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