JS Bach: Two organ Chaconnes

Johann Sebastian Bach: Two organ Chaconnes
Ciacona ex d BWV 1178, Ciacona ex g BWV 1179

Ed. Peter Wollny
Supplement to Bach Complete Organ Works, Volume 4

 24 pages, 32x23cm, 137g, ISMN: 979-0-004-19141-5, Saddle Stitch
Edition Breitkopf 9648, 2025

The much hyped promotion by the Bach Archive Leipzig of two organ Chaconnes that have recently been attributed to the young J.S. Bach has resulted in a torrent of internet posts raising every possible view of the music and how it should be performed. This commenced with the first performance of the new attributions given by Ton Koopman, playing the 2000 Bach organ at an official ceremony on 17 November 2025, livestreamed from Bach’s own Thomaskirche Leipzig. The two pieces have been available for a while on IMSLP, in facsimile and typeset, under the tentative attribution to Johann Christoph Graff. They are now published by Breitkopf in an edition by Peter Wollny, director of the Bach Archive Leipzig and the scholar who attributes the two pieces to JS Bach. A detailed Preface in German and English (four pages each) outlines the voyage of discovery over a period of more than 30 years. The new Breitkopf edition of the two pieces is beautifully produced and presented, with clear musical text.

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Messe Da Pacem

Messe Da Pacem
Music by Pierre Villette, Yves Castagnet and Maurice Ravel
Choir of Royal Holloway, Rupert Gough
Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Notre-Dame d’Auteuil in Paris
Ad Fontes
AF004. 75’27

Ravel: Pavane pour une infante défunte / Requiem æternam
Pierre Villette: Messe Da Pacem; Élévation; Hymne à la Vierge; Salutation angélique
Yves Castagnet: Messe Breve; Veni Sancte Spiritus


This recording from the Choir of Royal Holloway brings together three composers spanning 20th-century France, including arrangements of the Ravel and Villette Messe Da Pacem by the choir’s director, Rupert Gough. It was recorded in the summer of 2019 (apparently in sweltering heat) in the church of Notre-Dame d’Auteuil in Paris, using the important newly restored Cavaillé-Coll organ, originally completed in 1855 with an inaugural recital given by Widor.

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