J.S. Bach: Complete Organ Music, Vol. 1 [CD de audio] Stefano Molardi and J.S.Bach

Stefano Molardi is shaping his recorded survey of Bach's complete organ music as self-contained, musically satisfying recitals that, disc by disc, explore the various styles at the composer's disposal, the flexible use to which he, the ultimate complete musician, puts his instrument to the test and the different liturgical demands he was forced to meet during the course of his career as he moved from church to court and back again. The preludes and fugues composed in Weimar and Leipzig are mixed with the intricate trio sonatas that he had initially conceived as chamber music, and among them are nested the intimate chorales from his days in Cöthen. Consequently, Molardi makes full use of the potential flexibility of his chosen Trost organ in the Stadtkirche Zur Gotteshilfe in Waltershausen, in the provincial heart of Thuringia. This is Bach's land, and although the organ has been periodically restored since it was inaugurated in 1755, almost 30 years after work began, it retains the classical features of its time and situation: an extensive restoration in 1998 restored the instrument to its original glory. Born in Cremona, Molardi has embarked on a Renaissance career as an organist, harpsichordist, conductor and scholar, not only in the rarefied realm of early music, but also as a virtuoso who has performed the complete organ works of Liszt and Franck and has made a extraordinary Verdi recording arranged for organ. These Bach records are, perhaps appropriately, less obviously spectacular, but no less imaginative in their rhythmic and chromatic response.