Pieter Dirksen

Breitkopf – Bach: Complete Organ Works, Vol 9 & 10

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Johann Sebastian Bach: Complete Organ Works
Breitkopf & Härtel – 10 Volumes

Volume 9: Choral Partitas / Individually transmitted Choral Settings I
Ed. Reinmar Emans and Matthias Schneider
Edition Breitkopf EB8809.
184 pages | 32 x 25 cm | 783 g | ISMN: 979-0-004-18378-6 | Softbound

Volume 10: Individually transmitted Choral Settings II
Ed. Reinmar Emans and Matthias Schneider
Edition Breitkopf EB8810.
200 pages | 32 x 25 cm | 847 g | ISMN: 979-0-004-18379-3 | Softbound


Breitkopf & Härtel bring their ten-volume edition of the Complete Organ Works of Johann Sebastian Bach to an end with these two final and the offer of a complete package of all ten volumes. Volumes 9 and 10 bring together the Chorale Partitas and choral settings that have been individually transmitted rather than appearing in published collections (Clavierübung, Schübler, Orgelbüchlein, Leipzig/18). My reviews of previous Volumes can be read at these links: Volume 1, 2 & 4; Volume 3; Volume 5, 6 & 7; and Volume 8.

Continue reading →

Scheidemann: Chorale Fantasias

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson

Scheidemann: Chorale Fantasias for Organ
Ed. Pieter Dirksen
Breitkopf & Härtel 2022
92 pages | 30.5 x 23cm | 361gm | ISMN: 979-0-004-18607-7 | Softbound
Edition Breitkopf EB8938


Although the rather retro style of the cover might suggest a reprint, this is a new edition of nine Chorale Fantasias on Lutheran chorales by the pivotal North German organist composer Heinrich Scheidemann (c1595-1663). One of the key students of Sweelinck in Amsterdam (1611 to 1614), Scheidemann’s return to Hamburg was key to that city’s extraordinary 17th-century flowering of organ music: a fusion of organ design and musical development that culminated in the music of Buxtehude and, ultimately, Bach whose early experience was strongly influenced by this North German school of organ composition.

Continue reading →

JS Bach: Complete Organ Works – Volume 3

~ Andrew Benson-Wilson ~ 3 Comments

JS Bach: Complete Organ Works
Volume 3 – Fantasias & Fugues
Ed. Pieter Dirksen
Breitkopf & Härtel 2016.
Edition Breitkopf EB8803. ISMN: 979-0-004-18374-8
159pp + CD-ROM

Bach Orgelwerke IIIThe new 10 volume Breitkopf & Härtel critical edition of Bach’s organ music is arriving in dribs and drabs. I reviewed volume 8 here last July, and have now been sent Volume 3. It contains all the pieces entitled ‘Fantasia’ together with isolated Fugues. In that context, it is worth stressing that there are no surviving authorized and complete Fantasia and Fugue pairs, not even the well-known Fantasia & Fugue in G minor (BWV 542). Indeed, many of the popular Preludes and Fugues were also put together by later editors, rather than by Bach.

Peter Dirksen’s detailed introductory notes (in German and English), include a discussion of discussion the historic background to the Continue reading →