The Bach Circle

This is Emanuele Cardi’s fourth album for Brilliant Classics after recordings which display this talented organist’s wide musical sympathies and talents. “He is a great connoisseur of Baroque repertoire,” noted the Spanish magazine Codalario of Cardi’s Neapolitan album, “and it shows in his ability to give these pieces such native color: this is a remarkable album.” On this occasion he has recorded an album which concludes with Bach’s most famous yet possibly most spurious work for organ, the Toccata and Fugue in D minor, whose Italianate flourishes surely have their origin in a work for violin, whether or not by Bach himself. In fact an aesthetic conversation between Italy and Germany underlies the character of the album as a whole. Kittel, Krebs and Vogler were pupils of J.S. in Leipzig, and their work featured here is indebted to a greater or lesser extent to the example of their master; whereas his most talented son, C.P.E., struck out boldly in new directions of harmony and voicing, as demonstrated here by a C minor Fantasy and Fugue and the substantial A minor Sonata. The cousin of Pachelbel, Walther, like Bach, made many transcriptions for organ of concertos by Vivaldi and his contemporaries such as Corelli and Torelli. Walther’s own concerto is a scintillating piece of dancing counterpoint in that tradition, marking quite a contrast to the chorale-based music of Bach’s pupils in the first half of the album.