Search - J.S. Bach, Weinberger :: J.S. Bach: Complete Organ Works

Complete-Complete Bach

J. F. Laurson | Washington, DC United States | 12/14/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"This box offers complete - absolutely positively complete* - organ works of Bach - which also includes works once thought by Bach but now known not to be. Gerhard Weinberger has been recording this canon since 1997, and he finished earlier this year with a (world premiere) recording of the recently rediscovered Chorale Fantasia BWV 1128 and Die Kunst der Fuge. This is the most complete set of Bach's organ works yet, including more Bach (and works once thought to be by Bach) than my Wolfgang Stockmeier set on Art & Music. I wasn't very fond of the last two releases: on volume 20 the Carl Christian Hofmann Organ (St.Marien Mecterstädt, 1770) is tuned in a way that cannot please my ears and Die Kunst der Fuge I have heard more to my liking, elsewhere. (Isoir, Bach: L'Art de la Fugue) But hearing the 19 preceding volumes, only some of which I had already owned, I was delighted throughout.



Weinberger doesn't aim for bombast (near-impossible, on the historic instruments from Saxony and Thuringia, anyway), and he is not the most impressive in some of the `biggest hits' works. I agree with Scott Morrison's review above, especially about the Passacaglia [though not as much about the Art of the Fugue]. Karl Richter's 3 CD set is still a mandatory addition to any Bach organ collection, no matter who the interpreter. But apart from minor quibbles, it is a magnificent complete set. For those who look for 'juicier' Bach, Kevin Bowyer's set (Nimbus) might be an apt alternative.



(*as per current research, at least.)

"

Gerhard Weinberger's Complete Bach Organ Works, plus Art of

J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 11/24/2008

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Over the past several years all twenty-two of the discs in this box set have been issued singly and they have been received with mixed reviews. Some have felt that Weinberger's Bach was the best thing since sliced bread, others have felt that his playing is too severe, too uninflected. Not surprisingly I find myself somewhere in the middle of this range of opinion. On the whole I prefer Bach to be played 'straight' and have typically been less pleased with Romantic-tinged or highly personal interpretations. On the other hand, I feel that Professor Weinberger's playing can be somewhat mechanical at times. For instance, in the Passacaglia in C Minor, BWV 582, the playing is so severe and so strictly in tempo that one loses interest in this great work before it is finished. But, contrarily, I love his way with some of the minor, less grand works, such as, say, some of the Kirnberger chorales. For instance, I was really taken with the tenderness of the Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier Chorale, BWV 706/1 & 2. Obviously part of this is due to the registrations that Weinberger chooses. And since the works on each of the 22 CDs was performed on a different North German baroque-era organ, the sound does indeed vary from disc to disc. (In fact, there are twenty-four organs heard because on CD 9 three different organs are heard.) Organ builders included are such masters as Silbermann, Wagner, Schröter and Hildebrandt among others.



Gerhard Weinberger, not known terribly well here in America, is a 60-year-old native of Bavaria who studied primarily with Lehrndorfer in Munich. He is professor of organ at the Hochschule für Musik in Detmold and is a musicologist as well, having published complete editions of organ music by Krebs and Schumann. He is a player of magnificent technique, tending to be analytic in his approach. One can clearly hear, by virtue of his registrations and his phrasing, the various strands of Bach's music with utmost clarity, a real plus in my opinion. For instance, his performance of the Ricercar from the Musical Offering is one of the very best I've ever heard. But sometimes this approach comes across as a bit severe; on the other hand it is never fussy or prissy. There are also occasional sonic issues. For instance, in the recording made on the Hildebrandt organ at St. Wenzel in Naumburg, there is enough reverberation to blur Weinberger's usual clear sonic outlines. But on the whole the engineering for each disc in the set is exemplary. I can only imagine the acoustical gremlins that had to be tamed in some of these venues.



Art of Fugue appears in its first version as published in 1751, but with minor changes taking into account both the second published version and Bach's autograph of the score. This is a tremendously effective performance that in Weinberger's hands accumulates power and emotion as it proceeds. A quite wonderful performance.



Obviously there are significant competitors in the realm of complete (or nearly complete) Bach organ work recordings, those of, say, Marie-Claire Alain, Lionel Rogg, Kevin Bowyer, Christopher Herrick, Michel Chapuis, Hans Fagius, Ton Koopman and so on. Clearly there is no 'winner' in a Bach organ sweepstakes. But if you like clear, unfussy readings featuring many different North German baroque organs you could certainly do worse. One notices, too, that some of Amazon's associate vendors are offering this box set at a considerable savings, up to ca. $100 under Amazon's own price and one might investigate those sources.



Scott Morrison"