J.S. Bach: Organ Works, Vol. 4

This wonderful recording is as much about the instrument as it is about the music. The 1737 Christoph Treutmann organ in the Stiftskirche in Grauhof, Germany was built during J.S. Bach’s lifetime, and so provides a privileged window into the kind of sounds for which Bach wrote his organ music. Treutmann’s organ possesses some particularly fine solo stops and combinations, ideal for this recording of 26 chorale preludes from Bach’s incomplete year-round collection, the Orgelbüchlein (Little Organ Book), many of which require the singling out of chorale melodies. Masaaki Suzuki, better known as the conductor of Bach Collegium Japan, is also a fine organist, and plays here with a sense of flair and ear for clarity of line (church acoustics can often muddy Bach’s thickest counterpoint). Both of these qualities come to the fore in one of two “bonus” preludes and fugues—the great Prelude & Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543, which combines improvisatory elements with one of Bach’s most extraordinary, tautly constructed fugues.