Customer Reviews

Bach: Great Organ Works

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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.

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.

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.

This is an interesting collection. It was recorded in 1947 in mono, and though popular, was completely outsold by his later recordings in stereo. He is known as a great interpreter, as he was one of the most prominent to speak of going back to Bach's intended interpretations. But now that the early music movement has grown and so many have studied and made recordings, these, although exquisitely performed, now sound very 1950s in their perspective! Although I have several organists in my collection, he's the only one i had a complete Bach set of until I read the review below that recommends Michel Chapuis. Well, all I can say is -- i'm listening to Chapuis now! it's much more sensitive and I find it easier to hear the different ideas without having to read the music. Everyone acknowledges that Walcha is a great organist and musician, but his ideas (which were a great start back in the 50's) are definitely in the manner of the 20th century rather than the current early music movement. [so thanks to the reviewer below from Boston!]

A previous review describes this set as "recorded in 1947 in mono." Just in case both Deutsche Grammophon and my ears were deceiving me, I listened to it with headphones to ascertain that indeed, it is recorded in stereo--even the oldest track, which is dated 1956 by the CD notes.

It's recorded in pretty good stereo, at that--really outstanding considering its age (mostly '60s and '70s). Not that it's on a par with audiophile CDs of recent years, but it sounds clean and clear. There are somewhat strong treble overtones from the Alkmaar organ (not so much from the Strasbourg organ that fills CD #2), but not to the point of annoying me. You definitely catch the nuances of the organs' differences, as well as the shuffling sounds of the action (in quiet passages).

Walcha's playing contributes as much to the clarity of these disks as the engineers did. It's as lucid as you can ask for without getting mechanical about it.

Maybe when I've heard these disks many times I will develop the sort of mystical attachment to them that others have expressed. For now, though, they represent excellent straightforward Bach, nothing more, nothing less. Walcha is not as flamboyant as Biggs or Fox; pedal notes don't shake the house and the melody line is not always at maximum perkiness. But there's nothing boring about this set. On the contrary, there is not only an adequate amount of fire, but also depth and great cohesion in Walcha's playing, never empty note-spinning or passages that seem out of place with the whole. It seems obvious as I listen that not one, but two powerful musical minds are at work.

Bach was a very 'correct' composer. His works are always very formalistic, verging on the mathematical in their structure. I enjoy some of Bach's music but the organ music does not appeal to me very much and certainly not when played as clinically as Walcha does play it. There is more needed from the performer to bring these pieces alive. This is simply too cold.

Walcha was blind and I think this allowed him to develop some greater insight into Bach's organ works than most organists have. Bach's music is about glorious structure and contrapuntal complexity. In these recordings Walcha masterfully brings out these qualities. The organs are also very nice and while I have minor quibbles with some of the voicing and registration overall I am very happy with them. In these recordings you really feel the power of Bach come through so clearly. A marvelous 2 CD set!

The most dramatic performances of the F major Toccata and Dorian Toccata and D major Prelude and Fugue that I have ever heard. This disc is worth it for any ONE of these three performances. PS. The Passacaglia did nothing for me.....so it is not like I am a complete Walcha groupie.

How powerful is Helmut Walcha as Bach's organ player! I've discovered him from an old cassette record from "Archiv Produktion". I specially love "Passacaglia and Fugue BWV 582". You can feel the voices casting off from everywhere and, of course, you can feel lifting your religious experience (I think that, overall, Bach's music for organ is entirely "religious": no matter if you are Catholic, or Lutheran or somewhat else). I proudly recommend this two CD for organ's music lovers and also Bach's music lovers.

Helmut Walcha was one of the Great Organists of the 20th

Century. His recordings of the music of J.S. Bach prove this.

He could perform the works from memory and learned to play in

spite of the fact the he was visually impared (Blind) I have

rarely heard a better performance than his one of the Toccata &

Fugue in d, and this recording shows his ability to give each

work its own special feel These Two CD's are derived from a

series of recordings he made for the DG Archiv label in the

1950's and 1960's I think they stand the test of time, and at

a Two for One price are a great buy.