Customer Reviews

Bach: Organ Works

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This recording is superb. The clarity presented on Telarc Digital recording only adds to the beuty of the organ. The 32' pedals are heard loud and clear, making this CD as lifelike as possible. Michael Murray is outstanding organist and performs these selections wonderfully.

This is one of my favorite organ recordings. A beautiful sounding organ fully captured on CD. What a great choice Murray made to end the disk with those four short choral preludes. They don't appear on any other recordings I have, but they are great. I would buy the CD just for those.

How else to put it? Spectacular. If you can listen to this whole album without getting goosebumps at least once, I daresay you are not human. A great organist playing great works by a great composer on a great organ. I do not find the album's relatively short length to be a detriment. There is not one minute on this album that is not beautiful. Quality comes before quantity in my book; one beautiful second is worth more than 2 hours of crap. I do understand the desire for more after hearing something like this though.

The great organ at Methuen is one of a handful in the world that can truly do justice to these pieces. The real 32' ranks (as opposed to "stopped" 16' ranks found on many lesser organs) make a difference. The bass is huge and earthshaking... it sounds like it is emanating from the core of the universe. This recording does a great job of capturing that unearthly deep presence without being bottom-heavy or muddy. The piercing heights of the smallest ranks are just as clear as the thundering intensity of the pedal tones.

All five pieces on this album are good, and each highlights a different aspect of Bach's mastery of writing for the organ. The Passacaglia, as others have noted, is a highlight. It is one of the best recordings of this magnificent piece I have heard. Murray has a great sense of the dynamic development of the piece, and plays at a moderately slow tempo that gives each verse a stately sense of "gravidas." Too many organists try to rocket through this piece too rapidly. Verses of this beauty need time to develop, and to sink into the listener's mind.

I love the soft "chiffing" of the flutes at the beginning of the Passacaglia. Their delicacy creates a beautiful contrast with the overwhelming force of the climaxes at the end of the Passacaglia and the Fugue. The end of the Fugue is mindblowing. The dissonance of the huge chord just before the end swirls around you and feels like the fabric of the universe is being torn in half, then the final C major chord brings it all home in magnificent resonance, with harmony across the entire spectrum of frequencies audible to the human ear. Hard to believe all this sound is being controlled by one musician.

Recommended for any listener who is fascinated by the pipe organ and wants an album that really showcases what the instrument is capable of. They don't get much better than this. No, the "Stairway to Heaven" of the pipe organ, Bach's famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor, is not here. Trust me, though, after ten seconds of this disc, you won't miss it. There are plenty of other good recordings of that one.

I searched high and low for the best version of the Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 546. This is it! It is a very strong piece and not for the faint of heart, those who prefer dainty pieces. Coincidentally, this Bach piece was played at the conclusion of Princess Diana's funeral at the request of her mother. The lady knew her organ music!