Bach's Musical Offering - Cindy Castillo
The story behind Bach’s Musical Offering shouldn’t need a recount here, as fascinating a story it is. This album is a fascinating recording, for rendering the work on organ.
I auditioned this recording Qobuz without the benefit of a booklet. I used my desktop setup with headphones and listened at the full resolution, 192kHz. (I’m convinced that high resolution recordings are a gimmick, at least for the hardware I am able to afford. I will say, having listened to DSD files have opened my ears and I’ve found them to be sonically superior as a form of digital music. Yet, I digress, this is not the place for such a discussion!)
I was not familiar with Castillo’s name, but I’ll place her bio here. Glad to see a female recording organist, in a company crowded with men!
The recorded sound is good. Her ordering of the pieces starts with the 3-part ricercar and ends with the 6-part. Between the canons she inserts single movements from the trio sonata. The first movement was a tad slow for my taste, as was the third; but I enjoyed her choice in stops. Of course, if you want to hear the entire sonata together, you can program the tracks differently. To my ears, the familiar piece works suitably well for the organ. It’s of course already been done by Bach, to write trio sonatas for organ. I can’t say how it feels in the hands and feet, however. After listening to the fourth movement., the tempo makes sense given the ornamentation Bach writes into the melodic parts.
The presentation of the canons of course was a way for Bach to showcase the talents that Frederick wanted him to showcase in his visit to Potsdam. Instead of presenting them written out, he provides the original seed and invites the reader (the King) to figure out the solutions. To our ears these may sound simple and trivial. However they each showcase a different level of contrapuntal skill that a connoisseur of music might well enjoy. There is no doubt that Bach was such a connoisseur, enjoying the challenge so that a single canon or the two ricercars weren’t enough.
What doesn’t work for me on the organ, historically speaking, is how this relates to Bach’s other organ music. His organ music was intended for the church. A great deal of his music includes themes from religious pieces that would be recognized by the audience. This endeavor, in contrast, is wholly secular, and while it works sonically on the organ, it is questionable if Bach would have ever thought of performing it this way, as the music wouldn’t have had a functional role in church.
There are some registrations that suggest to me, and admittedly, I’m not an organ expert, that don’t sound, well, “baroque.” They include the overtones used in the thirteenth track, the canon Quaerendo invenietis b which yes, are interesting. The tenth track, the canon per tonos is another, with that wide vibrato. Pretty, yes. The pedal used in the fifteenth track, the canon perpetuus is reedy and has punch. I like it. A lot.
Here Cindy Castillo marks the completion of a new organ in the German baroque style by Dominique Thomas in the church of Saint-Loup in Namur with her own realisation of this work, a monument to the late Baroque style.
Well, there we go. Thanks to Ricercar for providing at least some details.
You might think it’s funny that I sometimes walk around the house, singing the so-called royal theme to myself. As dastardly as it is a fugue theme, I like it. I used it in one of my own compositions, one I originally scored for six trombones, then later adapted for wind ensemble. So yes, hearing a new album render this theme and all its contrapuntal possibilities with a new sound and sonics has been a nice exploration.
This isn’t the first time I’ve heard the Ricercars on organ, but Castillo doesn’t do anything fancy with her rendition. But she pushes along, letting the instrument render those harmonies with all the complexities we get in the harmonics of an organ. The result is splendid.
I’d like to think that Bach would admire this rendition. And the organ from Namur? Masterpiece.