University of Virginia Library

RECORDS

Biggs' Bach Authentic

By TERI TOWE

Undoubtedly one of the
great organists of our day, E.
Power Biggs has come to be
associated particularly with the
music of J.S. Bach. Bigg's first
records, made for the now
defunct Technichord label
more than 30 years ago, were
devoted to Bach, and in the
years since, he has made a large
number of Bach recordings.
The most recent series, entitled
"Bach Organ Favorites." has
now reached its fifth album.

This record, like the others
in the series, was made in the
Busch-Reisinger Museum at
Harvard University. The
instrument, built by Dirk
Flentrop, reproduces quite
closely the playing action, the
design, and the sound of the
instruments that Bach and his
contemporaries knew.

Although conservative,
Biggs's approach to Bach's
music stresses authenticity. He
does nothing that Bach could
not have done. His choice of
registers reflects the practice of
Bach's day, and his use of
ornamentation is tasteful and
correct.

There is, however, one
aspect of Biggs's
interpretations of Bach that, at
first, strike one as rather
"un-Baroque." He has a
tendency to avoid distinct
manual changes at the distinct
sectional breaks that occur in
most of Bach's organ
compositions. Remembering
that Bach, like many other
Baroque organists, had
assistants who pulled the stops
for him during recitals, Biggs
constructs interpretations that
build in intensity.

A case in point is the
reading of the Fantasia in G.
BWV 572. Most performances
in the Baroque style would
treat the second section, the 5
part Grave, as a single entity
with a uniform registration;
Biggs elects to build the Grave
to an intense climax from a
rather moderate beginning. The
interpretation, completely
feasible with the resources
Bach had, is quite convincing,
and ironically, resembles the
interpretation of Marcel Dupre,
the late great French organist
who played Bach on a French
Romantic organ in the French
Romantic style.

Perhaps the highpoint of
this album is Biggs's reading of
the Fantasia and Fugue in G
Minor. BWV 542. The
Fantasia, dark, brooding, and
stormy, takes on an almost
violent quality:

The Fugue by contrast, has
a bright, enthusiastic quality
entirely in keeping with the
folk tune from which the fugue
subject is derived. Biggs's
phrasing is novel and
intriguing, and he manages to
maintain it consistently
throughout a work that