| Hanssler Edition Bachakademie Volume 100
Review by Jan Hanford:
Performance: tedious
Recording: muddy
Not recommended. One of the few disappointments in the otherwise excellent Hanssler Edition. Martin Lucker's plodding performance is slow and tedious. He holds many of the final chords absurdly long. I found his performance uninspired and very boring. The other organists in the Hanssler edition are excellent. Bine-Katrine Bryndorf, in particular, is outstanding.
Willem Van Galen said:
Listening to this CD, there is no doubt that Martin Lucker is a very serious musician. This aural impression is only further supported by the visual one brought on by his photograph in the CD's booklet, on the basis of which he could easily be mistaken for a contemporary of Brahms! You might expect that such seriousness yielded rather tedious renditions, with strict adherence to the dogma of "organo pleno" for the large free works. However, except for one selection (see below), I find Martin Lucker's interpretations surprisingly attractive. As a matter of fact, I view these performances as widening in quite a credible way the style spectrum of recorded Bach interpretations.
- Prelude & Fugue in b: The Prelude is played conventionally enough, with an "organo pleno" registration throughout. However, the performance of the concluding Fugue is characterized by a number of registration and manual changes that sound entirely effective to me, helping as they do to shift the mood from subdued hesitation, via gradual assertion, to glorious affirmation.
- Fantasy & Fugue (fragment) in c: The Fantasy's inherent gravity and solemnity are rendered quite satisfactorily to my ears. The not often heard fugue ends abruptly and dramatically, aptly illustrating any regrets one might have over its incompleteness.
- Prelude & Fugue in e: Unlike the Prelude in b, the Prelude in e is played with numerous manual changes and a number of different registrations that nevertheless exhibit an overall reliance on "organo pleno" sound. The presentation of the Fugue seems to represent the farthest departure from the aforementioned dogma, exemplified by the use of a tremulant during certain sections!
- Ricercar: While I find the preceding selections to represent powerful, solid, convincing performances, Herr Lucker's offering of the Ricercar strikes me as utterly uninspired: it sounds as if he's just practicing the notes - and at reduced speed at that - instead of trying to entertain an audience, royal or otherwise.
- Canonic Variations: Piquant registrations and airy articulation do much to make these variations sound quite pleasing. (The order of the final three variations differs between BWV 769 and 769a. Any preference one might have for the one or the other is easily accommodated by the fact that each variation has been given its own track, permitting the listener to play them in any order.)
- "Vor deinen Thron tret ich hiermit": The CD's notes describe this chorale prelude as Bach's "swan song". With that in mind, Martin Lucker's solemn, introspective rendition of this piece seems an appropriate "meditation" on the passing of a man whose genius thankfully endures.
The Rieger organ featured on this CD is as much a part of its attraction as is Martin Lucker's playing. It has the distinctive Rieger sound that also characterizes better known instruments of this builder like the ones in Ratzeburg, Vienna, and Edinburgh. A photograph, stop list, and detailed inventory of the registrations used are all included in the CD's booklet.
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