Bram Beekman - Bach Complete Organ Works on YT

[jserraglio]

Very handy OOP 1990s Lindenberg label set of Bach Complete Organ Works played by the late Bram Beekman on various Nederlandish organs. Tracked and tagged with full descriptions of the instruments. Vols 1-5 of the 9-volume, double-CD sets have been posted to YT so far; vol 5 was just posted today:

v1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NpFOrSWZ58
v2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cRRwhS3S9Pg
v3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSP_1bfHcC0
v4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PFR4iSm1aqQ
v5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3JHvAvEfh4

[jbuck919]

I will have. to check it out, of course. One of the few things of which I have multiple versions, from vinyl through CD to downloaded. Thanks, j.

[John F]

Did you get the Carl Weinrich recordings on Westminster when they were available? At the time, as I remember, the choice for a comprehensive Bach series was between him and Helmut Walcha, and I thought Weinrich's playing was more red-blooded - not that I know that repertoire well enough to be confident in my opinion. Now, of course, everybody and his sister is doing it...

[jbuck919]

I didn't know that Walcha 1 and Weinrich overlapped. By the time I was at you-know-where Weinrich was already OOP, but I heard it all on albums borrowed from the music library. I also heard him do quite a bit live in recitals or at service music. (1973 was his last year because Princeton then had a mandatory retirement age of 68.) Another early competitor, if you can call him that, was Albert Schweitzer. I heard some of his recordings and it would be kind to say that he sounded over the hill. It was more as though he never reached the bottom of the hill to begin with.

For those who do not know, John F seems to be referring to the late great recital organist Marie-Claire Alain, who made three complete Bach sets (the first for the Musical Heritage Society) and was he sister of the organ composer Jehan Alain.

[Lance]

Insofar as complete organ works of JS Bach are concerned, I limited myself to one, Helmut Walcha's [DGG]. Walcha was blind, and I knew one of his students who became a professor at our university who gave Walcha the highest marks. I also have some Electrola recordings of Walcha playing the harpsichord. Another complete organ edition for me ... probably not. I already have myriad of recordings of Bach's organ music by many artists, including Weinrich. Can you imagine learning the music, first, and then performing and recording it with no eyesight? I believe his wife helped in regard to learning, setting tops, etc. Still to not see it in print!

[John F]

For those who do not know, John F seems to be referring to the late great recital organist Marie-Claire Alain, who made three complete Bach sets (the first for the Musical Heritage Society) and was he sister of the organ composer Jehan Alain.

You give me too much credit. I know of Marie-Claire Alain, but not that she's recorded all of Bach even once. Just a shot in the dark, then.

Albert Schweitzer recorded a fair amount of Bach for EMI in the 1930s, when he was 60, but not a complete cycle. By then he had been living and working in Africa for two decades, and while he had a specially built pedal piano there, his humanitarian medical work and musicological and theological studies would have limited his time for practice. He was then and perhaps still is the organist with the greatest international celebrity, not just for his playing (he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1952), and so an obvious choice for those recordings on various European organs for EMI's subscription Bach Organ Music Society series. At that time, nearly all recordings of Bach's organ music were made by pianists using transcriptions by Liszt and others, so Schweitzer's recordings on various organs were pioneering efforts, though I suppose they are merely curiosities today.

[jbuck919]

There is something of a tradition of blind organists, why I could not say, except that the technique prevalent at the time of Walcha required mainly sliding and relatively little leaping, as does not, for instance, transcendental piano technique. Vierne was blind, and aforesaid Jehan Alain, though better known as an organ composer, was blind. I once pulled stops for a blind student organist in college. He learned from Braille, and in principle memorizing from Braille is the same as memorizing from ordinary printed music. (Reading from a non-engraved manuscript, as they all did in the 18th century for many organ works including most of Bach, is another matter.) The stupefying task of performing all of Bach from memory in a series of recitals (something Weinrich never did) is impressive no matter how one looks at it, but it is more or less commonly done these days. Then there is Paul Jacobs, the current head of the organ department at Juilliard, who gave a series in which he performed Bach complete from memory on one organ and then went cross-town to play Messiaen complete from memory on another one.

[John F]

In addition to Carl Weinrich, Westminster recorded the blind French organist André Marchal. When I was at WHRB i produced their weekly program of organ music, "Organ Tour," ignorant as I was, because we had nobody else to do it, and I managed to get through a semester with no complaints from listeners. As I remember, I didn't play any records by Albert Schweitzer, or E. Power Biggs (hard to avoid back then) except in the program's theme music, which I inherited. The little I know about organs, organists, and organ music is nearly 60 years old.

Also, one of my roommates in college was an organist, a serious one though he didn't make a career of it - he was allowed to play the Memorial Church organ and had the shoes for it. I never heard him and don't know if he was any good. The other roommate played tuba in the marching band. When applying to live in that upperclass residence, I'd listed music as a strong interest, and that's what the housemaster gave me.

[jserraglio]

Bram Beekman - Bach's 6 Trio Sonatas, on 6 different Baroque organs excerpted from the Lindenberg 18-disc complete set:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HUSCu3fLnfs

[jserraglio]

Bram Beekman - Bach Organ Works Discog
http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NVP/Beekman.htm#Organ

[Marc]

Beekman's set is great.
Sometimes maybe a tad too 'stiff' in the free works, but IMO he's got a natural and instinctive feel for the chorale-based works. The old organs are sounding superb, too. Too bad the set went OOP and was never re-issued.

[jserraglio]

Here is volume VI just uploaded to YT today. Again, all tracks are fully tagged.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqrmlyK8lFQ

[jserraglio]

Here is volume VII just uploaded to YT yesterday. All tracks are fully tagged.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srZ9LvmeRJQ&t=4s