Search - Johann Sebastian Bach, Hans Fagius :: Bach: The Complete Organ Music, Vol. 1

An Informercial More Than a Review

Giordano Bruno | Wherever I am, I am. | 07/20/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This recording and its many successors, performed by Hans Fagius on historic organs of Sweden, have been re-released as part of the Brilliant Classics Bach Edition, the best thing to happen to ears since the invention of ear-muffs. The seventeen organ disks in the Bach Box are the most consistently wonderful part of the whole set, and you can get all of them, and all the cantatas, concerti, masses, etc. in that box for less than the original price of the organ works alone.



Mr. Fagius is a superb interpretor of Bach, full of lightness and spry with his pedals on the toccatas and fantasias, full of sorrows and dusky tones on the preludes and fugues, always judicious in his choice of registers. The organs he plays here are all authentic survivors from the Baroque era:

1) 1724 Cahman organ in Falun, Sweden

2) 1764 Wahlberg organ in Karlskrona

3) 1728 Cahman organ in Leufsta Bruk

4) The Nils-Olaf Berg organ of Uppsala

5) Mats Arvidsson organ in Mariefred, Sweden

The recording quality is excellent; you can play the disks at a plausible organ volume without distortion. And you can test your ears, those of you who know a little about tuning, by trying to hear which organs are still in mean-tone tuning and which have been modified to equal temperament. Just a hint: listen for triadic chords; if you hear 'beats' you'll have the answer."