David Goode performs organ works by JS Bach

Unlike James Johnstone whose newly-launched survey of Bach’s solo organ works ranges Europe-wide in its pursuit of historically appropriate instruments (see review above), David Goode, for his own traversal of the ‘complete’ organ works, monogamously opts for the 1976 Metzler organ in Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge – which, as it happens, incorporates ‘Father Smith’ pipework from the time of Bach’s youth. 

Our rating

4

Published: October 23, 2017 at 2:11 pm

COMPOSERS: JS Bach
LABELS: Signum
ALBUM TITLE: JS Bach
WORKS: Organ Works, Vol. 2: Organ Sonata No. 2 in C minor, BWV 526; Prelude & Fugue in D, BWV 532; Organ Concerto in G, BWV 592, etc
PERFORMER: David Goode (organ)
CATALOGUE NO: SIGCD 802

Unlike James Johnstone whose newly-launched survey of Bach’s solo organ works ranges Europe-wide in its pursuit of historically appropriate instruments (see review above), David Goode, for his own traversal of the ‘complete’ organ works, monogamously opts for the 1976 Metzler organ in Trinity College Chapel, Cambridge – which, as it happens, incorporates ‘Father Smith’ pipework from the time of Bach’s youth.

Like Volume 1, the second instalment straddles genres, mixing imposing preludes and fugues with more intimate chorale preludes – while a transcription of the G major Concerto by Bach’s sometime employer Duke Johann Ernst of Weimar lends glittering ebullience (even if the finale is a touch unbending), and the C minor Trio Sonata, written to hot-house son Wilhelm Friedemann’s expanding technique, adds a beautifully calibrated suavity to the mix. Goode tosses off the opening D major Prelude and Fugue, BWV532 with a heady North-German-School conjunction of ‘phantasticus’ panache and playfulness – though the fastidiously conceived registration momentarily impedes the Fugue’s forward momentum. The so-called ‘Corelli Fugue’, however, is given a trenchant, lucid purposefulness through the crystal clarity of Goode’s articulation, and the concluding Prelude and Fugue BWV 547 marries preludial brio with a fugue whose magisterial gravitas supplies a satisfying foil. A little more distance to the up-close recorded sound might enhance a compelling series-in-the-making.

Paul Riley

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