eliasb (FMA Admin)

All these tracks have a tenuous connection to France, whether they were published by a French netlabel or composed by a pianist living there. They are also dark, mysterious, and weird. Perfect for intensifying the feelings associated with the weather phenomenon "wintry mix!"

The FMA is proud to present Dr. James Kibbie’s ambitious project, the performance of Johann Sebastian Bach’s complete works for organ.

Since Bach needs no introduction, I’ll focus on what else makes this a special treat for the FMA. For one, Dr. Kibbie recorded in Germany on the region’s finest original baroque organs. These instruments, each occupying multiple stories in a church, are to an electric organ as this gong is to a Zildjian cymbal. Dr. Kibbie selected them to meet the stylistic requirements of Bach’s opus, and you can learn more about each organ at the Block M Records website.

The scope of this project is huge. There are 270 separate compositions, some in multiple movements. This amounts to over 16 hours of music. The recordings are organized by style of composition or groups that Bach put them in.

The piece I have attached is the Passacaglia and Fugue in C Minor, one of Bach’s most famous works. It opens with an ominous bass line, the final note of which comes out as a kind of primordial roar on the 1724-30 Trost organ in Waltershausen, Germany. This line gets repeated throughout the first part of the piece, the Passacaglia, while above it, Dr. Kibbie goes to work on Bach’s variations. The second part, a fugue, is equally impressive. You might recognize this composition from a number of places, including the Godfather baptism sequence (it starts around 1:35). These extraordinary 13 minutes are a great introduction to the rest of this project.

>> James Kibbie - Bach Organ Works on the FMA

>> The project on Block M (University of Michigan's record label)