'Nun danket alle Gott' (BWV 657)

--quote--
This more traditional chorale arrangement of Nun danket alle Gott from Bach’s youth shows what a meticulous heir he was. In the manner of the old masters, each chorale entrance is prepared in the three lower parts, by rhythmically manipulating the melody and adding ornaments. Bach thereby creates eight neat packages of ‘Vorimitation’, with the chorale as the jubilant closing piece.

The joy and the faith in God expressed in the text are interpreted in a profusion of motifs, such as an inescapable long-short-short figure; although the pedal bass plays the first four chorale phrases without ornamentation. Sometimes, Bach lets the parts speak out, and then they tumble over one another again, adding to the lively character. Bach lends extra harmonic tension to the introduction to the seventh entrance, before letting the closing phrase culminate in a long pedal point above a virtuoso explosion in the alto and tenor.
--end--
- from the "All of Bach" description of the piece, from the Netherlands Bach Society

Recorded on 2010 III/48 Metzler organ at Annakirche in Düren, Germany.


Registration:
RH: 8' Trompete (Hauptwerk)
LH: 8' Rohrflöte + 4' Octave (Rückpositiv)
Ped: 16' Subbass + 8' Octavbass