Organ Masters Before Bach [Import]

Track Listings

1. Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) Prelude And Fugue In D Minor,Buxwv 140

2. Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) Chorale Prelude: O Lamm Gottes,Unschuldig

3. Vincent Lubeck (1654-1740) Prelude And Fugue In E Major

4. Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) Chorale Variation: Jesus Christus,Unser Heiland

5. Nicolaus Bruhns (1665-1697) Prelude And Fugue In E Minor

6. Dietrich Buxtehude / Chaconne In Minor,Buxwv 159

7. Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck (1562-1621) Fantasia Cromatica

8. Franz Tunder ( 1614-1667) Chorale Prelude: Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herr Gott

9. Georg Bohm (1661-1733) Prelude And Fugue In C Major

10. Johann Pachelbel / Chaconne In F Minorr

11. Dietrich Buxtehude / Passacaglia In D Minor,Buxwv 161

Tracks:

Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) Prelude And Fugue In D Minor,Buxwv 140
Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) Chorale Prelude: O Lamm Gottes,Unschuldig
Vincent Lubeck (1654-1740) Prelude And Fugue In E Major
Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) Chorale Variation: Jesus Christus,Unser Heiland
Nicolaus Bruhns (1665-1697) Prelude And Fugue In E Minor
Dietrich Buxtehude / Chaconne In Minor,Buxwv 159
Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck (1562-1621) Fantasia Cromatica
Franz Tunder ( 1614-1667) Chorale Prelude: Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herr Gott
Georg Bohm (1661-1733) Prelude And Fugue In C Major
Johann Pachelbel / Chaconne In F Minorr
Dietrich Buxtehude / Passacaglia In D Minor,Buxwv 161

Customer Reviews:

Attractive but dismayingly incomplete (and annotation-less).......2005-01-04

Everything here comes from an Archiv Produktion anthology of the same title that Helmut Walcha (who died in 1991) recorded during the 1970s, originally occupying four LPs. In other words, the present CD - however well filled in terms of playing time - is dismayingly incomplete, and merely skims the surface of that splendid collection, which (like so many other boxed sets from its decade and earlier) remained available in Japan long after it fell out of print everywhere else. This is great for Nipponese music-lovers, but it grossly short-changes the rest of us.

What we do have here is mostly very attractive, Walcha's style being as superhumanly lucid and tactful as one would expect from his Bach recordings, though often with an improvisatory character which nothing in those recordings foreshadows. Pachelbel's F minor CHACONNE, a rather turgid work under lesser artists' hands, here has a very agreeable forward momentum yet never sounds the slightest bit breathless; it benefits also, as do all other items, from a wonderful instrument (the 18th-century Schnitger organ in Cappel, Germany). The sound quality is - dare one say - perfect: with pleasing resonance, yet no detail gets blurred.

Problems: (a) the periodically very sharp pitch (least bearable in the Buxtehude items, most bearable in the Georg Boehm piece), sometimes almost a semitone above A=440; (b) the fact that Deutsche Grammophon disdains to provide a solitary syllable of annotations, and fobs us off with advertising! In what is presumably a world first for the hard-sell approach, advertising even disfigures the jewel-box's plastic disc-tray. Boo hiss. Several of the composers here represented (Franz Tunder, Nikolaus Bruhns and Vincenz Luebeck, to name just a few) are lucky to get more than three lines in the average music dictionary. When one considers how Naxos manages to supply authoritative and often fascinating booklet essays - sometimes in French and German as well as in English - with its own CDs, at a lower price than is being asked for this issue, Deutsche Grammophon's attitude looks positively miserly. (For organ releases Naxos usually provides stop-lists as well.) But if didactic considerations are meaningless to you, and if it's merely assured organ playing you want, then look no further.

Average customer rating:

North German Organ Masters Before Bach

Manufacturer: Ricercar
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

Fugues | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

Preludes | Forms & Genres | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Sacred & Religious | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Classical | Styles | Music

General | Chamber Music | Classical | Styles | Music

Classical | Imports | Stores | Music
ASIN: B0000A1HU5
Release Date: 2003-06-24

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1. Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) Prelude And Fugue In D Minor,Buxwv 140
2. Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) Chorale Prelude: O Lamm Gottes,Unschuldig
3. Vincent Lubeck (1654-1740) Prelude And Fugue In E Major
4. Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654) Chorale Variation: Jesus Christus,Unser Heiland
5. Nicolaus Bruhns (1665-1697) Prelude And Fugue In E Minor
6. Dietrich Buxtehude / Chaconne In Minor,Buxwv 159
7. Jan Pieterzoon Sweelinck (1562-1621) Fantasia Cromatica
8. Franz Tunder ( 1614-1667) Chorale Prelude: Komm, Heiliger Geist, Herr Gott
9. Georg Bohm (1661-1733) Prelude And Fugue In C Major
10. Johann Pachelbel / Chaconne In F Minorr
11. Dietrich Buxtehude / Passacaglia In D Minor,Buxwv 161