Customer Reviews

Bach: Great Organ Works

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Virgil Fox is probably the best interpreter of Bach's organ works. The Tocatta & Fugue in D minor is totally awesome -- definitely the best I've listened to on a recording, and I have several. What makes it great is the atmosphere and the large selection of tone colors that Virgil plays in this interpretation. Many other organists don't vary the tone colors in the D minor fugue, which makes them sound more bland. The organ used on this recording is just great!

The other works sound fresh as well. The "Air on a G String" is different enough to make it interesting even if you have heard it zillions of times. The tempi are just right for all of the works.

The recording is a good quality ADD, yet has tape hiss. (bummer.)

Virgil Fox (1912-1980) was, with E. Power Biggs, one of the best known organists of the 1950s and 1960s. But any resemblance to Biggs, Biggs' preferences in organs and music, and Biggs' style of playing, ends there; two organists could hardly have been less alike. For many Fox became a byword for razzle-dazzle, crowd-pleasing organ showmanship that was long on virtuosity and short on taste. The Harvard Biographical Dictionary of Music says of him: "As organist at Riverside Church in New York, 1946-65, he became a tourist attraction. During the late 1960s his penchant for flamboyant showmanship and oratory enabled him to reach out to a new generation, touring with an electronic organ and a psychedelic light show." I regret to say that this description fits my mental image of Fox as the vulgar and garish "Mr. Showbiz" of the organ and self-styled proponent of "heavy organ," a kind of flashy Las Vegas type touring with his electronic organ and psychedelic light show. Ugh! But that image is probably unjust, certainly incomplete. He had legions of fans, and in his own way he was a proselytizer and got many people interested in the organ who otherwise might not have been. Those who admired him found him a colorful, unconventional, creative player who made interesting, offbeat choices in registrations and interpretive decisions.

As Bach programs go this is a pretty hackneyed one, limited to standard chestnuts ("Bach's Greatest Hits"), but at least it's all Bach, instead of the treacly stuff Fox sometimes liked to play and record. This CD has the advantage of being a budget-priced cheapie, but the offsetting disadvantage of being only 40:23 long. As you might expect of a cheapie CD like this one, there are no notes (no information about Fox, the music, or the organs, other than simply identifying them) and no information about recording dates. The issue date of the CD looks like 1988; the CD itself bears a copyright date of 1974; this just may be about the date of the recordings, which are identified as analog. I suppose we should be grateful that RCA took the trouble to identify the organs Fox was playing. The first two selections (the most substantial ones) were recorded on the Royal Albert Hall organ, London; all the rest on the Riverside Church organ, NYC, which for so long was home base for Fox. Both are enormous organs. I am an organ buff and a Bach buff, and must admit that I am not fond of Bach played on enormous organs like these. Biggs and others have demonstrated long since that Bach goes better on smaller organs (in smaller spaces) that emphasize clarity and articulation than on huge instruments (in huge spaces) that emphasize grandeur, power, volume of sound, reverberation. I don't care much for the sound of either of these two huge organs, at least as we hear them here, and by today's standards neither would recommend itself as a good choice for Bach.

So how does the CD stack up? The engineering is not bad at all, really quite listenable: highs are not the smoothest or sweetest in town; bass is surprisingly full and deep. The Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, that ubiquitous warhorse, gets a performance that is very free, with heavy, exaggerated contrasts in dynamics (Fox goes in for some echo effects) and tempo (a good deal of arbitrary taffy-pulling of tempos, it seems to me). It certainly is "different" and doubtless will make purists cringe, but it's entertaining (you wonder what he's going to pull out of his bag of tricks next) and on its own terms I suppose it's effective. Dull it ain't. The "Little" Fugue is heavily but impressively done. I found it the best performance on the CD.

After the first two pieces, my interest in this recital flagged rapidly. Some of the remaining slighter fare ("favorite Bach tunes") are played with registrations that to my ears are too "churchy" sounding, and some of them made me feel like I'd stepped into the undertaker's chapel.

Overall I found this to be "heavy organ" indeed--ponderous, bloated, outdated Bach, historically uninformed and with good taste in short supply. (Alas, I fear I'm never going to make a Virgil Fox fan.) This CD is best recommended to admirers of this organist. If you are looking for a good introduction to Bach, or a recommendable sampling of his best organ works, I'm afraid this isn't it. (Try E. Power Biggs, Peter Hurford, Michael Murray, Marie-Claire Alain, Christopher Herrick.)

Much of this album is awesome organ work of Bach's pieces, especially his performance of Toccata and Fugue in D Minor and the Little Fuge in G Minor.

This would have been five stars easily were it not due to the odd sound on such Bach pieces Air For G-String and the work from Cantata No. 156. Possibly having heard them on other instruments, i.e. classical guitar and orchestra, this sounds like the old "roller skating rink rendition." It was and remains well played and certainly require the utmost in talent and performance skills, but these to my ear just do not provide justice to Bach's pieces.

The CD however is just outstanding to have for its brilliant pieces.

Virgil Fox wasn't totally faithful to the genre of baroque organ in terms of his use of tone coloring, but the end result here more than makes up for it. NO ONE, except Virgil Fox could play Bach with this much passion.

Virgil Fox understood the music and how to get the most drama out of a pipe organ. I bought this CD on a whim to get an arrangement of "Nun danket" and I have been elated but never sorry. Fox has superlative organs, he understands the pieces and he knows how to put the two together. "Nun danket": he starts the accompaniment theme with diapasons only, then brings the theme in with reeds, and builds by almost imperceptible stages to full organ (with 32-foot reeds). I wish that all Bach interpreters had such an instrument, had such intelligence, had such courage to use them.

why would anyone give this CD any less than 4 stars? I don't pretend to be an expert on the music of J.S. Bach, but I do know what sounds good. This is good music to listen to, especially if you are in the mood to listen to a mighty church organ played by a master of his craft.

Virgil Fox was certainly one of the great organists of his century! This performance is a good example Virgil's mega-organ approach to Bach (and everything else). It greatly contrasts with the "historically informed" instruments and performances we are used to today.

One complaint is that the cd includes no documentation aside from the list of tracks. There is no organ description or stoplist (although a quick search on google will yield this). There is no essay on the performance or biographical information about the organist. The photo on the front cover doesn't relate to the recording in any way. Certainly, this recording could have been more thoughtfully prepared.

Then again, you can beat the price.

This was fantastic, I wanted earth churning organ music to rock the cob webs in the attic! So who but one of the "MASTERS". It was perfect, I played it with Anaheim Steam Roller Halloween. Awesome!!! Everyone loved it.

As a young music student, sixty years ago, I had a guilt complex because I disliked Bach and knew I should not! My father purchased for me a set of recordings of Bach's organ works performed by a man who was renowned at the time as the world's leading authority on and interpreter of Bach. I tried so hard but it was a listening experience which I still shudder to recall. The result was I disliked Bach even more. A few years later, I obtained the program which appears on this disc played by Virgil Fox. For me it was like hearing Bach for the first time. More than any other virtuoso, Fox interprets Bach in a way in which,I believe, the master himself would delight. Fox captures the joy, the exuberance, the thrill and the pure genius of Bach and, for me, hearing this recording again after so many years brought back all the excitement of a first love affair. Great Organ Works from a great composer played by a great artist. Joy, joy, joy.

I have this album, along with a couple of Fox's "Heavy Organ" live performances (Fillmore and Winterland), as well as several Koopman albums and a Biggs. All have their merits. Me, I happen to like hearing "big" sound, so this is a fun album for me (I also like Mahler, Bruckner, and the Chicago Symphony of the 80s). The Royal Albert organ is, as noted elsewhere, a huge instrument, and while Bach can sound wonderful in chamber settings too, his works do translate pretty well to this machine, especially with Fox at the helm. The recording is quite good for being as old as it is, and being analog. Again, as noted elsewhere, the bass response on the album is very good, and combined with the power and size of the instruments being played, your floor will shake when Fox hits the pedals. You're not going to get anything revolutionary, as these are pretty familiar pieces, so this album is probably more about showcasing the instruments' power and Fox's talent, but that's not necessarily a bad thing since many of us will never have the opportunity to hear either of these instruments played live by a master.