We specialize in hard to find items
All Categories
*Price and Stocks may change without prior notice
*Packaging of actual item may differ from photo shown
- Electrical items MAY be 110 volts.
- 7 Day Return Policy
- All products are genuine and original
About Walther: Complete Organ Music
The most famous composer of chorale settings must surely be the great Johann Sebastian Bach, who wrote over 500 works of this type, still widely performed and recorded today. In his time, however, the German composer was given a run for his money by his contemporary Johann Gottfried Walther. Born one year before Bach, Walther struck up a friendship with Bach - his second cousin - in 1708, a friendship that inspired him to set over 130 chorale preludes and variations on Lutheran chorale melodies. In addition, the composer transcribed numerous concertos by his contemporaries, among them Telemann, Vivaldi and Torelli, arranging the melodies for the organ in a highly innovative and original way. Walther's most lasting testament is his Musicalisches Lexicon, one of the most valuable sources for the study of Baroque music today, which solidifies the composer's reputation as a scholar as well as an accomplished performer and composer. For the first time on CD: the complete organ works by Walther! Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748, a near contemporary of Bach) spent the major part of his life as the organist of the Church of St. Peter and Paul in Weimar, where he also was teacher of the Duke of Weimar. He formed a close friendship with Johann Sebastian Bach, of whom he was a second cousin. Walther's organ music may be divided into a large corpus of Chorale settings, in which he followed the tradition of Bach, and the transcriptions of fashionable concertos by composers like Telemann, Albinoni, Torelli, Vivaldi, Gentili and many others. Organist Simone Stella recorded for Brilliant Classics the complete organ works by Buxtehude, Boehm, Reincken (Froberger still to come!) to great critical acclaim in the international press (5 star reviews). He plays the 2006 Zanin organ in the Church of St Antonio Abate in Padua, the specifications of which are included in the booklet. Italian performer Simone Stella has ensured that this 12CD box set includes all of Walther's currently ascertainable free organ works, chorale settings and concerto transcriptions in their entirety. This is an ideal way for any lover of Baroque organ music to explore outside the realms of Johann Sebastian Bach, with a vast treasure trove of exciting chorale preludes and organ settings that offer a new glimpse into the fascinating north German style. Other information: Recorded in Italy in 2013. Contains notes on the composer written by the artist. Contains a biography of the artist. Contains a full organ specification.
