Originally written for Classical Source – view original
This album, featuring a great Baroque organ and superb organist, is for a number of reasons, highly recommendable. First the organ has an almost translucent sound and time and again such as in the Prelude of BWV 535 and Chorale Prelude BWV 690 you hear exquisitely nuanced, balanced soundscapes seemingly floating in the ether. And this clarity helps lay bare Bach’s polyphony, fugal mastery, profound spirituality and logic.
In the Prelude and Fugue BWV 566a’s two Toccatas there is what you expect and need massive impact and projection, and in the second Fugue the cumulative power is profoundly moving.
Of course it doesn’t matter how good the instrument is if the organist isn’t able to make the right choices from the organs huge tonal palette and of course understand Bach. As the above illustrates we can take the former for granted, while his interpretations are quietly under-stated and he allows the music to speak for itself. Crucially, while he eschews the funereal tempi that dog so many organ recitals, he never sounds rushed, so the solemn, march-like Chorale Prelude, BWV 720 has due weight.
LAWO record in DXD so the DSD512 download was used and, as you might expect from this company, the organ and church are very much there in front of you with a tangible, walk-in acoustic and an immaculately tight bass response.
One small criticism, the download has a booklet but the stream doesn’t.
