Bach goes romantic vision

Experience the majestic sounds of the organ in a landmark building that has fascinated visitors for 700 years. Let yourself be uplifted by the timeless works of Johann Sebastian Bach, performed alongside masterpieces by other great composers, in the awe-inspiring setting of Storkyrkan, Stockholm.
Andreas Sieling (Berlins domkyrka)
Program
Georg Muffat (1653-1704) interpretation av Karl Straube, 1904
Passacaglia
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele BWV 654
Preludium & fuge a-moll BWV 543 (interpretation av Karl Straube 1913)
Arvo Pärt (f. 1935) Orgeltranskription Giovanni Battista Mazza
Spiegel im Spiegel
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Toccata & fuga d-moll BWV 565 (interpretation i senromantisk stil)
O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß BWV 622
Johann Kaspar Kerll (1627-1693) (interpretation av Karl Straube, 1904)
Passacaglia
In 1904, Karl Straube, organist at St Thomas’s Church in Leipzig, published his edition of sheet music entitled ‘Alte Meister’ (Old Masters). The works by Muffat, Buxtehude, Pachelbel, Kerll and others contained therein were in danger of falling into oblivion at the beginning of the 20th century. What could be more natural than to make these compositions appealing to contemporary organists by translating them, as it were, into the musical language of a late-Romantic organ, thereby breathing new life into them? Barely ten years later, in 1904, Straube edited the second volume of Bach’s organ works for the Peters publishing house and orchestrated the works of the Thomaskantor in the same way as the “Alte Meister”. Colour, dynamics, agogics and articulatory techniques formed the basis of these interpretations. The emerging organ movement and the encounter with historical instruments then led to a departure from this style of interpretation. Straube is said to have told his students: “Now we play it more correctly, but it used to be more beautiful!”
The programme, structured as a mirror image, features two works by the Old Masters—namely Passacaglias by Muffat and Kerll—as a framework. Grouped around the central axis—a mirror featuring Arvo Pärt’s work ‘Spiegel im Spiegel’—are the Prelude and Fugue, or rather the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, and further out towards the edges, the two of Bach’s organ chorales most frequently performed in the late 19th century.