BWV 655 is a trio piece that I have been sweating on for as long as I can remember. Seldom have I had to work on anything like this, more than a year of dogged hard work, I guess. Playing 'trio' style pieces requires two brains, or 1.5 at least, and this one's pedal part is extremely active and jumpy. It makes the trio sonatas seem a walk in the park. It's not as squeaky clean as I would like but it will have to do for now, I need to move on. Maybe get back to this one later in life....

The BWV 721 is a wondrous piece full of of harmonic miracles. Took me quite a while to figure out as the middle stave is written in the C clef, the first piece featuring the C clef that I have dared take on.

Bach - BWV 655 - Leipziger Chorale - Trio super "Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend" (3:36)
Bach - BWV 721 - Chorale Prelude "Erbarm' dich mein, o Herre Gott" (3:58)

Hello, Chris,

thanks for playing the Leipziger Chorale BWV 655 (... turn to us...) which sounds ever so cheerful
and the Chorale Prelude BWV 721 which sounds very sombre and sensitive
and goes well with the title “...have mercy on me...”

Best wishes for 2012 from Kristina.

Thank you Kristina, and best wishes for 2012 too

To BWV 655: very nice playing overall. I admire your pedal technique (which I don´t have). Though I think, you could improve the pedal rhythmically at some few places. But I could imagine it´s difficult to play such a Trio with pedal being always very exactly together with the other voices. But these are only small niggles. I have enjoyed your performance!
To BWV 721: A very good performance, I think! I have nothing to nitpick here. (I just find in the bars 25-27 the mixture of the upper register sounds a bit strange with the chords of accompaniment together.

Thanks Andreas. BWV 655 really requires a lot more pedal technique than I have as yet, it's probably the hardest organ piece I have
done so far. Maybe one day I could play this flawlessly... one fine day..... For now, it has to do
.
I'm also not convinced of the registration for BWV 721. I opted for the Terts instead of the Quint but I agree it is a bit penetrating
at times. It's sometimes difficult to choose registrations on an instrument without an independent set of pedal registers, and to avoid every recording sounding the same I sometimes pick something unusual. And this one is an odd duck anyway, I already play the LH an
octave higher as written because otherwise it overlaps too much with the coupled pedal (a common trick on the organ, BTW).

Techneut wrote:


I really can imagine that and I have to underline again, that I admire your ability to play organ. (I would have the opportunity now to play organ here in our little village, btw. The only problem is I don´t have enough time even to play piano, not mention guitar and even more not to mention organ. ) Your performance is really absolutely enjoyable!



That´s interesting. The organ in the church I play our school-services has an independent pedal register. It also has for the two manuals. I only suppose that for a Trio like this the upper manual would be too silent, even if you use all registers, but may be I´m wrong here.

That's great to hear. I think also that, despite the slips and the many edits, this came out well and cohesive. Some passages I had to do dozens of times
and often this causes speeding up so you hear a tempo jolt. Not here, luckily


It has only the 16ft subbass as its own register. That is a necessity, you always have that on except in very special cases. All other coloring for the pedal needs to be coupled from one or both of the manuals, which is a bit of a juggling act especially when there need to be 3 independent voices, or when the pedal part shares notes with a manual part. I'd give anything to have an organ with 3 manuals and a set of pedal registers, like the one I used to have lessons on. But ok, this one is not bad at all despite its restrictions.

Hi Chris,

I had a listen to your chorale preludes, or should I say the latest organ chorale spam

The first seems to be the most polyphonic, I was able to find a video on youtube which has the audio of a performance and the score for the video. The piece looks quite difficult, looking at the score the bottom line is as you say active and jumpy with running eighths and a notes placed on the offbeat. This wouldn't seem hard but with two other lines, it would only seem possible to play this at a slow tempo and you play this at an allegro tempo, so it's to your credit

The second piece sounds somber as Kristina said. The very straight forward chord progressions remind me of Elgar’s Pomp and Circumstance strangely enough, but I wouldn’t say this is a march, and there is little pomp to it. Many interesting harmonies, I agree. The C clef is interesting, if I am correct it is typically used by violas or whatever instrument is in the alto range. It would take me a while to get use to playing a piece in this clef on the piano! I think I would just rearrange it for standard piano notation.

Sounded good,

Riley

Hehe... whatever you wish to name it bub

Sure, it would be easier taken slower. But this is really a festive and bubbling piece, it can;'t go any slower without losing its gusto.

Yeas it's a strain on the brain. In modern organ editions you don't see this clef anymore, usually, but I could not
find such a version, and am too lazy to re-arrange it. Thought I might as well get used to it, in case I ever want to be a string player.

Wow! Just must have improved your playing on the organ since I was here more frequently. Especially BWV 655 was extremely well played.

I am sure I did However BWV 655 is full of technical flaws - it's the spirit that saves the day. I'm pretty happy with BWV 721 though.