# Bach organ Favorites



## BillT (Nov 3, 2013)

I have recently been listening to an album that I listened to long ago (below) and it is still so wonderful! it simply boggles my mind how inventive Bach was. I am not a religious person, but after listening, I feel like to want to get on my knees and thank God for J.S. Bach.









My question now is, would anyone like to offer a suggestion as to other performers to listen to besides E. Power Biggs? Or other organ albums?

Thanks in advance.

Bill


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## lupinix (Jan 9, 2014)

I really love his trio sonata 3 for organ, has such a nostalgic feeling


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## Llyranor (Dec 20, 2010)

Walcha Helmut is the cycle I have. Still haven't listened to all of it yet, but I've really enjoyed what I've ever of it so far, and can recommend it.

BWV 582 Passacaglia & Fugue is one of my favorites of Bach's repertoire.


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## Guest (Jan 21, 2014)

Helmut Walcha and John Butt are among my favorites for Bach and organ. Some of the Hanssler Bach edition recordings are fine, but my first choice is still Walcha. And the Passacaglia & Fugue is also my favorite.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

BillT said:


> My question now is, would anyone like to offer a suggestion as to other performers to listen to besides E. Power Biggs? Or other organ albums?


One way to explore the entire organ works of Bach (very cheaply!) is via Anthony Newman's set. These are mostly quite good -- read the reviews. And as you find works you like, you can ask around here more specifically for alternate readings.

http://www.amazon.com/Complete-Coll...?s=dmusic&ie=UTF8&sr=1-3&keywords=bach+newman


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

BillT said:


> I have recently been listening to an album that I listened to long ago (below) and it is still so wonderful! it simply boggles my mind how inventive Bach was. I am not a religious person, but after listening, I feel like to want to get on my knees and thank God for J.S. Bach.
> 
> View attachment 33044
> 
> ...


It's difficult to answer this because there are a lot of great organ pieces by Bach, a lot of great performers, and the organs themselves sound so different from each other. Maybe think of getting the 6 CDs that Ton Koopman made for Novalis, which have been reissiued as a cheap box on Brilliant Classics. Better performances sometimes than on his big complete set, and you'll get to hear a few different organs too.









Another tremendous selection by two fine organists - Felix Friedrich and Matthias Eisenberg - is really cheaply released now here


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

DrMike said:


> Helmut Walcha and John Butt are among my favorites for Bach and organ. Some of the Hanssler Bach edition recordings are fine, but my first choice is still Walcha. And the Passacaglia & Fugue is also my favorite.


Yes. I used to collect Helmut Walcha on LP. Rock steady in Bach, like the conductor Karl Richter.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Qwertyuiopasdfg


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hpowders said:


> Yes. I used to collect Helmut Walcha on LP. Rock steady in Bach, like the conductor Karl Richter.


Is "rock steady" a good thing?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> Is "rock steady" a good thing?


Yes. Keeping a steady rhythmic pulse is a good thing.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

The complete Bach organ works by Peter Hurford on Decca has served me well over the past 20 odd years.


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## GioCar (Oct 30, 2013)

Notre Dame de l'orgue: Marie-Claire Alain.

IMO outstanding in the most contemplative pieces (Chorale preludes, Trio sonatas)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

hpowders said:


> Yes. Keeping a steady rhythmic pulse is a good thing.


You don't like notes inégales in organ music then?


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I believe you know what I mean.


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## Draugen (Dec 26, 2013)

Art Rock said:


> The complete Bach organ works by Peter Hurford on Decca has served me well over the past 20 odd years.


I would like to get this one day, seems to be o.o.p at the moment. I own the Hurford Great Organ works 2 disc compilation, and I love it, especially a very apocalyptic Passacaglia & fugue in C Minor.

I own the Karl Richter 3 disc Organ works which is also outstanding, and the Walcha Mono set. Not heard all of it yet, I still seem to turn to the Hurford and Richter too often to give it a proper chance as yet.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

No one has mentioned Wolfgang Rubsam. I prefer his slow tempos in some of the pieces to many others I've heard. "Christ unser Herr, zum Jordan kam" BWV 684 -- the longer one of the two pieces with the same title from Clavier-Ubung III -- is a wonderful piece especially in Rubsam's slow rendering. I think his use of registers and effects also adds some magic to the piece. You can sample it here:

http://www.amazon.com/Clavierubung-Volume-2-J-S-Bach/dp/B00000140L/

And I want to link to this performance by Guardiani again:






I like the, in this case, faster than usual tempos, and the clarity he manages to bring to the pieces.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I'm a fan of Rübsam's Naxos recordings. I hadn't picked out the BWV 684 as special though, it seemed a bit too light to me. This is, after all, a chorale about the lamb of God being ordained for slaughter. Have you heard Leo van Doeselaar's BWV 684? I thought that was really magical, powerful, you can imagine the river red with blood. I enjoyed some of Rübsam's CU3 - in the six Kyrie chorales, and the radiant performace of the Gloria chorale 676 especially. I enjoyed his Leipzig chorales more.

I'm enjoying the Guardiani, thanks. It's a piece I'm quite interested in because I just got in the post a recording of an unusual performance by an organist called Kolbein Haga, just yesterday.


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## Chordalrock (Jan 21, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> I'm a fan of Rübsam's Naxos recordings. I hadn't picked out the BWV 684 as special though, it seemed a bit too light to me. This is, after all, a chorale about the lamb of God being ordained for slaughter. Have you heard Leo van Doeselaar's BWV 684? I thought that was really magical, powerful, you can imagine the river red with blood.


Haven't heard it, although I've heard renderings that clock around five minutes or below as well, and probably with the full plenum or close. My issue would be the tempo. I know the faster approach is more typical and it may well be how Bach conceived the piece, but I'm not sure I would like the piece nearly as much as I do now if I hadn't heard Rubsam's recording.

Re the rest of your comment, I haven't listened to Bach's organ music as much as I should. It seems like he composed great but not interesting music most of the time so I'm kind of lethargic when it comes to properly familiarising myself with his stuff. Some pieces stand out immediately -- such as the A minor duetto from CU3 -- but mostly I have to categorise the music as "gotta listen to this more at some point to say for sure".


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## Nagging Grasshopper (Feb 9, 2014)




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## JohnD (Jan 27, 2014)

Draugen said:


> *I own the Karl Richter 3 disc Organ works which is also outstanding*, and the Walcha Mono set. Not heard all of it yet, I still seem to turn to the Hurford and Richter too often to give it a proper chance as yet.


I've got the Richter set and I too like it a lot.


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## fairbanks (Jun 25, 2014)

The complete Bach organ works by Peter Hurford


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## Winterreisender (Jul 13, 2013)

No mention of Simon Preston yet? I love his complete Bach recordings, especially "Clavier-Übung 3"


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Free downloads of the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach, recorded by Dr. James Kibbie on original baroque organs in Germany.


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## satoru (May 29, 2014)

After listening to following complete (or semi-complete) sets, my recommendation is 3 CD set by Karl Richter. His performance is superb but sound is a little a bit old.

Complete organ music CD sets, Arranged in order of recorded dates:
Helmut Walcha (1947-1952). Available in discount set (<$20 for 10 CD). Performance is nice, Walcha is still young and full of energy. Sound is OK
Helmut Walcha (1959-1971). Considered one of the standard for Bach organ performance at the time. 
Walter Kraft (1961-1967). Avoid this set, even though it is dirt cheap from Amazon in MP3 format
Lionel Rogg (1970). Sound is not so good
Peter Hurford (1974-1986). Includes 33 chorale pieces found in '84. Lively performance.
Wolfgang Rübsam (1977). From Philips, different from Naxos set, which it better, I heard
Marie-Claire Alain (1978-1980). This is her 2nd set, out of 3. Clean performance.
Hans Fagius (1983-1989). 
Simon Preston (1987-1999). Clear recording. Nice set to own
George Ritchie (1992-2003).
Gerhard Weinberger (1997-2008). The most complete set, including all the dubious pieces, too. In some tracks, the sound is full of echoes, and sometime they render music murky. If I'm forced to pick only one set, this is the one I'll pick.
Anthony Newman (I don't know the recording dates). Ultra fast tempi. Sometime things go rough.

Note worthy compilations:
Albert Schweitzer (few CD sets, recorded 1935, etc). Old recording and Schweitzer's technique is not comparable to modern organists, but for some pieces his performance is still the best for me (may be because I grew up listening to these on LPs). These are now in public domain and you can find free downloads elsewhere.
Maurice & Marie-Madeleine Durufle (5 CD set) Recordings by composer Durufle and his wife. Interesting to hear Durufle's musical roots.

PS. I must take back the wordings on Kraft set. It should have been something like: "a below average set but with dirt cheap purchase option". I'm leaving to original wording intact.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

satoru said:


> After listening to following complete (or semi-complete) sets, my recommendation is 3 CD set by Karl Richter. His performance is superb but sound is a little a bit old.
> 
> Complete organ music CD sets, Arranged in order of recorded dates:
> Helmut Walcha (1947-1952). Available in discount set (<$20 for 10 CD). Performance is nice, Walcha is still young and full of energy. Sound is OK
> ...


Why do you have such a strong negative view of Walter Kraft?


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## satoru (May 29, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Why do you have such a strong negative view of Walter Kraft?


Hmm, it could be my personal taste, but listening through Kraft's set was really a painful experience for me. If I offended fan of Kraft's set, I'm sorry.

Before I listened to Kraft, my idea was on Bach's organ music was like "What could a performer make difference in Bach's organ music, other than choice of stops and tempi? Maybe not much". This idea as based on the fact that an organ doesn't have touch (like in piano) and the intensity of notes won't change without a help from crescendo/diminuendo pedals, the performer won't make much difference... So, as performer woves notes Bach left on sheets, the world of his music spreads out, no matter how good (or bad) the organist is, I have thought such.

As I'm writing this reply, I'm listening to ~20 tracks from Kraft's set, and they aren't as bad as I remembered (an evident bias on my side), but still not as good as (most of) other sets. Then I listened to particular piece by Alain, Walcha (both), Hurford, Weinberger, Richter, Schweitzer (these are the only sets I have in my iTune library at the moment, due to 25,000 track limitation of iTunes Match) and went back to Kraft. I felt something is missing there, even though it is subtle... I agree that my wording were too strong there and Kraft doesn't reserve such negative opinion.

I edited my former post to reflect above.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

Florestan said:


> So much wonderful music, so little time, but in Heaven the music is orders of magnitude better beyond our present comprehension, and there is eternity to listen. Handel's Messiah is a good place to start..


I was once told by a religionist that in Heaven one will have all the answers. This included having all knowledge. Of course, if one would indeed know everything, one would know all the music, intimately well. So, what would be the pleasure in hearing it for an eternity when there could be absolutely no surprise, no more a sense of exploration and discovery? And from what I understand, eternity is an awful long time. If I already know everything there is to hear, and spend the first trillion years hearing it again and again, I still have a good trillion trillion years of eternity left to re-listen to all that music I already know intimately well ... and then comes the next trillion trillion years ... and we've only just started.

I would hate to be in a place where boredom of music would be the resultant joy.

As for Bach's organ works, I must admit they remain a segment of the master's oeuvre that I haven't explored with much relish. Count me not a big fan of organ music. Sure, I do appreciate the music, and have most likely heard most of Bach's organ pieces over the past half century, and I do enjoy the intricacies of the fugues, but I much prefer the Cantatas, orchestral music, choral music, and instrumental chamber music. I tend to shy away from the keyboard works performed on harpsichord as well. Yeah, I know. I'm at fault for that. But again, I've probably heard most of Bach's keyboard music performed on harpsichords and clavichords and whatever else you have, but the sound of the modern piano is just so much more satisfying to my old ears.

In times of unique moods, though, I do comb through the organ works and since I do not know them intimately I always enjoy the discovery process of hearing something anew. Since I have a couple of those box sets of _Complete Works of J.S. Bach _I have plenty of organ music to choose from. I view organ music as an acquired taste I have yet to fully acquire. But I certainly recognize the genius and the majesty of this music. Splendid stuff ... especially when in the mood.

I appreciate the sense of discovery music (and arts in general) allow me. It saddens me knowing that those folks who _do_ go to Heaven will miss out on this joy, even if the music is "orders of magnitude better beyond our present comprehension".


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Nobody knows anything about heaven, so cheer up!


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