Bernard Aubertin

Pachelbel: Organ Works, Vol 2

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Johann Pachelbel: Organ Works, Vol 2
Matthew Owens
Organ by Bernard Aubertin
Resonus Classic RES10303. 76’20

Matthew Owens follows his Pachelbel Organ Works Volume 1 (reviewed here, with background comments that I will not repeat here) with this volume, recorded on an impressive 2015 three-manual, 30-stop Bernard Aubertin organ in a private house in East Sussex. The programme follows a similar format to the first volume, with a Chorale Partita (on Christus, der ist mein Leben) a sequence of 23 Magnificat Fugues (Primi Toni), five chorale preludes and an opening (unrelated) Prelude and Fugue in D.

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Bach: Chorale Partitas

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

J S Bach
Chorale Partitas, BWV 766-768 & 770
Stephen Farr, organ
Resonus Classics RES10120. 55’46

Ach, was soll ich Sünder machen BWV 770
Christ, der du bist der helle Tag BWV 766
O Gott, du frommer Gott BWV 767
Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig BWV 768

Stephen Farr continues his series of Bach organ recordings with the four Chorale Partitas – variations sets of Lutheran chorales. None of them exists in autograph, so dating is problematical. They are almost certainly early works, possibly composed around the time Bach was at Arnstadt, or perhaps even earlier while Bach was under the influence of Georg Böhm, who Bach knew, and probably studied with while he was at school in Lüneburg. Böhm wrote many variation sets (as did Pachbel), a compositional style that goes back the Sweelinck, the Amsterdam instigator of the North German/Hamburg school of the early to mid-17th-century. It is not clear whether Bach’s examples were intended for performance during church services or, indeed, on the organ. Most are equally suitable for clavichord or harpsichord in a domestic setting. Continue reading →