Herr Gott, nun schleuss den Himmel auf (BWV 617)

This is my attempt to play this composition at a somewhat slower tempo. That turned out to be easier said than done. Though I post them now in one go, there is actually a week between recording them.

Practising music is for a large part training the muscles involved in playing. And once you've mastered a piece of music, it is committed to muscular memory. And it is the muscular memory I play from. In other words, I myself do not know how to play a pice, my arms, hands, fingers, legs and feet know how to play. I just sit along and enjoy the ride, so to speak.

Playing a piece in another tempo than initially practised is therefore (for me atleast) very hard to do. Where normally practising a piece of music for a large part means carefully speeding up the playing tempo, I had to repractice this piece, with the intent to slow the playing tempo down.

Arms, hands, fingers, legs and feet did not agree with the new playing tempo. Every time I let my focus on the tempo slip and paid more attention to phrasing or articulation, my body took control of tempo and slid back in the old familiar tempo. Muscular memory is a very hard thing to beat.

I like the new tempo better than the old tempo. My body however disagrees. The performance is there fore a bit wibbly woblly in tempo as my mind and body continuously fight to gain controle of the playing tempo. Overal however, I think this came out better than my initial performance.

What do you think?

The recording was done with the Hauptwerk software and the sampleset, made by Sonus Paradisi, of the Schittger organ in the St. Martini-kerk, Groningen (http://www.sonusparadisi.cz/en/organs/netherlands/groningen-st-martini.html).