Kei Koito - Bach: Famous Organ Works (2019) [Hi-Res]

Although Bach is viewed today mainly as a monumental composer, it was as a dazzling organist that he made his mark during his lifetime. The present recording, featuring a diverse array of works performed by the organist Kei Koito, shows why. In Bach’s time, organ works were divided into distinct categories: free pieces (pieces based on freely conceived ideas rather than chorale melodies), chorale settings (pieces based on chorale tunes), and transcriptions. Kei Koito touches on all three genres as she presents a fascinating survey of Bach organ music.

Free works reflected the practice of improvising preludes and postludes on the plenum, or full organ.

Bach inherited the North-German tradition of the multi-sectional Praeludium, but he soon settled on a format that called for just two segments: prelude and fugue. This can be observed in the Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, BWV 535, an early work that probably stems from Bach’s organist years at the New Church in Arnstadt, 1703-1707. According to his obituary, it was in Arnstadt that he produced his “first fruits in the art of organ playing,” and his son Carl Philipp Emanuel later said that “even in his youth,” his father “was a strong fugue writer.” This is evident in the first version of the Prelude and Fugue, BWV 535a: The Fugue is fully developed, with a powerful theme recurring in both major and minor keys. But the Prelude, BWV 535a/1, is no more than a series of hastily tossed-off improvisatory gestures, including an opening section labeled Passaggio, or passage-work. Bach later returned to the work, subjecting the Fugue to minor refinements only but rewriting the Prelude completely, expanding it from 21 to 43 measures and fully recasting each of its three sections.

The Prelude and Fugue in G Major, BWV 550, appears to have been written a few years after the initial version of the Prelude and Fugue in G Minor, for it displays greater cohesiveness and more disciplined part-writing. It may date from the late-Arnstadt period or the Mühlhausen years immediately thereafter, 1707-1708. The work still shows derivative elements from the North German school, both in the Grave bridge that separates the Prelude from the Fugue and in the Fugue’s repeated-note subject. The texture and on-going drive of the Fugue reminds one of the well-known Fugue in G Major (“Gigue”), BWV 577, which may have been written around the same time.

The Prelude and Fugue in D Major, BWV 532, is an unabashedly bravura work, with a highly animated Fugue that requires virtuosic alternate-toe pedaling. As an early copyist noted: “In this piece one really has to let the feet kick around a lot.” The Prelude, which appears to have been written separately and then paired with the Fugue, is divided into three contrasting sections. The first, a rhythmically free introduction, draws once again on North-German gestures: spirited pedal and manual scales, a long pedal point, and an extended trillo longo. The middle section, in stricter rhythm, is a sprightly Italian allabreve. And the third section returns to North-German style in the form of a thick, chromatic close, complete with double pedal.

The Prelude (Toccata) and Fugue in D Minor (“Dorian”), BWV 538, dates from the Weimar period, 1708-1717, most probably just after Bach encountered the Italian concertos of Antonio Vivaldi in 1713. The Prelude shows Vivaldi’s direct influence more clearly than any other Bach organ work: the angular melodic material, the clear alternation of main ritornello theme and episode (daringly assigned to different manuals), the driving motor rhythms, and the well-worked-out harmonic plan all reflect Vivaldi’s concerto idiom. The immense fugue that follows is cast in an allabreve idiom, like the middle section of the D-Major Prelude, but with a slow-moving, white-note vocal theme and a rich contrapuntal fabric that unfolds in the manner of a Renaissance motet. A lengthy series of expositions of the fugue subject and episodes on related material leads to the climactic appearance of the main theme in stretto, or overlapping imitative entries.

In contrast to free works, chorale settings were commonly written for smaller, more colorful registrations and the use of two manuals and pedal.

The Fantasia super “Jesu, meine Freude”, BWV 713a/713, for manuals alone, is a modest but fascinating work. It is divided into two sections. In the first, the initial three phrases of chorale melody appear as a cantus firmus, or long-held notes, amidst a web of fugal counterpoint—a common technique. Here, however, the phrases migrate from the soprano to the alto to the bass—a highly unusual procedure. In the repeat of the phrases, the order is changed: alto, bass, soprano. This segment leads to a contrasting, dance-like section in 3/8 meter, in which Bach introduces a weeping motive of slurred seconds that loosely alludes to the remaining phrases of the chorale.

The Fantasia super “Ein fest Burg ist unser Gott”, BWV 720, for two manuals and pedal, is a true chorale fantasy: phrases of Luther’s famous hymn appear together with animated contrapuntal motives derived from the melody. The loosely structured form and constantly changing textures suggest that this is one of Bach’s earliest chorale settings, dating perhaps from his student years in Lüneburg, 1700-1702. Ein feste Burg is also one of the few Bach organ works to be handed down with registration marks: an early manuscript copy indicates a bassoon stop in the left hand and a Sesquialtera combination in the right.

In Herzlich tut mich verlangen, BWV 727, also for two manuals and pedal, the hymn melody appears in a slightly embellished form in the right hand while the left hand and feet provide quasi-contrapuntal support, much in the manner of many of Buxtehude’s chorale settings. Although the accompanimental material is not thematically related to the chorale tune, it provides a sense of gradually increasing intensity and animation.

Four additional chorales on this recording are drawn from the so-called “Great Eighteen Collection,” a portfolio of large organ chorales assembled by Bach in Leipzig during his final decade. Most of the pieces stem from the Weimar years—including the works presented here—and appear to have had special meaning for Bach, perhaps as personal favorites or highly successful recital pieces. Bach revised most of the works as he entered them into the collection, bringing them to an even higher level of refinement.

An Wasserflüssen Babylon, BWV 653, occupied Bach’s interest for many years. He initially arranged it in Weimar as a five-part florid melody setting (BWV 653b), with the embellished chorale tune in the soprano, accompanied by two parts on a second manual and two parts on the pedalboard. While still in Weimar, Bach transformed the work into a French-style tierce-en-taille setting (BWV 653a), shifting the melody to the tenor and reducing the accompaniment to more traditional three-part texture. In Leipzig he revised this version further, refining the part-writing and adding a new five-measure-long conclusion. Nun danket alle Gott, BWV 657, by contrast, went into the collection unchanged. It is a “fore-imitation” setting, in which each line of the chorale is presented in imitation by the lower voices before the melody appears in longer notes as a simple cantus firmus in the soprano.

Komm, Gott Schöpfer, heiliger Geist, BWV 667, is a compound setting in which the chorale tune is presented twice. First, in a segment borrowed from the Orgelbüchlein, the chorale melody appears in the soprano against jazzy, off-beat accompaniment in the manuals and pedal. Then, in a section added by Bach already in Weimar, the tune is transferred to the pedal, where it sounds in long notes against animated scalar material in the manual.

O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig, BWV 656, goes beyond Komm, Gott Schöpfer by featuring all three verses of the chorale tune, presented in a continuous chain of music written in a retrospective Renaissance motet style. In the first two verses, for manuals alone, the chorale melody migrates from the soprano to the alto. In the third verse, it appears majestically in the pedal, as the manual texture thickens to four and even five voices.

Finally, the interesting “Trio super Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan”, BWV deest, is a work only recently moved to the edge of the Bach canon. It is found solely in an early 19th-century manuscript, where it appears in a group of five chorale trios, the first of which is attributed to Bach. Was Gott tut is a light, imitative trio for two manuals and pedal featuring a galant mix of duplet and triplet figures. At the end, the first two phrases of the chorale melody appear unadorned in the pedal—a technique Bach used in the Trio super “Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr", BWV 664, in the “Great Eighteen” Collection.

The Trio in G Minor, BWV 584, is a transcription of the tenor aria “Ich will an den Himmel denken” from Cantata 166. The expressive melodic lines of the aria are carried in the right and left hands while the feet perform the walking-bass continuo line. Bach appears to have intended his miscellaneous trios for organ teaching, and this arrangement fulfills that function well, combining technical study (the coordination of the hands and feet) with musical pleasure. George B. Stauffer

Kei Koito, organ