"This is for Bach organ music lovers. It is the early recordings of Helmut Walcha, some made on the Arp Schnitger at Cappel before it was ruined by the introduction of steam heat in the 1950's, and the rest made on the organ in the St. Jakobi Church in Lubeck. It is a younger and more vigourous Walcha than the later recordings from St Laurenskerk in Alkmaar and the Silbermann in Strasburg. It also contains BWV 802-805 (four duets for harpsichord, although it does not contain Die Kunst der Fuge, as the later Archiv album does. It was a pleasure to see it back in print after all these years of playing elderly mono LP's, and the ten CD's are a steal for under $20.00."
Bach's old golden recordings
JJ van der Walt | Vanderbijlpark, South Africa | 10/30/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I was very pleased to hear all the old recordings from Bach's organ works made by Helmut Walcha that I grew up with. Unfortunately BWV 539 was not included in this re-edition, which is actually very unfortunate because I specifically remembered this recording of Walcha of BWV 539 from the old mono LPs. Walcha played it fresh, speedy and excellent. I just hope that whoever has taken up this wonderful effort in producing this edition will make a re-edition in the future and include BWV 539. A word of advise for the super-critical hifi quality listeners, just adjust your treble equaliser a little lower to decrease a bit of distortion in the upper frequencies. The old mono recordings struggled sometimes to obtain the high demand of high frequencies without making too much destortion. This is however no reason not to get yourself the old historical recordings. A final word, if you are a Walcha fan, this is a must to have."
Different company
whitley 190 | tennessee | 05/21/2007
(5 out of 5 stars)
"This is the set of recordings that is in the "Original Masters" series. Both are the late 40's and early 50's recordings."
Cheap, but perfect because it's Bach
K. Stefan Jansson | 02/19/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"I think Bach never wrote anything bad or uninspired. Therefore you can't go wrong with buying a recording of his work by a skilled performer. It is impossible to waste time listening to Bach, and Helmuch Walcha doesn't get in Bach's way, and plays the compositions well.
I got this set for 25 dollars, and it looks like you can still get it as of 19 Feb 2009. If you DON'T buy this set, it may be because you have one too many chromosomes, i.e. Down's syndrome."
Original masters
cvairag | Allan Hancock College | 10/19/2009
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Helmut Walcha is my favorite player of Bach. These recordings were made when both he and the organ were in their prime. One really feels that - yeah - this was how Bach intended it to sound. Walcha has what might justly be called "mystic" insight into this music and developed an unsurpassed ability to reduplicate it in the material realm."