I sat in Mr. Challis's living room on the 9th floor of his building on 19th street and 5th Ave in NYC and heard Bigg's play this piece on this instrument and I must say that this recording is as accurate as I remember.
I bought this in the late 70's as well - including other Biggs organ recordings. Let's hope that Sony does the respectful thing and remaster his whole catalog...
I don't think it started out that way. Little Lord Fontleroy's parents probably gave him that name after they planted the bug up his arse and started starching his under drawers where he would never smile again. Its ironic he swore he would never visit my state and it will be the one that saves pipe organs. Because we now have the only university in the US that has a full blown organ construction degree from making pipes to crafting consoles. In your 4-year degree, you either restore a single very large instrument or numerous smaller ones. Of course the Midmer-Losh has fowled up the works but that's a nice thing.
This is out of this world. Can you imagine Bach composing? What was up there in his head?! And where are the people?! Stop by and listen ...and stay. Because this is the apogee of human achievement! :O
Can anyone else breath between 8:50 and 9:50? It's as if just too much music in there all happening at once, but it's all so crystal clear. Josquin would be proud. Totally metal.
This piece is so haunting to me. Perhaps my favorite of all JS Bach's compositions. I played it in my thrash-metal days and used it for my selfish pleasure. What a beautiful piece. No one else in my opinion has played it better than Biggs. So expressive. A live performance by Biggs of this piece must have been truly terrific and traumatic at the same time. Let's pray it gets remastered and released soon. Thank You for posting it on RU-vid. We are indebted to You!
Thrash metal, no kidding. It’s stuff like this that would have been written in that genre had a certain bassist not died in a bus accident. Gigantic pieces of many layers. Baroque was the jazz era of classical music, where virtuosos had to be intensely skilled and capable of improvising at any time, so long as they got the chords correct. As soon as people realized that it was better to train many musicians to do fewer things, that’s how the classical era took over. Baroque is much better, and was not taken seriously again until the works of Beethoven and early 19th century composers began taking the ideas on counterpoint and chromaticism.
If you're listening to this on the headphones, you can actually hear the pounding and stomping from Biggs as he hammers away, it really adds to the intensity of the music which makes it more affective, awesome and overall authentic. Triple A for Amazing music...
This album, as well as E. Power, were great. I took my vinyl album to a friend's house; he has a record player/CD recorder. I duped the record onto CD, then came home and made MP3 in I-Tunes. Now I can take my album anywhere :)
Bach actually owned a Pedal Harpsichord...........Fabulous Performance here, as always, by the Great Biggs in this extremely daring piece...especially harmonically. ONLY BACH Schools all of us in the depths of Musical Creation and nobody performs Bach as well as Biggs. G_d rest both of their Souls .
I have this on vinyl. God am I old! I bought this new in a local record store back in the late 70's. E. Power Biggs was my first Bach organ album (Four Great Toccatas) and he's still my favorite.
I am a pianist, but I think that Baroque music should ideally be played on the instruments of the day, i.e. harpsichord, organ, clavichord, not the pianoforte.
@Max Walczak, the record quality is good, I used to own this album. The Challis is has an aluminum soundboard and metal frame, Challis voiced his harpsichord with an overpluck, after all it is a revival instrument. Run through my tube stereo, it sounds very close to the original LP
***** The Challis has an AGO full pedal keyboard (CC to g1) connected to the pedal harpsichord underneath the manual harpsichord. If I recall correctly, the dispossession was two choirs at 16 Ft, one choir at 8 Ft pitch and one choir at 4 Ft pitch plus swell shutters. Biggs recorded an album of Romantic favourties (Nutcracker's Trepak, Marche Militaire,) another album of Scott Joplin Rags (the movie The Entertainer was popular back in the day), as well as Bach's Organ standards. No original pedal harpsichord survives from the time of Bach. Bach had a practice Clavier with Pedals which was given to his son J C Bach. People have argued if this was a pedal Clavichord and two (or three) clavichords, (especially the clavichord players), a silent set of practice keyboards, or a harpsichord. Although I am a harpsichord player, I believe J S Bach's practice instrument(s) with a pedal keyboard instruments was a clavichord. However, the use of Clavier was generic for the Well Tempered Clavier as the A minor Fugue Bk 1 is impossible to play on a Clavichord or Harpsichord as an pedal board is required, and the G minor Fugue Bk 1 is written in the manner of an organ Fugue with obbligato pedal line. One of the manuscripts copies has an extended pedal point in the Eb major Prelude that continues longer than other copies, consequently makes sense on something other than a one manual instrument without a pedal keyboard. This contradicts the clavichord players who maintain that clavier=clavichord.
@TweetDrivr I'm glad that this upload has filled a void here - especially seeing that Sony has still yet to release this in a digital format. (Sony has reissued Biggs' Trio Sonatas, also on pedal harpsichord, some years ago.)
