It's an inescapable reality. Johann Sebastian Bach's organ music divides neatly into two groups:
[1] The Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, BWV 565
[2] All the other 300-odd organ works.
Let's face it, that one single piece is everywhere. Mention "Bach" and "organ" in the same breath, and you know exactly which piece is going to spring to mind -- to audiences' minds with anticipation, to organists' minds with scarcely-concealed dread. That single piece is to organists what Messiah is to choirs, what Nutcracker is to ballet companies, what Traviata and Carmen are to opera houses, and what anything by Beethoven is to symphony orchestras. With the same piece always in demand, in season and out, it would hardly be surprising if organists shuddered at being asked to perform it yet again. Like the other artists I mentioned above, they really have no choice. It's the ultimate drawing card, the great crowd pleaser, the piece that puts bums on seats like nothing else ever written for the instrument, and woe betide the organist who leaves it out of a concert programme or recording.
In passing, I will briefly refer to a small group of musicologists who have cast doubt on the authenticity of this work, partly because no copy of it in Bach's hand exists. On the other hand (pun intended), the vast majority of musical scholars, including the editors of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis, the catalogue of the composer's complete works, have not included any notation of doubts about the attribution of the work to the master. And we'll just leave the matter there.
So recorded and video performances of it are a dime a dozen, and there's really an interpretation for every musical taste, from the most strictly authentic to the most flamboyantly romantic. The video concert which has drawn my eye here comes down firmly in the flamboyant camp. Xaver Varnus is a Hungarian-born organist who now holds citizenship in Canada. In his birth homeland, he's a major celebrity, not least because of his love of making music intelligible to mass audiences. This earns him scorn from some musicians, but there's no denying that he knows his stuff, musically speaking. And this video proves it.
It's the venue, though, and the filmmaker's use of it, that makes this video especially striking. This Toccata and Fugue was committed to video at a live 2013 recital in the Berliner Dom, the massive neo-Renaissance evangelical "collegiate church" and royal burial crypt in the German capital. The current church was built in 1894-1905, and in the hands of video director Mate Vargha it becomes one of the key elements of the video, the ornate decor and vast space of the interior being captured to full effect -- even a couple of exterior shots are included.
Befitting both the Dom's size and its status for the German Empire, it was equipped with the largest organ in Germany at the time, 113 stops divided over 4 manuals and pedalboard, built by Wilhelm Sauer. It's said that it remains the largest late-Romantic organ in the world which has survived in its original condition. There is ample evidence in this video of the dexterity of Varnus in playing this four-manual instrument, although I would have welcomed a clearer shot of his feet working the pedals, especially in the passages in the fugue where the melody drops into the bass line and the pedalboard becomes the scene of the action.
The enormous domes and apses of this church are a plentiful source of echoes, and although these are not overly obvious in the recording, they do dictate some of the lengthy pauses in Varnus' interpretation, as well as the relatively moderate tempi in some sections where musicians performing on a smaller instrument in a less-resonant acoustic can really shoot off at rocket speed.
It's a given that a performance recorded on such a grandiose organ is going to tilt somewhat in the direction of romantic fervour, and Varnus isn't afraid to let the music go there. I particularly enjoy the way his extended pauses draw your attention forcefully to the extreme chromaticism of some of the massive chords, giving these contorted sounds plenty of time to seep into your consciousness. In particular, he isn't afraid to draw on the full power of the 32-foot pedal stops at the grandest cadences.
On the other hand, there's no denying the almost playful character of some of the rapid running passages, especially in the opening pages of the fugue. And I definitely admire Varnus for his ability to make use of the different stops to bring out inner voices which often disappear into the general wave of sound in lesser hands.
In no sense is this an "authentic" interpretation, but if you're going to play one of Bach's most dramatic pieces on a large organ in a large venue, this is the way to go. This video captivated me with the power of the instrument and the intensity of the performance by Xaver Varnus, alongside the splendid camera work on the interior and exterior of a unique and historic building. Here's the link:
Further interest: if you check out the YouTube channel of Xaver Varnus, where this video is posted, you will find several other video recordings of him playing assorted works on a diverse range of organs.
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