Prelude and Fugue in C Minor, BWV 546

It's been quite awhile since I played this, but I remembered it well enough to use it as part of my ongoing Dudelange demos!

I did NOT play this in "classic-style," but treated it in a way that I think matches the organ. You'll hear the use of the Swell box, opening like a furnace-door and allowing the heat from the reeds to come out before being shut up again.

After the mighty climax of the prelude, the fugue begins on almost "French sound" with foundations and 8' reed tone. At the first episode, you'll hear the Positif chorus alone, with it's "most normal" mixture, and quite a nice "baroque sound".

I don't necessarily advocate playing Bach "like this," but I don't preach against it either.

The point of these demos is to use the music as a vehicle for demonstrating the instrument, and I think I've accomplished that by "symphonic playing," sound almost "German romantic," but with a "French accent!" :-)

While the interval between the composition of the Prelude and of the Fugue from J.S. Bach's Prelude and Fugue for organ in C minor, BWV 546 may not be as great as the interval between the composition of the Prelude and the Fugue from BWV 562, but they are nevertheless hardly temporal bedfellows. The Fugue of BWV 546 seems to be the earlier of the two halves (it is a work from Bach's Weimar days [1708 - 1717]), while the Prelude came later (from his Leipzig days, 1723 and following). Bach's reasons for choosing to return to a finished, self-standing composition like the Fugue of BWV 546 so many years after and then to add to it may well have been ones of a purely internal nature, though one can't omit the possibility that some practical requirement, a pressing need for a fresh prelude and fugue during a particularly busy time, induced him to take up an old fugue and provide it with a new introductory piece. After so long, it can never be known; but one can safely proclaim that the Prelude is easily one of Bach's most imposing organ preludes.

MORE COMING!