SPIELEN IN DIE ORGEL: Barocke Meisterwerke für Violine und Orgel (Masterworks of the Baroque Era for Violin and Organ) – Annegret Siedel (Baroque violin)/Pieter van Dijk (organ) – Cantate

by | Oct 26, 2008 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews | 0 comments

SPIELEN IN DIE ORGEL: Barocke Meisterwerke für Violine und Orgel/Masterworks of the Baroque Era for Violin and Organ – Annegret Siedel (Baroque violin)/Pieter van  Dijk (organ) – Cantate Multichannel SACD, C 58029 (Distr. by Qualiton), 71:12; Performance ***** Sound *****:

Eleven works from six different Baroque composers are included on this high def surround SACD; these composers are: Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), Johann Adam Reincken (1643-1722), William Brade (1560-1630), Heinrich Scheidemann (1596-1663), Johann Schop (1590-1667) and Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707). This disc includes music for large pipe organs (2) and solo violin. It was a common practice at that time (roughly 1550 to 1750) for organist to play together with other instruments and small ensembles on these large organs in Northern and Central Germany local municipal churches. The combination of organ and violin in general did not reduce the organ to the basso continuo part but rather what they presented was a duo or duet for organ and violin with equal weight for both instruments – and, yes, the violin can be heard loud and clear.

An argument can be made, and has been made many times over the last 250 years or so, that Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565 (T-1), undoubtedly his most famous organ work believed to have been written during his tenure at Arnstadt, was a piece that had its origin in the violin. The many unison passages in the toccata, the large number of tempo indications in the score, and the not very strict (canonically speaking) fugue in the second part with its many monodic triadic arpeggios are rather untypical of Bach. The Baroque violinist Jaap Schröder (b. 1925) scored a conjectural version of this organ piece in the key of A minor which is played to great effect by Ms. Siedel in Track 9.

On Track 4 we find the violin solo on the LR speaker while the organ is placed on the RF and LF speakers and the space acoustics are located on the center channel, the subwoofer and to some extent in the RR speaker. On Track 5, a work solely scored for organ and played on the smaller Van Covelens, we find each of the six active surround sound speakers dedicated to one specific division of the organ for wonderful effects as well – do we need more reasons to have full range speakers on all four corners?

A great example of the organ-violin combination is found in T-7, a beautiful song originally written by John Dowland for lute or viol consort. Here it is scored by Schop (a violinist) for organ and violin and speaks well about the pure musical value of this particular instrumentation. We also find on this disc (T-10) J.S. Bach’s Cantabile from the Toccata in G Major, BWV 1019a, a wonderful introspective and rather romantic air or fantasy where the solo part originally coincides exactly with the range of the violin. Buxtehude’s Præludium in G Minor (T-11) also allows Mr. Van Dijk to display his virtuoso pedal technique. It contains free sections as well as two fugues concluding with a ciaccone (or chaconne) whereby the bass is heard in the pedals (subwoofer) and also in the manuals (RF and LF speakers) while the rear and center channel speakers provide the space acoustics. This work and that found in T-3, a fantasy by Reincken, are to my mind the most fascinating pieces to listen to on this disc next to that of Track 9: Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor transposed for violin solo.

A Van Covelen (1511) organ is used on this disc (T-4 to 8) – Holland’s extant oldest playable pipe organ. This organ has an intensive vocal sound supported by meantone tuning with pure thirds. The other organ is a Van Hagerbeer/Schnitger, a large organ that contains pipes from an older organ (1545) that was completed in 1646; this organ can be heard on T-1 to 3, and T-9 to 11. Both organs reside in the Grote Sint Laurenskerk, Alkmaar, Holland. It should be noted that both organs are supplied with forced wind in the “old” traditional manner: a manual bellows treader – finally!

For me it was a total revelation far beyond obvious musical values to audit this SACD; it allowed me to savor a rather unknown facet of Baroque music: polyphonic music for two instruments that are hardly compatible in their tonal range. Again, here we have a 200 hundred years traverse of a particular musical practice now seldom heard. Highly recommend to all those who dream of pipes…of the 16′ and 32′ kind, that is. This disc is not going to rattle any windows I am sure, but surely we can finally hear the fine sound of two real Baroque instruments. The sound engineers really outdid themselves with this great sound production, bravo!

— John Nemaric

 

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