THE FIRST BACH ORGAN INTEGRAL OF HELMUT WALCHA

I waited for these records for more than 15 years. I knew they were available in Japan, but I could never get hold of them. They are here, now.

Being a first integral it is impossible not to compare it to the second one. But, in fact, there are at least three very definite periods of recording, and four different organs to consider. There is a rather long preface, here, that gives you the historical background. If you do not want to read it, skip to THE APPRAISAL, below.

PRELIMINARY NOTICE ABOUT HOW AN ORGAN WORKS; TO BE SKIPPED IF ONE IS LAZY, BUT NEVERTHELESS RATHER IMPORTANT.

When talking about organs one has to remember that an 8’ sounds at diapason pitch; a 4’ is the octave; the 2’ is the double octave, the 1’ is the treble octave; the 16’ is a suboctave stop. The mixtures are artificial harmonics, mainly composed of fifths and octaves, sometimes with a third that adds piquancy to the sound. There are also reeds, often very bright and rasping (not so in the Pedal, where they tend to be booming and thunderous), and flutes, soft and prompt of speech; the basic organ tone is given by the principals. The art of registration lies in the mixing of several tone colours and different heights of tone at the same time: a given note may sound, at once, a suboctave stop, a diapason one, the octave, the quint (3rd harmonic) the double octave, and mixed very high quints and octaves – that gives you the common plenum sound; or you could use say a flute 8’ and a flute 2’ – a piquant but nevertheless soft sound.

THE BACH OEUVRE

The organ music of JSBach was composed, for a great part, in his early years. It may be classified into four groups of works. First, the praeludium and fuga: a long Prelude is followed by an equally long fugue in the same key. Second the Chorale Prelude: a more or less free piece that is based on a hymn; they can be very long or rather short. Third, the Chorale Variation: a set of variations is based on a choral (a hymn). Fourth and last, the trio sonata: a dauntingly difficult exercise of how to play two completely independent treble voices (with two hands on two keyboards) on an often lively pedal line. To be exhaustive one must deal with each of these genres but I won’t be thorough. I’ll only mention them.

THE VERSIONS

There are two versions, as we have seen. The first one (the one under analysis) was made on the Lübeck and the Cappel organs; the second one (the stereo one) was done in the Alkmaar Laurenskerk and the Strasbourg Silberman of Saint Pierre de Jeune.

Lübecker Dom

The first batch of recordings was started in 1947, in the Lübeck Dom klein organ. This is a very old organ – the only Lübeck organ surviving the bombing during the war. Its character is very odd: a very old (Renaissance) Hauptwerk, almost surely made mainly of lead pipes, and an early 16th century addition by Stellwagen: a piercing Rückpositiv, a clear Brustpositiv and a gracile Pedal. At the time of Walcha’s recordings the pedals had been enlarged, featuring a strong reed battery (16’, 8’, 4’) plus the pulldowns from the Hauptwerk and soloist voices (4’, 2’ and even 1’).
Sound taking is rather good: the microphones were located somewhere near the Rückpositiv, which therefore sounds very bright and present whereas the Hauptwerk sound broad and distant (as it should). Reverberation seems less important than it actually is, but it is still present.

The Cappel Schnitger

When Archiv wanted to pursue Walcha’s recordings LP had imposed itself as the medium par excellence, and on its less noisy surface the traffic sound of the Lübecker Kirche could be heard (as it can now, sometimes, in CD). They therefore had to search for a new organ. The choice fell on a wonderful instrument – the work of Arp Schnitger no less – in a very small chapel. The sound is very beautiful but it is too big for the church (it was purchased from a much larger church) and there is almost no reverberation. The very dry acoustics let everything through – you actually listen to everything the organist does and all irregularities of pipe sound. It is not the popular view of organ sound but I, for one, like dry acoustics very much when Bach is to be played: all the counterpoint is listenable.

The Alkmaar recordings

With the advent of stereo Archiv started all over again; the Cappel organ having been ruined by central heating (cracks in the windchests). Now the organ of Alkmaar is a very big one, provided almost only with principals and reeds, with very strong mixtures. It is good for the free Praeludia and the fugues, but awful for the chorales, because they often require flutes upon which a stronger stop intones the hymn.
The sound engineer messed up badly on these records. Being a very broad (even if it is rather clear) acoustic, an organist is obliged to take the music slowly. However, reverberation time is almost non existent and the microphones were placed too close to the organ. Walcha therefore seems to play ponderously in many an occasion; truth is, he is only respecting the acoustics of the place, but what you actually listen to may seem sluggish and pachydermic (the great C major and G major Preludes are impossibly slow).

Saint-Pierre-le Jeune

Walcha preferred a less aggressive instrument to play the chorale settings, and, therefore, the Archiv crew went in search for another historic instrument. One possibility was the very large Arp Schnitger organ in Zwolle, Holland, but it was discarded by the Archiv directors because it was tuned a tone higher than A=450. This was undoubtedly the most stupid decision. The Zwolle organ is magnificent, it had just undergone restauration, and had everything one might need. Instead, Dr. Gerd Ploebsch (I think it was him, I’m not sure) insisted that a Silberman instrument be used. Now there are several different Silbermans. They were two brothers, Gottfried, a friend of Bach’s, whose work was behind the iron curtain and therefore impossible to record. And Johann Andreas, often referred to as Jean-Henri, who worked in Alsace in the French tradition (which is completely different from the North German one Walcha preferred – the sound is round, the mixtures are rather low and weaker, the reeds aren’t deep or bright, but rather sonorous and clamorous.
Archiv wanted an Alsatian Silberman (God knows why!). Walcha tried some, but they were all impossible – compass limitations prevented playing Bach. The choice therefore fell on the Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune one. It is not really a Silberman. Just the Grand Orgue; the rest was made chiefly by Alfred Kern. The organ stands in the middle of the church, and is, therefore, drowned in acoustic reverberation. This comes across in the recordings: the treble is rather less present than it should be; and the softer and less precise French sound guarantees that you don’t get the polyphony. It is rather beautiful, but I would have preferred a more manly organ; this sugary thing is both a compromise (it is a French organ built by a German builder) and a historical error (the organ was really made up by Kern, and it was not originally intended for such a huge space).

THE APPRAISAL – STOP: HERE I ACTUALLY BEGIN TO COMMENT ON THE RECORDINGS!!!!!!

Welcome to those who skipped the preceding information. How does he fare?

Walcha’s style

Walcha is unique. He plays as no one else. And, judging from his principles (he published them in his edition of the 6 voice Ricercare, at Peters Verlag) one would say he would play rubbish: all depends on the strict maintenance of pulse, on not altering or even bending any rhythmic pattern, and on the precise duration of the silences between the notes. Theoretically, this is achieved by singing each voice and determining the articulation points, which are, therefore, different in every voice (which is rather difficult to do when playing a really difficult piece).

However, the results totally transcend these maniac intentions. It is true that he is rather square; but as every voice is actually played by itself, there is never any overall squareness: you just listen to every voice he plays. If you like counterpoint, you will love it.

The overall intention is the transparency of every voice. He therefore uses rather bright (but not piercingly so) registrations and used a very odd system of detached style. It is not bizarre as in Gould, and it is rather less marked and more thought out, but the result is that you have very distinct rhythmic patterns in one voice that sparkle through the harmony (the other voices being played slightly detached, as is the basic organ touch) making every voice listenable.

Although he claims he doesn’t introduce rubatto, this is quite false. He doesn’t do it over a few bars, that is true (as Leonhardt and his school do); but there are very long stretches of music that are very slightly (but detectably) bended, so you have an incredible structural view of music. There are no ‘effects’: just the stating of the structures. This produces, as it were, very tense arches of music, which build up to form the overall structure. It is not easy to grasp at first audition, but one can become totally addicted to it.

His style did slowly change. His first recordings were very intense (up to the Art of Fugue and the Alkmaar recordings) but later he became somewhat appeased. He played faster, with less accentuation and perhaps more fluidity but less relief. Therefore, when comparing the chorale works, this comes as a pleasant surprise: they are almost always more expressive in the early days.

The recordings

Well, the Lübeck recordings are different from the Cappel ones: they are freer, and the organ imposes a very impressive contrast between the Positiv and the Hauptwerk. This is very clearly seen in the Variations on Sei gegrusset, Jesu Gütig. The penultimate variation, very impressively sounds ond the piercing Rückpositiv plenum, and the chorale (the hymn tune) sounds, in canon, on the Haupwerk trumpet and mixture; the bass has the 16’ Trombone. It is the most beautiful – perhaps I ought to say tragic, impressive, spine chilling – version of this work I have ever heard. I would say that just for that it is worth buying the set. (Comparisons can be made to both the Alkmaar and the Saint-Pierre versions; they were all issued on CD).

Also, the Organ Mass is extremely taking: he plays rather slower than the Saint-Pierre version, and is therefore, much more poetic.

He recorded most Preludes and Fugues at Cappel. This was a very good decision, because in fugues is where you really need transparency. All the polyphony sparkles and his tempos are rather well chosen. In a few cases I prefer the more recent recordings (I prefer the g minor, BWV 535, Saint Pierre version; I prefer the great A minor at Alkmaar, and I definitely prefer the Doric fugue at Alkmaar, although the toccata is too slow there).

The early preludes in particular are much more interesting than those of the later edition (where they are played at Saint-Pierre). In absolute terms, they are *very* good indeed. If I disregard sonic considerations (the sound is not always perfect at Cappel, tending to congestion when the third sounding cymbal is added, as it often is in the finales), they are top notch, and easily outplay everybody else.

The greater preludes and fugues really shine: rhythmic precision and bounce in the preludes, incredible polyphony transparency in the fugues). The Passacaglia, for instance, is sublime – even better than the Alkmaar one.

The chorale settings played in Cappel are very different from the Saint-Pierre ones. Although he is playing in an unreverberated space he is *slower* and freer in Cappel than in the huge acoustic of Saint-Pierre, where he is perhaps too cold. This is obvious both from the Leipzig chorales and the Orgelbüchlein (although I could see several pieces of the Orgelbüchlein more freely – for instance, O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross; in this kind of music, MC Alain is the undisputed master, I think – the human side of Bach’s music).

The trio sonatas are much better than the more recent edition: faster, livelier and perhaps more expressive.

CONCLUSION

Do I recommend this set? Well, it depends on what you like in music. If you like counterpoint and don’t object to a clearly dated sound, I surely do. If you like Walcha, this is an absolute must. If you are more romantically oriented and prefer the beautiful reverberated sound of more recent versions, avoid this. It’s pointed, modernistic, almost mondrianesque. A Bach of steel and glass.

LAST WORDS

I would be omitting something that touched me deeply. When you place CD1 on the tray and press ‘play’, instead of an organ, you listen, in a marvellously clear Hochdeutsch accent and a ringing but very precisely articulated soprano voice, to : ‘Quintadehn Acht’. And then you listen to a short improvisation by Walcha using that stop. Several other stops are demonstrated and several combinations of stops.

I don’t know who the ‘Dichter’ – that is, the person to whom the voice belongs – was, but I hope it was his wife, Ursula Walcha, née Koch, who used to help him with the registers and with the memorizing of the partitions (she played every voice twice on the harpsichord and he built it up on his brain, memorized it, and started to study the architecture, the articulation of every voice, the fingering and the registration).


Regards,

R d S

[This message was edited by R. d S. on FRIDAY 30 January 2004 at 04:00.]

Dear Rodrigo,

Thanks for your wonderful post, and I hope you thik I may have coaused you to go ahead with it. I have read it all through, but it is much too dense for me to reply on the spot. I care very much for architecture, expression and (for thesee to emerge,) clarity. Please beleive that Ishall order this older Walcha set in the moring, and shall relish the elements your comentary covers. For I doubt if any more signifivcant point of reference exists in the playing of the organ than Bach's compositions. I shall attempt to get your comentary in the printed form, and can therefore digest it in a way not possible from a screeen. Please forgive the absense of a clear response, for one cannot be dreamt up in ten minutes. It may take weeks of listening, but your direction of my understanging is more than English Musical Doctors have beenable to show me.

Thanks, and i feel somewhat in awe of you abitlity to describe something vey important, even vital to me, the life enhancing facet of music..

This I will try to answer better in the forthcoming weeks.

Yours sincerely Fredrik Fisk

PS. Fiske is a Norwegian name, and I have a large american part of my family in the US, as well a the Czech Republick, Irelend, and many other european countries. I have a family tree from Norwegian sources the goes back till the 16th century abd almost every decendant is traced, but I would have to wade throough huge numbers of pages to know who are my indirect american realtions! My great uncle lives on the west coast and is probably over eighty(called Eric Fiske) who was one of the leading Hydraulic engineers in North Amerca, before he retired. His father Ivar fiske was probably the first great Nrwegian Engineer (born 1875) and I met him in the late 60s.he has a number of significant patents to his name. I am terribly proud of that heritage. FF

Dear Fredrik:

I must thank you very much for your very kind and encouraging words. And yes, you definitely prompted the review. I had promised to write it for Groovehandle, but I was intending to write a short one. But, after listening again and again I couldn’t make out how to write it – there are so many aspects to comment. So I was going to postpone it.

But I’m glad I wrote it, because it made my opinion clearer and more focused. So I thank you for prompting me.

I also hope you like the records. The playing is not a very easy one to like at first listening: one has to delve deeper and enter the strange music world of Walcha. But, after one gets there, it is so very rewarding!

So you *are* related to the organ builder! I can understand the pride one feels for one’s name and ancestors. As a matter of fact, my own name, Sá, is a very old one and, to my mind foremost, I am a collateral descendant of the man who first managed to pass a law that abolished slavery. I’m very proud of that.

I was glad to be of help.

Yours sincerely,

Rodrigo

Dear Rodrigo,

Just to let let you know that I collected the CDs this afternnon after work. I set straight to listening to some old favourites, and how refreshing it is to HEAR ALL the LINES! If that was all it would not be any use, though, if Walcha was not so musical, and yet so straight AND so human all at once. In my view, surely represents someone as radically unique as was Klemperer when he first burst on the London scene (and his first real success at an age most people retire!), as he has no time for the helpful assistance for old Bach (which the great man certainly does not need) by sugaring the pill, with anything other than architectural tempi adjustments, or softening the impact of this almost on times unapproachable music. His phrasing (and I beleive that is apt for an organ player who uses touch so well to make plain the music's form) is wonderfully musical (IMO), and non the worse for not being "traditional," in the desparaging way used by Mahler to describe performers leaning on tradition to avoid having to think afresh how the music should best be presented.

It will take weeks before I have much more to say, if I actually end up wanting to do that at all and not just accepting the performances as wonderful. For anyone else curious about this the recordings are clear, and clean mono. Bass and upper partials are well balanced to the middle and the balance of the organs to accoustic and its own sections is musically so fine I could not imaging it being bettered even with the latest recording methods. R d S has beautifully described what the performances are like, and so far I can only second his views and be grateful to pointed in this direction.

Fredrik Fiske

Thanks for you post! I majored in organ performance at university, and Walca was always one of my favorite Bach performers. My professors didn't care for him that much (one of my teachers was really "into" Anthony Newman - remember him - blech!), but I always found Walca's playing to really probe the 'spiritual" content of Bach. I had LPs of the Alkmaar recordings, on Archiv, IIRC, and really treasured them. Are they available on CD?

Thanks again!

Hi Peter.

Sorry not to have answered before, but I wanted to be thorough.

Not all Alkmaar recordings are available. Nevertheless, here you can find most preludes and fugues (not all) he recorded there, plus the c minor Fantasia and the Passacaglia, the Art of Fugue and the first and last trio sonatas. All the rest is recorded at the Strassburg 'Silbermann'.

And here you can find the Partiten on Sei gegrußet Jesu Gütig played at Alkmaar and the Prelude and Fugue in e flat (the Saint-Anne).

But there are further Alkmaar recordings that Archiv never reissued (for instance, the C major PF (the one which is played with a largo from a trio sonata between the Prelude and the Fugue); the fugue registration is based on the Hauptwerk trumpet 16'! Unexpected, but works very well.

If you are interested, most of Bach's works for clavier (except the suites and Walcha's extraordinary Chromatic Fantasy) are also available in CD.

Organ greetings!

Rodrigo

P.S.: Sorry, I only noticed you live in the US after posting this; the relevant links are, therefore, this and this.

Have a G major day!

R.

[This message was edited by R. d S. on MONDAY 23 February 2004 at 01:10.]

Thanks for your reply - very helpful! Actually, I order from the UK site fairly often - I like the sound quality better - so the first links are fine. I'll check them out.

I'm having somewhat of a b minor day today, but thanks for the sentiment!

quote:

---

Originally posted by Fredrik Fiske:
Dear Rodrigo,

Just to let let you know that I collected the CDs this afternnon after work. I set straight to listening to some old favourites, and how refreshing it is to HEAR ALL the LINES! If that was all it would not be any use, though, if Walcha was not so musical, and yet so straight AND so human all at once. In my view, surely represents someone as radically unique as was Klemperer when he first burst on the London scene (and his first real success at an age most people retire!), as he has no time for the helpful assistance for old Bach (which the great man certainly does not need) by sugaring the pill, with anything other than architectural tempi adjustments, or softening the impact of this almost on times unapproachable music. His phrasing (and I beleive that is apt for an organ player who uses touch so well to make plain the music's form) is wonderfully musical (IMO), and non the worse for not being "traditional," in the desparaging way used by Mahler to describe performers leaning on tradition to avoid having to think afresh how the music should best be presented.

It will take weeks before I have much more to say, if I actually end up wanting to do that at all and not just accepting the performances as wonderful. For anyone else curious about this the recordings are clear, and clean mono. Bass and upper partials are well balanced to the middle and the balance of the organs to accoustic and its own sections is musically so fine I could not imaging it being bettered even with the latest recording methods. R d S has beautifully described what the performances are like, and so far I can only second his views and be grateful to pointed in this direction.

Fredrik Fiske

---

Dear Fredrik.

I did not notice your reply (I am an irregular visitor to the forum and only noticed Peter's reply: I do apologize)!! I'm very glad you liked the records, and I think the comparison with Klemperer is very apt - I had never thought about it, but I do like Klemperer for the same reasons.

I'll be waiting for your comments. So far, we seem to be of one mind: rigour, no sugaring of the pill, but humaneness. I find that a good description. And I couldn't agree more, even If I don't actually play Bach that way. But if you play all the notes with a good grasp of the structure and with a clear articulation of the voices, the result is bound to be good. Well, not as good as Walcha's: he really was an astonishing musician.

So thank you for your reply. I'll wait for your comments.

Best wishes,

Rodrigo


Regards,

R d S

Dear Rodrigo,

I wrote something really deep about this last weekend and a follow up, but they have gone in the shake out from the temporary blip on the forum. If it does not come back I'll have another go, but it was a serious effort, so if it can be traced, please (dear administrators) could it be re-instated.

Fredrik Fiske

Dear Fredrik:

I noticed the forum was down - I really hope that the posts can be retrieved.

I truly await with the utmost interest for your reaction.

So, please, administrators!

Rodrigo.


Regards,

R d S

quote:

---

Originally posted by R. d S.:
THE FIRST BACH ORGAN INTEGRAL OF HELMUT WALCHA

I waited for these records for more than 15 years. I knew they were available in Japan, but I could never get hold of them. They are here, now.

Being a first integral it is impossible not to compare it to the second one. But, in fact, there are at least three very definite periods of recording, and four different organs to consider. There is a rather long preface, here, that gives you the historical background. If you do not want to read it, skip to THE APPRAISAL, below.

PRELIMINARY NOTICE ABOUT HOW AN ORGAN WORKS; TO BE SKIPPED IF ONE IS LAZY, BUT NEVERTHELESS RATHER IMPORTANT.

When talking about organs one has to remember that an 8’ sounds at diapason pitch; a 4’ is the octave; the 2’ is the double octave, the 1’ is the treble octave; the 16’ is a suboctave stop. The mixtures are artificial harmonics, mainly composed of fifths and octaves, sometimes with a third that adds piquancy to the sound. There are also reeds, often very bright and rasping (not so in the Pedal, where they tend to be booming and thunderous), and flutes, soft and prompt of speech; the basic organ tone is given by the principals. The art of registration lies in the mixing of several tone colours and different heights of tone at the same time: a given note may sound, at once, a suboctave stop, a diapason one, the octave, the quint (3rd harmonic) the double octave, and mixed very high quints and octaves – that gives you the common plenum sound; or you could use say a flute 8’ and a flute 2’ – a piquant but nevertheless soft sound.

THE BACH OEUVRE

The organ music of JSBach was composed, for a great part, in his early years. It may be classified into four groups of works. First, the praeludium and fuga: a long Prelude is followed by an equally long fugue in the same key. Second the Chorale Prelude: a more or less free piece that is based on a hymn; they can be very long or rather short. Third, the Chorale Variation: a set of variations is based on a choral (a hymn). Fourth and last, the trio sonata: a dauntingly difficult exercise of how to play two completely independent treble voices (with two hands on two keyboards) on an often lively pedal line. To be exhaustive one must deal with each of these genres but I won’t be thorough. I’ll only mention them.

THE VERSIONS

There are two versions, as we have seen. The first one (the one under analysis) was made on the Lübeck and the Cappel organs; the second one (the stereo one) was done in the Alkmaar Laurenskerk and the Strasbourg Silberman of Saint Pierre de Jeune.

Lübecker Dom

The first batch of recordings was started in 1947, in the Lübeck Dom klein organ. This is a very old organ – the only Lübeck organ surviving the bombing during the war. Its character is very odd: a very old (Renaissance) Hauptwerk, almost surely made mainly of lead pipes, and an early 16th century addition by Stellwagen: a piercing Rückpositiv, a clear Brustpositiv and a gracile Pedal. At the time of Walcha’s recordings the pedals had been enlarged, featuring a strong reed battery (16’, 8’, 4’) plus the pulldowns from the Hauptwerk and soloist voices (4’, 2’ and even 1’).
Sound taking is rather good: the microphones were located somewhere near the Rückpositiv, which therefore sounds very bright and present whereas the Hauptwerk sound broad and distant (as it should). Reverberation seems less important than it actually is, but it is still present.

The Cappel Schnitger

When Archiv wanted to pursue Walcha’s recordings LP had imposed itself as the medium par excellence, and on its less noisy surface the traffic sound of the Lübecker Kirche could be heard (as it can now, sometimes, in CD). They therefore had to search for a new organ. The choice fell on a wonderful instrument – the work of Arp Schnitger no less – in a very small chapel. The sound is very beautiful but it is too big for the church (it was purchased from a much larger church) and there is almost no reverberation. The very dry acoustics let everything through – you actually listen to everything the organist does and all irregularities of pipe sound. It is not the popular view of organ sound but I, for one, like dry acoustics very much when Bach is to be played: all the counterpoint is listenable.

The Alkmaar recordings

With the advent of stereo Archiv started all over again; the Cappel organ having been ruined by central heating (cracks in the windchests). Now the organ of Alkmaar is a very big one, provided almost only with principals and reeds, with very strong mixtures. It is good for the free Praeludia and the fugues, but awful for the chorales, because they often require flutes upon which a stronger stop intones the hymn.
The sound engineer messed up badly on these records. Being a very broad (even if it is rather clear) acoustic, an organist is obliged to take the music slowly. However, reverberation time is almost non existent and the microphones were placed too close to the organ. Walcha therefore seems to play ponderously in many an occasion; truth is, he is only respecting the acoustics of the place, but what you actually listen to may seem sluggish and pachydermic (the great C major and G major Preludes are impossibly slow).

Saint-Pierre-le Jeune

Walcha preferred a less aggressive instrument to play the chorale settings, and, therefore, the Archiv crew went in search for another historic instrument. One possibility was the very large Arp Schnitger organ in Zwolle, Holland, but it was discarded by the Archiv directors because it was tuned a tone higher than A=450. This was undoubtedly the most stupid decision. The Zwolle organ is magnificent, it had just undergone restauration, and had everything one might need. Instead, Dr. Gerd Ploebsch (I think it was him, I’m not sure) insisted that a Silberman instrument be used. Now there are several different Silbermans. They were two brothers, Gottfried, a friend of Bach’s, whose work was behind the iron curtain and therefore impossible to record. And Johann Andreas, often referred to as Jean-Henri, who worked in Alsace in the French tradition (which is completely different from the North German one Walcha preferred – the sound is round, the mixtures are rather low and weaker, the reeds aren’t deep or bright, but rather sonorous and clamorous.
Archiv wanted an Alsatian Silberman (God knows why!). Walcha tried some, but they were all impossible – compass limitations prevented playing Bach. The choice therefore fell on the Saint-Pierre-le-Jeune one. It is not really a Silberman. Just the Grand Orgue; the rest was made chiefly by Alfred Kern. The organ stands in the middle of the church, and is, therefore, drowned in acoustic reverberation. This comes across in the recordings: the treble is rather less present than it should be; and the softer and less precise French sound guarantees that you don’t get the polyphony. It is rather beautiful, but I would have preferred a more manly organ; this sugary thing is both a compromise (it is a French organ built by a German builder) and a historical error (the organ was really made up by Kern, and it was not originally intended for such a huge space).

THE APPRAISAL – STOP: HERE I ACTUALLY BEGIN TO COMMENT ON THE RECORDINGS!!!!!!

Welcome to those who skipped the preceding information. How does he fare?

Walcha’s style

Walcha is unique. He plays as no one else. And, judging from his principles (he published them in his edition of the 6 voice Ricercare, at Peters Verlag) one would say he would play rubbish: all depends on the strict maintenance of pulse, on not altering or even bending any rhythmic pattern, and on the precise duration of the silences between the notes. Theoretically, this is achieved by singing each voice and determining the articulation points, which are, therefore, different in every voice (which is rather difficult to do when playing a really difficult piece).

However, the results totally transcend these maniac intentions. It is true that he is rather square; but as every voice is actually played by itself, there is never any overall squareness: you just listen to every voice he plays. If you like counterpoint, you will love it.

The overall intention is the transparency of every voice. He therefore uses rather bright (but not piercingly so) registrations and used a very odd system of detached style. It is not bizarre as in Gould, and it is rather less marked and more thought out, but the result is that you have very distinct rhythmic patterns in one voice that sparkle through the harmony (the other voices being played slightly detached, as is the basic organ touch) making every voice listenable.

Although he claims he doesn’t introduce rubatto, this is quite false. He doesn’t do it over a few bars, that is true (as Leonhardt and his school do); but there are very long stretches of music that are very slightly (but detectably) bended, so you have an incredible structural view of music. There are no ‘effects’: just the stating of the structures. This produces, as it were, very tense arches of music, which build up to form the overall structure. It is not easy to grasp at first audition, but one can become totally addicted to it.

His style did slowly change. His first recordings were very intense (up to the Art of Fugue and the Alkmaar recordings) but later he became somewhat appeased. He played faster, with less accentuation and perhaps more fluidity but less relief. Therefore, when comparing the chorale works, this comes as a pleasant surprise: they are almost always more expressive in the early days.

The recordings

Well, the Lübeck recordings are different from the Cappel ones: they are freer, and the organ imposes a very impressive contrast between the Positiv and the Hauptwerk. This is very clearly seen in the Variations on Sei gegrusset, Jesu Gütig. The penultimate variation, very impressively sounds ond the piercing Rückpositiv plenum, and the chorale (the hymn tune) sounds, in canon, on the Haupwerk trumpet and mixture; the bass has the 16’ Trombone. It is the most beautiful – perhaps I ought to say tragic, impressive, spine chilling – version of this work I have ever heard. I would say that just for that it is worth buying the set. (Comparisons can be made to both the Alkmaar and the Saint-Pierre versions; they were all issued on CD).

Also, the Organ Mass is extremely taking: he plays rather slower than the Saint-Pierre version, and is therefore, much more poetic.

He recorded most Preludes and Fugues at Cappel. This was a very good decision, because in fugues is where you really need transparency. All the polyphony sparkles and his tempos are rather well chosen. In a few cases I prefer the more recent recordings (I prefer the g minor, BWV 535, Saint Pierre version; I prefer the great A minor at Alkmaar, and I definitely prefer the Doric fugue at Alkmaar, although the toccata is too slow there).

The early preludes in particular are much more interesting than those of the later edition (where they are played at Saint-Pierre). In absolute terms, they are *very* good indeed. If I disregard sonic considerations (the sound is not always perfect at Cappel, tending to congestion when the third sounding cymbal is added, as it often is in the finales), they are top notch, and easily outplay everybody else.

The greater preludes and fugues really shine: rhythmic precision and bounce in the preludes, incredible polyphony transparency in the fugues). The Passacaglia, for instance, is sublime – even better than the Alkmaar one.

The chorale settings played in Cappel are very different from the Saint-Pierre ones. Although he is playing in an unreverberated space he is *slower* and freer in Cappel than in the huge acoustic of Saint-Pierre, where he is perhaps too cold. This is obvious both from the Leipzig chorales and the Orgelbüchlein (although I could see several pieces of the Orgelbüchlein more freely – for instance, O Mensch bewein dein Sünde gross; in this kind of music, MC Alain is the undisputed master, I think – the human side of Bach’s music).

The trio sonatas are much better than the more recent edition: faster, livelier and perhaps more expressive.

CONCLUSION

Do I recommend this set? Well, it depends on what you like in music. If you like counterpoint and don’t object to a clearly dated sound, I surely do. If you like Walcha, this is an absolute must. If you are more romantically oriented and prefer the beautiful reverberated sound of more recent versions, avoid this. It’s pointed, modernistic, almost mondrianesque. A Bach of steel and glass.

LAST WORDS

I would be omitting something that touched me deeply. When you place CD1 on the tray and press ‘play’, instead of an organ, you listen, in a marvellously clear Hochdeutsch accent and a ringing but very precisely articulated soprano voice, to : ‘Quintadehn Acht’. And then you listen to a short improvisation by Walcha using that stop. Several other stops are demonstrated and several combinations of stops.

I don’t know who the ‘Dichter’ – that is, the person to whom the voice belongs – was, but I hope it was his wife, Ursula Walcha, née Koch, who used to help him with the registers and with the memorizing of the partitions (she played every voice twice on the harpsichord and he built it up on his brain, memorized it, and started to study the architecture, the articulation of every voice, the fingering and the registration).


Regards,

R d S

[This message was edited by R. d S. on FRIDAY 30 January 2004 at 04:00.]

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Everyone has the right to be wrong.

quote:

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Originally posted by Fredrik Fiske:
Dear Rodrigo,

Thanks for your wonderful post, and I hope you thik I may have coaused you to go ahead with it. I have read it all through, but it is much too dense for me to reply on the spot. I care very much for architecture, expression and (for thesee to emerge,) clarity. Please beleive that Ishall order this older Walcha set in the moring, and shall relish the elements your comentary covers. For I doubt if any more signifivcant point of reference exists in the playing of the organ than Bach's compositions. I shall attempt to get your comentary in the printed form, and can therefore digest it in a way not possible from a screeen. Please forgive the absense of a clear response, for one cannot be dreamt up in ten minutes. It may take weeks of listening, but your direction of my understanging is more than English Musical Doctors have beenable to show me.

Thanks, and i feel somewhat in awe of you abitlity to describe something vey important, even vital to me, the life enhancing facet of music..

This I will try to answer better in the forthcoming weeks.

Yours sincerely Fredrik Fisk

PS. Fiske is a Norwegian name, and I have a large american part of my family in the US, as well a the Czech Republick, Irelend, and many other european countries. I have a family tree from Norwegian sources the goes back till the 16th century abd almost every decendant is traced, but I would have to wade throough huge numbers of pages to know who are my indirect american realtions! My great uncle lives on the west coast and is probably over eighty(called Eric Fiske) who was one of the leading Hydraulic engineers in North Amerca, before he retired. His father Ivar fiske was probably the first great Nrwegian Engineer (born 1875) and I met him in the late 60s.he has a number of significant patents to his name. I am terribly proud of that heritage. FF

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Everyone has the right to be wrong.

quote:

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Originally posted by R. d S.:
Dear Fredrik:

I must thank you very much for your very kind and encouraging words. And yes, you definitely prompted the review. I had promised to write it for Groovehandle, but I was intending to write a short one. But, after listening again and again I couldn’t make out how to write it – there are so many aspects to comment. So I was going to postpone it.

But I’m glad I wrote it, because it made my opinion clearer and more focused. So I thank you for prompting me.

I also hope you like the records. The playing is not a very easy one to like at first listening: one has to delve deeper and enter the strange music world of Walcha. But, after one gets there, it is so very rewarding!

So you *are* related to the organ builder! I can understand the pride one feels for one’s name and ancestors. As a matter of fact, my own name, Sá, is a very old one and, to my mind foremost, I am a collateral descendant of the man who first managed to pass a law that abolished slavery. I’m very proud of that.

I was glad to be of help.

Yours sincerely,

Rodrigo

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Everyone has the right to be wrong.

quote:

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Originally posted by Fredrik Fiske:
Dear Rodrigo,

Just to let let you know that I collected the CDs this afternnon after work. I set straight to listening to some old favourites, and how refreshing it is to HEAR ALL the LINES! If that was all it would not be any use, though, if Walcha was not so musical, and yet so straight AND so human all at once. In my view, surely represents someone as radically unique as was Klemperer when he first burst on the London scene (and his first real success at an age most people retire!), as he has no time for the helpful assistance for old Bach (which the great man certainly does not need) by sugaring the pill, with anything other than architectural tempi adjustments, or softening the impact of this almost on times unapproachable music. His phrasing (and I beleive that is apt for an organ player who uses touch so well to make plain the music's form) is wonderfully musical (IMO), and non the worse for not being "traditional," in the desparaging way used by Mahler to describe performers leaning on tradition to avoid having to think afresh how the music should best be presented.

It will take weeks before I have much more to say, if I actually end up wanting to do that at all and not just accepting the performances as wonderful. For anyone else curious about this the recordings are clear, and clean mono. Bass and upper partials are well balanced to the middle and the balance of the organs to accoustic and its own sections is musically so fine I could not imaging it being bettered even with the latest recording methods. R d S has beautifully described what the performances are like, and so far I can only second his views and be grateful to pointed in this direction.

Fredrik Fiske

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Everyone has the right to be wrong.

quote:

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Originally posted by Peter Litwack:
Thanks for your reply - very helpful! Actually, I order from the UK site fairly often - I like the sound quality better - so the first links are fine. I'll check them out.

I'm having somewhat of a b minor day today, but thanks for the sentiment!

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Everyone has the right to be wrong.

quote:

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Originally posted by R. d S.:

quote:

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Originally posted by Fredrik Fiske:
Dear Rodrigo,

Just to let let you know that I collected the CDs this afternnon after work. I set straight to listening to some old favourites, and how refreshing it is to HEAR ALL the LINES! If that was all it would not be any use, though, if Walcha was not so musical, and yet so straight AND so human all at once. In my view, surely represents someone as radically unique as was Klemperer when he first burst on the London scene (and his first real success at an age most people retire!), as he has no time for the helpful assistance for old Bach (which the great man certainly does not need) by sugaring the pill, with anything other than architectural tempi adjustments, or softening the impact of this almost on times unapproachable music. His phrasing (and I beleive that is apt for an organ player who uses touch so well to make plain the music's form) is wonderfully musical (IMO), and non the worse for not being "traditional," in the desparaging way used by Mahler to describe performers leaning on tradition to avoid having to think afresh how the music should best be presented.

It will take weeks before I have much more to say, if I actually end up wanting to do that at all and not just accepting the performances as wonderful. For anyone else curious about this the recordings are clear, and clean mono. Bass and upper partials are well balanced to the middle and the balance of the organs to accoustic and its own sections is musically so fine I could not imaging it being bettered even with the latest recording methods. R d S has beautifully described what the performances are like, and so far I can only second his views and be grateful to pointed in this direction.

Fredrik Fiske

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Dear Fredrik.

I did not notice your reply (I am an irregular visitor to the forum and only noticed Peter's reply: I do apologize)!! I'm very glad you liked the records, and I think the comparison with Klemperer is very apt - I had never thought about it, but I do like Klemperer for the same reasons.

I'll be waiting for your comments. So far, we seem to be of one mind: rigour, no sugaring of the pill, but humaneness. I find that a good description. And I couldn't agree more, even If I don't actually play Bach that way. But if you play all the notes with a good grasp of the structure and with a clear articulation of the voices, the result is bound to be good. Well, not as good as Walcha's: he really was an astonishing musician.

So thank you for your reply. I'll wait for your comments.

Best wishes,

Rodrigo


Regards,

R d S

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Everyone has the right to be wrong.

Dear Rodrigo,

This a transcript with some modifications of two posts lost of the crash. I hope you will forgive me addressing it to DEAR ALL rather than just yourself, as clearly we agree on the significance of the set.

Some personal reflections on this newly issued veteran set.


I had thought of analysising one (representitive) piece, and describing how the performance is worked out. That would take pages, so this is a slightly shorter attempt.

Considering the Passacaglia and Fuguein C minor, BWV 582. This is a favourite of mine and one the great pieces of Western instrumental music. It is from Bach's early maturity when he was absolutely at his peak.

The structure is clear and clearly stated with the "ground bass" appearing in lucid style with only one staccato in the middle (which remains in the subsequent repetitions except where the "bass tune" is subjected to passing notes or a completely detached presentation in the score). Above that then appears what amounts to a variety of "improvised variations", largely developing a number of ideas above the constant bass. Bach immediately avoids any feeling of the structural straight-jacketing by taking the free-work over the first two repititions of the bass without a break, while some variations use only one, each variation (or developement) seeming to run almost without (musical) pause into the next. On a technical level one is grateful that Walcha allows for this natural flow without any hesitation in the pulse. This both underlines the genius of Bach's conception and strangely actually clarifies the issue of the variation structure.

Each variation become more dense and complex than its predecessor, and in the middle Bach lifts the bass line firstly, above the main improvised activity, and then buries it in the middle. Again one is grateful that the registration used never threatens to cover the vital flow of each line, and each really does have a life all its own, as well as being integrated into the architecture of the whole. I have never found so much musical detail so completely integrated into a natural organic whole before.

When the bass line descends to its natural position Bach then sets about something akin to musical madness with top heavy triplets in a bright registration threatening to overwhelm the structure altogether, though the last variation then calmly shows both how far we have travelled and yet how the the original material still has an importance beyond its complication along the way. This Walcha breath-takingly reveals with no (apparent) music expression at all, but merely a complete grip on every detail (each line never falling from audibility) and placing of these details in Bach's clearly notated intentions. Then a pause (rightly in my opinion) introduces the Fugue.

This is as steady and firm of pulse as the preceeding variations, but freed of the tonal constrains of a solid repeating patern in one key. Walcha therefore frees up the registration to argue the material in a most exilarating way, but absolutely in a steady pulse. This is a performance to draw you inexorably into pure abstrtact music that has the power to take and then shake you emotionally. Nothing is obvious about the music, but its effect is terribly powerful.

Anther performance I found of similar strength is the Toccata, Adagio and Fugue in C, BWV 564, where the exuberance and virility of the Toccata is like the awkening of the soul on a wonderful sunlit spring day, while the other-worldly Adagio is somehow without time (yet played with a regular pulse), and the Fugue is full of energy and rhythm, and its curious end all the more so where no apology is made for it by a slowing too soon at the end. Methinks Bach probably had a sense of humour as well!

Of other pieces the famous Toccata and Fugue in D minor gets the kind of performance to make the listener smile at the sheer daring and dash (and virtuosity) of a great musician revelling in the task. Full of fantasy, some quite unexpected registration and touch is used, but in the end you feel moved as much by the warmth of the spirit of the player as his undoubted intellectual strength. Another highlight is "Herzlich tut mich Verlangen" BWV 727, where again the apparent passing of time is suspended, such is concentration and depth of the musical means employed. I do believe that something of the sort could be written for everything presented in this set.

On the sonic side, there is only one serious blip - side one of the original 78 set of the First Trio Sonata, or about three minutes of playing in a ten CD set, has some strange noises in it - but the sound is otherwise clear, and well balanced, and particularly fine in respect the organ to its acoustic setting, which never overwhelms the music detail. Being mono is not really an issue (IMO) because the two organs recorded here, themselves, are not large or built into wide cases containing the pipes, but the front to back perpective is well caught.

To sum up, throughout the set rhythm is kept straight, tempi held steady and chosen to allow the music to speaky clearly for itself. Registration is chosen firstt and foremost for clarity, but vast understanding and imagination are also behind it. This is art concealing art, for the sake of the music. Wonderful. With so much rigour and refusal to adopt the more obvious expressive devices, in print at least, the impression might be of something monumentally boring. Absolutly not. The set is raised to a supreme level by the warmth and humanity of the player, which comes through in these recordings time after time. It is beyond words to adequtely describe this accurately. You need to try to hear these recordings. They are among the best that exist of any Western Art Music IMO. Like the Busch Quartet in late Beethoven, Klemperer's efforts in the 1950s or Schnabel's recordings. Unique and more or less out of the competition as recordings perhaps, but supreme as artistic statements.

Fredrik Fiske

[This message was edited by Fredrik Fiske on Sun 14 March 2004 at 22:19.]