Comparison recordings
Bach BWV 599, et al; Paul Jordan, Church
on the Green Organ, Spectrum LP 101
[soon to be available on [ADD] Pasigram
CD].
Michael Murray, BWV 531-552 Telarc 80088
Vincent Genvrin is
a superb Bach organist. This is all
the more remarkable since he is also
a superb Liszt organist able to adapt
his style totally from one organ and
composer to another. His rhythmic sense
is excellent - critically important
for Bach ... Michael Murray doesn’t
have it and I find his Bach playing
unendurable. His use of registrations
is exceptionally sensitive and effective.
He plays BWV 599, 627 and 668, the second
best I’ve ever heard them - the very
best being my friend Paul Jordan on
a disk we are co-producing for CD reissue,
so I am hardly an unbiased observer.
These are deeply mystical works which
reward a slow tempo and contemplative
mood, generally thrown away too fast
by your ordinary Bach organist like
Werner Jacob, Ton Koopman or Michel
Chapuis.
I wonder about the
premise for this program, that is, of
using early Bach manuscripts to show
how this music developed in his portfolio
over the years. It is a mistake to try
to force Bach into the Beethoven personality
mould, that of the struggling amateur
who furiously wrote down successive
imperfect versions until a final, maximised
version was at last produced. Bach never
struggled, and didn’t become a more
skilled composer from his earliest to
his latest works. However, the uses
to which he put his music changed, as
well as the sources from which we get
it. His early manuscripts may be in
his hand, but later copies are all in
others’ hands. Does this mean the music
evolved from simple to complex, or just
that when he performed the music in
public for others to copy down he added
embellishments which he kept in his
head and never troubled to write down?
But as the notes point
out, in some of these works there are
material changes in structure and line,
so some of these original versions do
record a significant musical journey.
BWV 668 under the title
Vor Deinen Tron was at one time
thought to be Bach’s last completed
work, but ironically as presented here
Wenn wir in höchsten Nöten
Sein was actually one of his earliest.
CNSM stands for Conservatoire
National Supérieur de Musique,
in this case, de Lyon - reference is
also made in the notes to CNSM de Paris,
et al. The organ heard on this disk
is there in the Xavier Darasse concert
hall, presumably a small modern instrument
in a relatively clean acoustic. Obviously
it has a supple action and a beautiful
baroque sound ("similar to organs Bach
would have known"), with particularly
nice cornet stops. At times it sounds
very like some Spanish organs. Recording
is excellent, like many other Hortus
productions; among the finest organ
sound I’ve ever heard. But since the
acoustic is relatively dry, even though
your surround sound processor will accurately
recreate the acoustic of the recording
hall in your listening room, it won’t
deliver a five second die-away time.
Paul Shoemaker
for details
Vincent Genvrin (Grenzing organ, 1993) 
