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JS Bach: Clavier-Übung III etc

Jeremy Filsell (organ); Choir of St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York (Signum Classics)

Our rating

4

Published: December 27, 2022 at 9:00 am

JS Bach Clavier-Übung III; Chorales & Chorale Preludes Jeremy Filsell (organ); Choir of St Thomas Church, Fifth Avenue, New York Signum Classics SIGCD 744 111:57 mins (2 discs)

Bach has not loomed large in Jeremy Filsell’s discography thus far, but he makes amends with the complete Clavier-Übung IIIrecorded on the organs of St Thomas’s, Fifth Avenue, New York. Note the plural. Appointed the church’s organist and music director in 2019 he deploys all five instruments at his disposal, affording what he describes as a ‘tour’ of St Thomas’s bounty. At one extreme is the mighty four-manual chancel organ whose restoration was completed shortly before Filsell’s appointment; at the other, a personable little continuo instrument. And in between – better suited to Bach than its chancel cousin – there’s a three-manual gallery organ conceived with the German Baroque in mind.

Bookended by the great E flat Prelude and Fugue, BWV 552, Clavier-Übung III ranges across chorale preludes appropriate to the Lutheran Mass and Catechism, plus four Duetti, two-part inventions that tease and delight. Filsell prefaces the preludes with sung performances of a verse from the chorale Bach is addressing, the wrong way around perhaps, but helpful to those unfamiliar with the chorale melodies. For all his clean articulation the chancel organ’s sound is a little congested in Bach’s densest textures, and the pedal can be over-assertive, but Filsell captures the all-consuming propulsive grandeur of the Prelude and Fugue; beautifully balanced, the extended trio on ‘Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr’ twinkles; and the darkly brooding double-pedal splendours of ‘Aus tiefer Not’ furnish a telling contrast to the playfulness of BWV 688 which follows.

An impressive ‘tour’, then, both of St Thomas’s instrumental largesse, and Bach’s characteristically encyclopaedic collection.

Paul Riley

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