Search - Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann David Heinichen, Kay Johannsen :: Bach: Organ works - Organ Chorales from the Neumeister Collection (Edition Bachakademie Vol 86) /Johannsen

Beautiful Bach In Small Bites

Leonard J. Loomis | Thousand Oaks, CA USA | 07/04/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Nearly a generation has passed since Christoff Wolff (and others) prepared the Barenreiter Edition of organ chorales from the Neumeister Collection at Yale. I'd guess they aren't played much. Some may dismiss them out of hand since they are mainly for manuals and thus, would be the reasoning, are not very difficult to master. Others would not, in this day and age of contemporary liturgies, select them either. Probably not many are possessed of the mental agility to sit for nearly an hour and a half and listen to liturgical music with no overriding theme like one of his passions or cantatas. The fact is, the Neumeister Chorales are wonderful to listen to...especially if they are taken in relatively small bites. And, they are not especially easy to play. There is a special clarity of sound, both in the recording and in the execution, on these disks. There is no setting of ultra fast tempos just because the artist can get his fingers over superfast 32nd note cadenzas. Kay Johannsen is lucid, relaxed and imaginative. He is playing a magnificent instrument in a space that is not overly reverberant. The registrations and articulation are certainly baroque but Johannsen's embelishments are not overdone. A student can listen and say: "Ah, that's exactly how I'd like to play it" ... and not be far off the right track. At its price, this set is a welcome addition to a library."