, BWV 625-631. Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 625, pens a sequence of six resurrection chorales. Suzuki’s recording is brighter and more involving than David Goode’s (from his complete organ works on Signum):
There is a massive difference between Suzuki and Goode in Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, BWV 626. Suzuki is mysterious, holy, reverent; Goode far more outgoing:
Suzuki persuades us that the chorale Chirist ist erstanden, BWV 627, is one of Bach’s finest works. Some of the harmonic chromatecisms are remarkable in this piece. This piece sets all three stanzas, resulting in a substantially longer chorale:
Talking of “erstanden,” the next is Erstanden ist der helige Christ, BWV 628, short in duration bu a behemoth in intensity, a sort of Mighty Mouse amongst Bach Chorales:
hese chorales really areT microcosms that tell volumes within a short space of time, culminating, for the Easter chorales, with Heat’ triumphieret Göttes Sohn, BWV 630, a golden encrustation of that core chorale theme. And on to Pentacost for one chorale, Komm, Gott Schöpfer, Heliger Geist, BWV 631, a celebration of buoyant rhythm. Suzuki has the perfect measure of each. Here’s BWV 631:
While originally composed in Weimar, the Prelude and Fugue in C-Major, BWV 545 is heard here in its final (Leipzig) version. The audibility of counterpoint in the Præludium is off the scale; the Fugue exudes magnificence. The tightness of the bass pedals is astonishing in this recording, here’s the Fugue:
.. and so back to ace of chorales (and now hymns) from the Orgel-Büchlein: a further three chorales for Pentecost, and 10 Catechism Hymns. here are two stings juxtaposed of the chorale Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier (BWV 633 and 634), the first a beautifully calm A-Manor, the second a variant on that. Here’s BWV 633:
One of the most famous of Bach’s chorales is Durch Adams Fall, BWV 637. Chromaticism, diminished sevenths, it’s all there:
The chorale Alle Menschen müssen sterben, BWV 643 is remarkable; it comes as a pair with Ach, wie nichtig, ach wie flüchtig, BWV 644, the two acting as a combined mediation on death. Here’s BWV 643:
The disc ends with the magnificent B-Minor Prelude and Fugue, BW 544, from around 1730. Surely this is one of the finest of Bach’s Preludes to a fugue, and Suzuki give sit all the energy it requires:
Given that the recording is itself demonstration standard, this is one of the finest Bach organ discs I know.
The disc is available at Amazon here.
