Bach: Organ Music

COMPOSERS: Bach
LABELS: Priory
ALBUM TITLE: Bach – Chorale Preludes
WORKS: Organ Music
PERFORMER: Gillian Weir
CATALOGUE NO: PRCD 800 AB

Gillian Weir’s Bach series, consummation of a world-class musician’s recorded legacy, continues with this release recorded in Leipzig, where her characteristic

clarity, wit and elegance are

partnered by the excellent and

much-heralded ‘Bach’ organ at

St Thomas’s. The sinewy curves

of the flutes generate the

interpretation of ‘An Wasserflüssen

Babylon’ (BWV 653); and the

clarion-like cornet signals the

triumph inherent in other chorales. The organ, brainchild of Woehl

of Marburg, gathers as much

as we know of the ‘ideal’ Bach

organ together in one instrument,

without actually replicating any

single instrument. It is a fine organ

notably fulfilling Bach’s welldocumented

desire for ‘gravitas’ (as

heard powerfully at the conclusion

of ‘Komm, Gott, Schöpfer, heiliger

Geist’, BWV 667).

The booklet is packed with

musicological and interpretative gems

(how many gurus of authenticity

know the quotation by Gerber,

extolling Bach’s legato playing?),

all of which eloquently support the