Bach: Great Organ Works

Johann Sebastian Bach (Composer), Helmut Walcha (Performer) | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Performer: Helmut Walcha
• Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
• Audio CD (July 15, 1997)
• SPARS Code: DDD
• Number of Discs: 2
• Label: Deutsche Grammophon
• ASIN: B000001GYD
• In-Print Editions: MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #94,006 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)
  • #32 in Music > Classical > Forms & Genres > Variations > Passacaglias

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Helmut Walcha Plays Bach, April 6, 2005

By 

Robin Friedman (Washington, D.C. United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bach: Great Organ Works (Audio CD)

This review is dedicated to the memory of fellow Amazon-reviewer and my friend, Bob Zeidler. Bob was perhaps best-known for his love for and knowledge of the music of Charles Ives. But Bob also loved the pipe organ, as his many CD and book reviews on subjects related to the organ will attest. Bob loved the good and inspiring in music. We are fortunate that he shared his love and knowledge so generously and enthusiastically with the Amazon community. Robin Friedman

For the past 28 years, the Chevy Chase Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C. has presented a free five-hour Bach Organ Marathon early in March to celebrate J.S. Bach's birthday of March 21. Leading organists from the D.C. area together with lovers of the organ come together to hear the icy and improvisatory glory of Bach's organ music. I was fortunate to attend the Bach Marathon on March 6 of this year, and to have access to many other recitals of organ music in the Washington D.C. area. The Bach Marathon this past March inspired me to revisit an anthology of some of Bach's most famous compositions for the organ in this two-volume CD by Helmut Walcha.

Helmut Walcha (1907-1991) once said: "Bach opens a vista to the universe. After experiencing him, people feel there is meaning to life after all." Walcha's love for and mastery of Bach's organ works resonates through this compilation. Walcha lost his sight at the age of sixteen and learned Bach's entire and immense body of work for the organ, together with much other music, by memory through hearing the various lines played separately on the piano. Walcha spent 15 years memorizing the works of Bach, from age 25 through age 40.

The works on this set are compiled from a much larger collection of Bach's organ music that Walcha recorded in the 1950s and 1960s available in a larger box set on DG. The works on the first CD were recorded on the Great Organ in the Saint-Laurens Church, Alkmaar, the Netherlands while the works on the second CD were recorded on the organ of the Saint-Pierre le-Jeune Church, Strasbourg, France. The later organ, to me, has a softer, reedier tone.

The compilation opens with Bach's most famous organ composition, the early Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565. It includes an additional three toccatas and fugues, a fantasy and fugue, several separate preludes and fugues, a trio sonata, the Passaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582, a set of variations on the hymn "Vom Himmel hoch" BWV 769, and six of the so "Schubler Chorales" including the well-known setting of "Wachtet auf". Thus the CD presents an excellent cross-section of the many types of works and musical forms Bach used in composing for the organ.

Walcha plays a large, muscular, and angular Bach. This is steely and disciplined music, elevated and uplifiting. It is music to be returned to again and again. I particularly enjoyed the Passaglia and Fugue, BWV 582, the Schubler chorales, the G major Fantasia, BWV 572, and the variations, BWV 769. But this entire compilation is masterful.

There are many music-lovers with great knowledge of the music repertory, including knowledge of Bach, who have little knowledge of the organ. Perhaps this is because in order to get to hear this music live, listeners need to make an effort to attend rare recitals in churches rather than in the more familiar musical venues of the secular concert or recital hall. But this music is glorious. This two volume compilation by Walcha's is the best way for the music-lover to get a basic familiarity with the grandeur of Bach's compositions for the pipe organ.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Art of Counterpoint, February 5, 2002

By 

R. SA NOGUEIRA SARAIVA "Rodrigo de Sa" (LISBOA Portugal, Europe) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bach: Great Organ Works (Audio CD)

The Bach of Helmut Walcha is different from all the others. He pays great attention to the expression of each voice, and the structure of the great organ works is also totally evident in his playing.

The fugues, particularly, are unique. Where other organists ruch to bring some animation to what may seem an endless sucession of entries of theme and countersubjects, Walcha just grabs the listener's attention to focus on the phantastic richness of expression and intelligence of the great fugues.

With Walcha, the whole takes precedence over the parts, so there are not rubatos over a short phrase. Instead, there is a perfect sense of structure, which is rendered possible by the greatest of controls on tempo, flexible over great stretches of music.

The chorals are similarly approached. One might prefer a more sentimental approach - particularly in the shorter pieces -, but if you listen carefully all the agogics he uses make the music perfectly clear, and extremely beautifull.

This is an archetypical vision of Bach. You might prefer a softer one, but you will not get a better one.

In a sense, Walcha reminds me of a pun an organist friend of mine often used to tell: In heaven, when God is present, the angels play Bach; when they're alone, the play Mozart. This is the kind of Bach God likes to listen to.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars If you like Bach's organ music, you MUST have it!, August 31, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Bach: Great Organ Works (Audio CD)

This is a collection of fine performances by a superb Bach interpreter. The playing is always exhilarating without the kind of over-performance and cheap fireworks sometimes heard, particularly of the opening Toccata and Fugue in D Minor. I've heard many recordings of this piece, none of which match this one's perfect combination of virtuosity with restraint.

But the Toccata and Fugue in F Major is the best on the album, in my opinion, building to an incredible crescendo from a deceptively simple, almost mechanical, beginning.

Other highlights are the Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor and the magnificent Prelude and Fugue in E-flat Major (St. Anne's). The first couple of minutes of the latter fugue are perhaps the most majestic in all of Bach, although this performance doesn't quite match that performed on the St. Laurenskerk "great" organ, also available on CD ("Organ Works").

If you like Bach's organ music, you can't do without Helmut Walcha, and this seems to be the largest collection of his recordings available.