Bach’s Trio Sonatas for Organ - Neu
Bach’s trio sonatas, BWV 525-530, are believed to have been a training exercise for his favorite son, W.F. Bach, and the pedagogical function is clear, giving three independent lines to the two hands and feet at the organ. This recording from Martin Neu was recorded on a 2007 instrument at St. Otto Catholic church in Herzogenaurach, Bavaria. You can view the organ’s details here, including photos of the unusual church.
Organ recordings, I have to think, are a challenging endeavor, given that you’re capturing a lot of reflection in the space of a church. That said, we find that every organ recording includes some of the reflective ambiance of the space. But some seem to capture this ambiance more than others. In this recording on the Audite label, there is a lot of reverb. You get used to it after a minute or so. I auditioned this recording with headphones. Seeing pictures of the space in the booklet helps us understand what we’re hearing.
My favorite recordings of these sonatas are sadly not on the organ; some enterprising musicians have adapted these for chamber ensemble, and I don’t blame them. As a set, they are really good music, and who might not want to interpret these on their own terms? Of course, some dynamics of performance change when you move to a trio or quartet of musicians. For one, you can get away with performing these works faster. That was my first shock in hearing this recording from Neu; in some cases the tempo seemed tediously slow. However the choices in tempo are made intelligently, I think, in terms of addressing the acoustical nature of the St. Otto church.
One example might be the third movement of the E minor sonata, BWV 528. The rhythmic aspect of the theme should be heard with some space. Another is the opening Vivace of the C minor sonata, BWV 526. The filigree with faster notes in the theme could easily get lost in the smear of sound with faster tempo; here the chosen tempo allows us to hear the figures cleanly.
What’s not clear to me is if the organ was modeled after a baroque style; the physical aesthetics suggest not, however a close up of the keyboard suggest it could be. I am not an organ expert, but I can use my ears and say that the registrations chosen by Neu all seem to look back toward tradition. While there is a note about the organ in the provided booklet, it does not go into detail about any historical model. The sound is thankfully very nice. Neu, however, is credited with his interest in performing on historical instruments.
Above all else, I’d credit with his attention to articulation which as an important component to this music. It’s critical to the rhetorical aspect of performance. The final track, from the G major sonata, BWV 530, requires clean playing to hear the theme clearly. This is achieved in part by choosing a tempo where breaks in playing, to denote phrase groups, can easily be heard when positioned some distance from the instrument.
My one quibble with tempo goes to the opening sonata’s slow movement, from BWV 525, marked Adagio. My thinking here is how to sustain this tempo if the piece were played, say, on wind instruments. It would be my intent to inform my tempo in part on how it might go if there had been an original version of this piece for, say, oboe and violin, or flute and viola, etc. The result here is very clear, but my question would be, could that clarity be maintained with pushing things faster? Yes, when the piece opens up, the movement in the parts makes it doable with the ability of human breathing. But it’s the opening and closing of phrases where the long-held notes would provide a challenge. I thought Benjamin Alard’s solution in his recording of this same work, on Alpha (2009, recorded in Paris) was interesting. It too is slow, but his overall timing is over a minute quicker.
David Goode’s recording on Signum Classics clocks in at over seven minutes for the same movement, but his pacing, like that of Alard, is enhanced with a shortness to the articulation beyond what Neu provides us. I ultimately prefer the sound of the organ in the Neu recording, the organ all around to me is more colorful.
There are movements like the third in BWV 525 where I detect good-hearted lightness and smiles. In his reading of the movement, Neu changes the registration after the first statement which gets repeated. There’s a cleverness about Bach’s writing in this movement and Neu realizes all beautifully.
The opening to the sonata in C, BWV 529 is also very attractive. It’s got that toe-tapping pulse that I felt in BWV 525. Neu’s evenness in playing is very nice, technically assured. The lower partials in the pedal part came across well for me using my headphones. They are still somewhat new to me, but I am surprised each time the lower frequencies are reproduced as well as they are. I would have liked the middle movement to go a bit quicker.
In the end, this album for me was a treat. The organ featured in this recording is something special, an instrument that I found to be sonically pleasing. Neu is a technical player, one who I think is assuredly solid in his playing once the tempo is set. There were many times that ornaments came into his playing which were unexpected but welcome. Most importantly, he provided ample articulation in his playing that made this recording work, despite its reverb. While there were a few examples where I had wished Neu had pushed the tempo slightly, his choices I think were often made in the service of the movement’s fastest notes and being able to hear them cleanly.
As noted, I’ve enjoyed a number of recordings of these works arranged for instrumental ensembles. Many don’t include as much ornamentation as Neu does here, which should be inspiration for those following this testament.
