How Bach May Have Heard It

The latest BBC Music magazine free cover disc goes with the self explanatory title of J S Bach Great Organ Works. The organist is David Goode and the organ used is an historic 1714 Gottfried Silbermann organ in Freiburg Cathedral, Germany. It is a carefully maintained and little modified organ from Bach's time and while there is no firm evidence that he ever visited and played it, he "could" have done. It does at least provide a reasonably authentic idea of how Bach's organ music would have sounded in his own time. David Goode provides a nicely varied programme ranging from a concerto written "after Vivaldi", graceful sweeping chorales, louder and more aggressive preludes and fugues and masterful toccata and passacaglia accompaniments to yet more fuges. These show off both Bach's genius and the qualities of this organ and the light and shade and different sound worlds it can replicate. I would not be inclined to purchase discs of organ music and so these occasional BBC Music discs in the genre are extremely useful.