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Recording

Jacob Praetorius, Melchior Schildt: Selected Organ Works

Bernard Foccroulle
68:05
Ricercar RIC400

At the heart of this fascinating presentation of two of Sweelinck’s pupils’ organ works by the scholarly Bernard Fouccroule is one of Germany’s more remarkable organs – the Stellwagen organ in its substantially original late gothic case that hangs on the north wall of the Jacobikirche in Lübeck.

Not only is the music beautifully played and presented – the latest in Fouccroule’s anthology of Northern German early Baroque music – but the instrument is splendid for the music.  A Schwalbennestorgel (a swallow’s nest organ) was built here in 1467 and this great Blockwerk organ – a substantial principal chorus of 16’, 8’, 4’ and six ranks of upperwork giving the characteristic full organ sound of the period before perforated sliders were introduced to ‘stop’ some of the ranks of pipes sounding – was restored in 1515 when the main case was provided. Then the organ was enlarged in 1636-37 by the addition of a Rückpositiv, a Brustwerk and a pedal organ by the great organ builder Friedrich Stellwagen, the builder of the magisterial instrument in the Marienkirche in Stralsund along the coast to the East.

By great good fortune, he kept the late gothic Blockwerk with only minor additions, so the organ speaks with the authentic voice of the period when both composers were in their prime. The pedal organ has not survived, but the careful conservation and renovation of 1978 (reversing some of the post-WW II ‘restoration’) has given us a Stellwagen-type pedal organ including reeds at 16’, 8’, 4,’ and 2’ pitches.  Dominique Thomas is credited with the expert tuning of the organ, which is pitched at A=494 Hz (i.e., a whole tone above modern A=440) in Werkmeister III modified where I was expecting something a little more obviously mean-tone, but it sounds splendid and the reeds are perfectly regulated.

The music from both composers is dominated by the Lutheran chorale, with sets of variations as well as chorale fantasias using Sweelinck’s chromaticism and echo effects as well as plenty of verses where the chorale moves in slower notes in the pedal.  The booklet, in English, French and German, has an essay by Fouccroule and not only detailed information about the history of the organ and its specification but importantly detailed registration of every piece, including stop changes. This is surely a must for every significant recording on a historic instrument such as this, where interest in the instrument and its presentation will be of equal significance to the cognoscenti who might buy the CD – as I would encourage them all to do.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Bach: Cantatas BWV 169 & 2

Le Banquet Céleste, [Céline Scheen,] Damien Guillon, [Nicholas Scott, Benoît Arnould] ScTTB, Maude Gratton organ
74:07
Alpha Classics Alpha 448
+BWV 543, 662-664

Alpha have produced a number of fine recordings over the years, and this CD from Damien Guillon, the countertenor, collaborating again with Maude Gratton playing the 2007 Thomas organ in the Église Réformée du Bouclier in Strasbourg is full of wonderful sonorities. It gives us a truer picture of what Bach Cantatas can sound like when the accompaniment based on a substantial organ, and the organ in this church is in the west of a gallery that runs round three sides of the church. Plenty of room has been created for singers and instruments – including a mellow-toned harpsichord – and the effect of cello and contrabass, organ and harpsichord in recitatives is breathtaking.

I know the church, and have played its organ, which is pitched at A=415 Hz (though it has a couple of ranks at 440). The acoustics are not over-resonant, but gave enough give to ensure good blend. The detailed specification is given, but unfortunately no details of the registration for individual movements.

Guillon sings beguilingly, and, save for one awkward change of register in BWV 169.iv on the words sie schließt die Hölle zu, (though perhaps that gritty sound is intended here?) with his habitual elegance and musicianship. The one-to-a-part strings and wind are perfectly tuned, and the organ when playing obligato lines sings out nobly, but never swamps the rest of the band. It is another recording – like that of arias from the cantatas made by A Nocte Temporis with Reinoud van Mechelen with a Traverso and continuo (Alpha 252 – reviewed in the EMR in December 2016) using the 1718 André Silbermann organ in Saint Aurélie, Strasbourg – that gives us a sense of the rich sonorities you can find if you look for an appropriate organ. The other Cantata on this CD is BWV 82, Ich habe genug, in the version Bach made for an alto/mezzo voice in C minor in 1735.

The other works on this CD are played stylishly by Maude Gratton on the organ. There are three Chorale Preludes on Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr – BWV 662, 663 and 664, and the Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 534.

Small clips on Youtube allow us to glimpse something of her nimble pedalling as well as her sparkly style and well-chosen registrations.

This is a CD that has given me much pleasure, and from which I have learnt a lot: but I know of no suitable organs in either 415 or 465 in England where we might be able to perform our Bach Cantatas like this, so I hope the builders will listen to this and see what they can do! I recommend this without reservation.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

Lübeck: Complete harpsichord and organ music

Manuel Tomadin (Van Hagerbeer/Schnitger organ 1646/1725)
146:04 (2 CDs)
Brilliant Classics 95453

[dropcap]V[/dropcap]incent Lübeck (1654-1740) was a well-known teacher and trusted advisor on organ design in the generation of organists in North Germany before J. S. Bach. By 1675 he had become organist of St Cosmae et Damiani in Stade, near Hamburg, where there was an organ by Arp Schnitger. In 1702, Lübeck moved into Hamburg and became organist at St Nikolai, where there was a four-manual Schnitger organ of 67 stops.

Bach was certainly influenced by Lübeck, but remarkably little of his music survives: five cantatas, a suite for harpsichord and some pieces for organ that show an imaginative and technically advanced player. His rhapsodic Preludes, with a number of fugal sections and some recitative-like episodes, have unusual features like virtuoso two-pedal parts. They sound and feel like the kind of improvisations that one might devise for putting an organ through its paces – indeed I remember using them for just that purpose when I first found myself exploring some of the organs in Holland in the late 1950s.

These two CDs from Brilliant Classics contain all Lübeck’s keyboard music that survives, ably played on three instruments by Manuel Tomadin. The majority of the larger scale organ music is played on the large Van Hagerbeer 1646 organ in Grote Sint-Laurenskerk in Alkmaar which was rebuilt in 1725 by Frans Casper Schnitger, much of which survived to be carefully conserved and restored by Flentrop in 1986. The specification is given, and for detailed registration of each piece you are referred in the liner notes to the Brilliant Classics website where they are said to be given, though frustratingly I could not find them. The harpsichord pieces – a prelude and fugue and a short suite – are played on a copy by William Horn after a Michael Mietke of Berlin original dated c.1700, but some of the smaller pieces from the ‘S.M.G. 1691’ manuscript are played on a small positive organ of four ranks, including a regal, made in 2012 by Francesco Zanin of Udine, and heard effectively in the Trompeter Stück  and the following March  (CDII, nos 31 and 32).

The ‘S.M.G. 1691’ manuscript is a collection of 45 short pieces for keyboard, many of which remain anonymous while some are attributable to Vincent Lübeck senior, but others may be by the younger Vincent, his son. And given their p and f dynamic marks in some cases may have been intended for the clavichord, the preferred instrument on which to learn keyboard technique.

As always in these Brilliant CDs, lesser-known composers are treated with seriousness and receive scholarly and well-researched performances by impressive artists whose technique is flawless and whose ability to bring minor masterpieces to life is winsome. I particularly enjoyed his inégales in some of the harpsichord performances. This double CD album, recorded in Alkmaar and in Silvelle in Udine, the region where Manuel Tomadin is based, is a fine example and will be invaluable to all those who want to understand North German pedagogy at the end of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries better.

David Stancliffe

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Splendour

Organ Music & Vocal Works By Buxtehude, Hassler, Praetorius & Scheidemann
Kei Koito, Il canto di Orfeo, Gianluca Capuano
73:14
deutsche harmonia mundi 8 89854 37672 7

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he star here is the 1624 (restored 1994) Scherer organ in the Stephanskirche, Tangermünde. The repertoire is that of ‘precursors of Bach’ who are, of course, all very competent in their own right. The principal pillars of the programme are ‘free’ organ works by Tunder, Scheidemann and Buxtehude and between them are placed chorale-based music – sometimes extracts from longish sets of variations. We also hear vocal settings of these same melodies contemporary with the organ music, a valuable programming device which others would do well to copy. The playing is sometimes a little laboured but never impossibly so and we certainly get to hear this marvellous instrument in all its glory. The essay (Ger/Fre/Eng) focusses informatively on the music. Further information – including the organ registrations, sung texts and their translations, and artist biographies are available online.

David Hansell

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Órgano viajero

Etienne Baillot, Anne-Marie Blondel, Jean-Luc Ho
68:23
Son an ero 10
Music by Aguilera de Heredia, Baptista, Bruna, Cabanilles, de Cabezón, Carrera, Chirol, Correa de Arauxo, Mudarra, de Seixas & anon

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his is the stuff of organists’ and organ builders’ dreams. A historic organ (1768, Castillian in style) is discovered more or less complete, if dismantled and imperfectly stored. Its owners cannot afford restoration and subsequent maintenance but the instrument finds both salvation and a new life in a neighbouring country. This disc displays its colours to good effect in a very well chosen selection of 16th-18th-century Iberian music (and four very short contemporary pieces which are beyond EMR’s remit). All three players are sympathetic to the instrument’s qualities, use appropriate articulation and ornamentation and enjoy their opportunities, not least those slightly eye-watering moments afforded by the mean-tone temperament. I found this rather ‘niche’ issue very enjoyable and will seek out several of the pieces for my own repertoire. The booklet (Fr/Eng – essay only also in Spanish and Basque) tells us what we need to know and details of the registrations used can be found online.

David Hansell

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Bach: Fantasias, Preludes & Fugues

James Johnstone (Raphaëlis Organ, Roskilde)
59:29
Metronome MET CD 1095
BWV 535, 537, 538, 544, 545, 572, 578

[dropcap]W[/dropcap]hen I reviewed the first volume of James Johnstone’s complete Bach organ music in June 2016, recorded on the reconstructed Wagner organ in Trondheim Cathedral, I welcomed his stylish and lively playing, saying how important the choice of organ was for such a project. This is the second volume, and shows the same spirited playing, good choice of instrument and fresh approach to colour. He clearly plays from newly edited scores (listen to the Largo in BWV 545) and there is always the sense that he comes from a world of informed and concerted music-making that is a good way from the presuppositions of the English cathedral organ loft.

For these Fantasias, Preludes & Fugues, Johnstone turns to the Raphaëlis organ set near the pulpit in the western half of Roskilde cathedral, where he had recorded (on the Marcussen choir organ) Paul McCreesh’s fine Matthew Passion in 2004. This organ began its life in 1554-5, and, after modernisation in 1611 and in 1654-5, very little was done till 1833, when the firm of Marcussen did a major rebuild. Further enlargement took place in 1926 and 1950. Marcussen completed a major reconstruction in 1991, refashioning the structure and voicing to its 17th-century form. The results are an instrument that speaks with clarity and zip, whose action must make it a pleasure to play.

The tempi are on the brisk side and Johnstone’s registration aids his clean fingerwork. The only fly in the ointment is the sometimes slow-speaking pedal 8’ Trompet, which he uses a lot to give clarity to the pedal line in preference to the 16’. As with a number of the organs of this period, the only pedal fluework is a Principal chorus based on the 16’, with a solitary flute at 8’. 1’ Sedecima  stops on both the Rygpositiv and the Brystværk indicate the instrument’s early origins and there is (as far as I can tell) only one Tierce rank.

The cracking pace of the Prelude and Fugue in B minor BWV 544 is exhilarating, and neither here – nor in the Gravement in BWV 572 – is he afraid to use a manual 16’. But, if you want a testimony to his fingerwork, listen to the clarity of the episodes in the Prelude in G minor BWV 535. The disc ends with the Dorian Toccata and Fugue where you can appreciate the balanced flue choruses of the Manualværk and Rygpositiv. For the Fugue he adds the 8’ manual Trompet  for a rich and zesty fullness.

The dancing rhythms and splendid energy of Johnstone’s playing are matched by quality recording technique, which makes this a complete Bach organ music to follow with eager anticipation. Collect them all.

David Stancliffe

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Splendour

Organ music & vocal works by Buxtehude, Hassler, Praetorius & Scheidemann
Kei Koito, Il canto d’Orfeo, Gianluca Capuano
73:15
deutsche harmonia mundi 889854 376727
+Böhm, Decius, Decker, Goudimel, J. Praetorius the younger, Joh. Praetorius?, M. Praetorius, Stadlmayr, Tunder, Weckmann & anon

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]his splendid and beautifully recorded CD is a tribute to its engineers as well as to the artists who chose and performed such interesting and well-researched music. This is the best tribute to this year’s Lutheran celebrations that I have heard, and it captures the richness of the interplay between the outstanding Hans Scherer organ of St Stephanskirche in Tangermünde and the chorales, motets and Gregorian chant sung by the Italian group, Il Canto di Orfeo, whose contributions were recorded in a sacristy in Milan. Try the amazing organum  on track 17 as a taster!

As in her Bach Vol. 5, recorded equally well on the Volkland organ in the Cruciskirche in Erfurt, the choice of instrument seems exactly right for this music. Like the Erfurt organ, this remarkable survival of the 1624 Hans Scherer organ was reconstituted by Alexander Schuke of Potsdam and is tuned pretty mean at 486hz. She draws attention to the remarkable 8’ Pedal Octavenbaß and we hear it used on its own, where it has the clarity and dignity of a G violone at the bottom of an early Baroque instrumental ensemble as well as providing a rich fullness to the pedal organ in combination with the Untersatz or the Bassunenbaß. The manual reeds on the Oberpositiff are colourful, the OberWerke is based on the 16’ principal, and its mixtures are related to that pitch. It seems possible to combine ranks in almost any combination, and her choice of registration lets us hear the variety as well as the depth of this almost unique survival of its period and place.

As her helpful notes – you need to check the English version with the German when it seems peculiar – disclose, the connections between the composers represented and the socio-cultural as well as musical worlds that they inhabited is remarkably complex. She lists which composers’ works are found in which libraries, and the relatively brief notes (nine pages) are full of detailed information and further references. As in her other recent recordings, only the specification is given in the booklet, but the detailed registration is provided in full on her website, to which the booklet refers.

I enjoyed the artistry, the planning of the programme, the collaboration with the Italian OVPP group, the beautifully recorded organ and its colourful registers in equal measure. This is a well-thought-out, and very musical programme, performed with great skill. The sounds are exciting, and the overall concept is excellent. I cannot commend it too highly.

David Stancliffe

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]here are two stars on this recording, the player and the instrument. Right from the first bars of the opening Tunder Praeludium the full sound of this stunning organ, expertly recorded here, shines through with the splendour of the disc’s title. The instrument is the early 17th-century Hans Scherer organ in the Stephanskirche in Tangermünde, restored in 1994 by Alexander Schuke. Koito follows the Tunder with Buxtehude’s Nun komm der Heiden Heiland  played on flutes which immediately shows the quieter side of the organ. The rest of the programme is chosen to showcase it in music by Hieronymous and Jacob Praetorius, Scheidemann, Weckmann and Böhm. There is lots of antiphonal playing which contrasts various stop combinations, while the meantone tuning and beautifully-even voicing make it a joy to listen to. Koito’s playing matches the brilliance of the organ with fluent and unforced phrasing, enhanced by intelligently-applied ornamentation. The organ music is interspersed with chorale settings by earlier German composers like Hassler and Michael Praetorius and with some plainchant. As on Koito’s other recordings, the gaps between tracks are minimised which helps the flow between them. Continuity is also helped by particular groupings of tracks around successive verses of the Magnificat  (though unfortunately only one verset from Weckmann’s organ set is included) and the German Vater unser. The vocal tracks are sung by Il Canto di Orfeo and are mostly of a suitable brightness to match the organ. There is some anomalous Solesmes-style plainchant, and parallel-fifth organum, but generally the match between organ and singing works well. Koito has written her own very helpful liner notes and there is more comprehensive information about registrations, texts and translations, biographies on her website at http://www.kei-koito.com/. This is a most impressive recording indeed which makes a compelling case for the importance of the North German organ and its repertoire.

Noel O’Regan

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Della Ciaia: Opera Omnia per Tastiera

Mara Fanelli harpsichord, Olimpio Medori organ
159:13 (3 CDs in card wallet)
Tactus TC 670480

[dropcap]D[/dropcap]ella Ciaia (1671-1755) was a Pisan nobleman who spent sixteen years with the Tuscan fleet, whiling away his time with composition, before moving to Rome and eventually back to Pisa, where he became a priest. He helped design and paid for a famous five-keyboard organ in the church of the Knights of St. Stephen (of which he was a member) in his home city. His Opera Quarta for keyboard, probably published in 1727, contains six sonatas for harpsichord, 12 short Saggi  for organ in each of the modes, six ricercars and an organ mass (Kyrie and Gloria only). A Christmas pastorale was later added to a copy of the print now in Berlin. All are included on these three discs; none of it can be called great music but it represents a somewhat quixotic individual take on the keyboard idioms of his time and getting it all on disk was clearly a labour of love for these two performers.

The six sonatas are played on two CDs by Mara Fanelli on a Taskin harpsichord copy by Keith Hill. All are in four movements: a rhapsodic toccata, a canzona based on imitative writing and two contrasting tempi. There is a lot of repetition of figuration, phrases and even individual notes; the occasional bizarre twist does not altogether relieve the tedium, though Fanelli gives an accurate account. The organ music is played by Olimpio Medori on the 1775 Pietro Agati organ in the Pieve di Santa Maria Assunta in Pistoia, which proves a very appropriate instrument. The saggi  and ricercari  are relatively short pieces which show a more disciplined side of Della Ciaia and are effectively registered by Medori. The organ mass is actually an arrangement of parts of the composer’s own setting for four voices, based on the plainchant Missa Cunctipotens, with the addition of an introductory toccata. The alternatim plainchant, sung by soloist Paolo Fanciullaci, is accompanied on organ, using accompaniments taken from an early eighteenth-century Roman manuscript. It is a useful example of how such alternatim masses would have been performed at this period. The Pastorale is an extended sectional piece of nearly 14 minutes, with typical bagpipe imitation as well as special bird effects. There are very comprehensive booklet notes, though track timings are not given. A worthwhile project shining light into a forgotten corner of the repertory.
Noel O’Regan

Noel O’Regan

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Categories
Recording

J. M. Bach | J. Ch. Bach: Complete Organ Music

Stefano Molardi Volckland organ (Cruciskirche, Erfurt)
211:56 (3 CDs in a box)
Brilliant Classics 95418

[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he indefatigable Stefano Molardi, who recorded all J. S. Bach’s organ music for Brilliant Classics in 2013 and all Kuhnau in 2015, has given us the complete surviving organ music by two of the early Bach family organists, the bothers Johann Christoph and Johann Michael Bach. They worked throughout the latter half of the 17th century in Thuringia, and their works are substantially in that school of organ composition we associate with Johann Pachelbel. From J. C. there is a Prelude and Fugue and some sets of variations in the Pachelbel style, but the remainder of his work and all of J. M.’s is a variety of chorale preludes, largely with the initial voices in pre-imitation followed by the chorale melody in the cantus firmus. Such works, frequently improvised, were the bread and butter of a Lutheran organist’s weekly liturgical performance, introducing the chorale and setting the context for the congregation’s singing.

On that account alone, this would be a welcome production in the anniversary year of Luther’s reformation. But it also introduces us to the sound-world in which Bach grew up. The Bach families were entwined, and Johann Sebastian’s first wife was the daughter of J. M., and Arnstadt and Eisenach was where they lived and worked. This was what Bach heard in church, Sunday by Sunday.

The other significant factor is the instrument chosen for this recording: the cherished Volckland organ, built in 1732-7 for the Cruciskirche in Erfurt after its major rebuilding. Although the booklet gives the specification of the organ, reconstructed and restored by Schuke of Potsdam in 2000-03, the organ builder’s website is surprisingly reticent about how much work was conservation and how much was ‘reconstruction’. While it seems to me to be a very satisfactory representative of the early 18th-century Thuringian school of organ building, the recording is not so clean as to make each combination of registers clear, and we are given the registration for none of the 131 tracks, which is a pity since there are no less than five 8’ registers on the Hauptwerk besides the perky Vox Humana – the only manual reed. Choosing a registration is a significant part of the organist’s interpretative skill. The instrument is just slightly anachronistic, and I wonder if one from the 1670s or 80s might not have been better.

But this is a significant and timely recording. It could have been both recorded and presented better, but I hope that all students of Bach’s compositional technique will profit from the insights it delivers.

David Stancliffe

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Categories
Sheet music

J. S. Bach: Complete Organ Works vol.8: Organ Chorales of the Leipzig Manuscript

Edited by Jean-Claude Zehnder.
Breitkopf & Härtel (EB8808),2015. 183pp + CD containing musical texts, commentary & synoptical depiction. €26.80.

I bought the Bärenreiter equivalent (vol. 2) back in 1961, three years after it was published. Bach evidently was expecting to produce a larger work than the six Organ Sonatas, assembled around 1730; he then waited a decade before moving on around 1740, using the same paper. He copied 15 pieces, then had a break. BWV666 and 667 were not copied by Bach. The Leipzig Manuscript is now in the Berlin library, Mus. Ms Bach P 271.

The two editions lay out the music in different ways. Bärenreiter prints the final versions first, then the earlier ones together at the end; Breitkopf places the early versions immediately after each piece. It might, however, have been logical to place the early version first with the final version following, so that the player might think more seriously about the differences. I wonder the extent to which the later versions are always better, or is it an automatic assumption? Bärenreiter is set out more spaciously with 214pp preceded by xiv prelims which include nine pages of facsimile and no introduction: for that and critical comments, etc., you need to buy the Kritischer Bericht, which is in German only. Breitkopf has a single numbering of 183pp, which is cut down by actual pages of music because of 22 opening pages of introduction in German and English and nine facsimiles, leaving a total number of musical pages to 152 – 32 pages fewer than Bärenreiter. I don’t, however, have any problems in reading the Breitkopf. There is a German critical commentary at the end of the volume, but much more information (also in English) as well as additional versions are on a CD-ROM. One difference is the Bärenreiter begins each of the later versions with the chorale melody and first verse, whose absence is a pity.

I happen to have read Bach’s Numbers  by Ruth Tatlow (see the November review by Brian Clark). I’m generally suspicious of number symbols, and the older concepts have been rejected. What Bach is concerned with is the total length, not so much as individual pieces but groups of pieces (e.g. the first 24 preludes and fugues) and the idea is most lengthily shown in the B-minor Mass. The “18” is a dubious choice because nos. 16-18 were written after the composer’s death. I wonder whether the first piece in the collection, Fantasia super Komm, Heiliger Geist, was expanded from 48 to 105 bars as the quickest way to complete the round number. The total bars of any individual chorale is only relevant to the total, and the only round sum covers BWV 651-665. It does seem an odd concept and I can’t take it seriously – the 1200 bars do not help guess how to fit such a length into CD discs. But that Bach wrote “The 15” rather than “The 18” could, even without a total bar count, suggest that BWV 666-668 should be left as an appendix.

I think I would only buy the Breitkopf if I was a scholar or an enthusiast or if my copy was falling apart. I haven’t played a church organ for about 50 years, so my copy is used primarily for listening to recordings (though I rarely do that now). The price of the Bärenreiter volume, although older, is roughly the same figure but in sterling, so Breitkopf is somewhat better economy.

Clifford Bartlett