Here are 3 pieces from the Orgelbüchlein, as candidates for the site. They are all recorded yesterday in the little church in my near. The organ is small, but beautiful (in my opinion).

I hope you enjoy a bit, comments and critiques are highly welcomed. If you can manage to listen to with large loudspeakers, it will sound much better than through headphone or PC-speakers because the low frequency of the single 16 feet subbass register is otherwise barely audible.

Admin edit: Replaced attachments by live links
BWV 622 - O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde groß
BWV 626 - Jesus Christus, unser Heiland, der den Tod überwand
BWV 631 - Komm, Gott Schöpfer, Heiliger Geist

Good recordings! Beautiful organ.
ciao, Roberto

How do you record?
Rob

lovely...is the organ yours?

Thank you for listening!

The recording equipement is:
- 2 large diaphragma condenser mics
- a small mixer providing the phantom power of the mics
- an external USB soundcard 24bit/48khz feeding a notebook.

Afterwards I normalized and added a bit additional reverb (since the church is surprisingly dry sounding (much wood inside), and the mics are placed on the organ gallery some meters before the pipes) with CoolEdit, followed by downsampling to mp3.

Unfortunately, this stuff with mic holders and so on is large effort, an Edirol recorder would be much handier. But the quality is bit better.



Haha, now you get personal...
Reminds me on a labeling in the Bach Museum in Eisenach. They wrote "Bach's organ works". Someone wrote below: "So does mine"...

Nice job, Mindenblues. I don't know much about the technical aspects of organ music, but these all sounded fine to me.

And good joke. I went to Eisenach a few years ago, but unfortunately, we were too late and the museum was closed. I did stand outside and look at Bach's home. That's as close as I got.

very pleasing sound, it releases my pressure......

I wish I had an organ and start to working on it. I suppose, i am too old and to slow to learn the the organ//

Good job Olaf.

Great recordings ! Yes it is a nice organ, sounds very good and your playing is very assured and clean, considering the short time you have been playing (I don't know what your problem is, always complaining you learn so slowly...). Apart from one little fumble in the last-but-one bar of BWV 626, everything is just perfect. I'm impressed you already take on the 'Komm Gott Schopfer', these syncopated pedal notes are very difficult (or at least they were for me). Especially if you do the ornaments in the manual pasrt as well. Very good.

The 'O Mensch' is a little to breezy to my taste (but then mine is probably too slow and weepy). I don't agree with your choice for the upper register, I think it's a bit too sharp and cheerful for this piece, and also I am not convinced about how your adagissimo quite suddenly kicks in instead of growing from a natural rallentando. But, great job, you can be very proud of it. I will put them up the site as soon as possible (it may take some days, the site is very slow and I have little time).

Ok, roll on the next organ goodies. And keep using that microphone setup, it can't sound as good with the Edirol. I'd better go and put an organ image into the site banner now

No, can't be that you are too old - I play the organ since less than a year, and I am 44 years old. Too slow learning - that's a problem I have too. But I know it could go faster if I only would have a better practise discipline.



First, many thanks for your detailed comments! Of course it is nice to get KIND comments, but it is soooo much more helpful to get comments which are of tangible benefit - and that is always the case if you give comments!

The thing is, in the time I record 3 items you record 15 or more pieces. For an Orgelbüchlein piece I need about 4 weeks to have it ready for a middling recording. Really not just fast - but the organ playing time is shared with the main time for piano playing and here and there guitar playing and singing too. But whom I tell - beside your organ and piano solo playing you play chamber music as well, church service, choir accompaignement, record pieces within unbelievable short distances. Not to mention the administration time for this site!



Regarding too breezy I agree partly. It is strange - almost always it is so if I listen back to own recordings they sound faster as I feel while playing. However, I have a recording from Albert Schweitzer, he plays it still way faster. But I agree so far that already the title and the lyrics don't have something breezy at all. So a bit slower would fit maybe better.

Now, the upper register. Yes, it is a bit too sharp to me too. I don't have much degree of freedom on flute pipes (other registers don't work so well on this piece I think). Indeed, I always play the piece with two different register sets. The other set has only one single 8 feet flute register per manual. It sounds not bad either, but very soft. Gives it an intime character, but I accociate it as funeral sound. But isn't it funeral music, or suitable for that? I recorded it too, and could post here but has a key slip mistake what bothers me so I prefered the other one for this site.

Did you recognize the tremulant for the right hand voice (on "O Mensch")? Sounds decent enough for me, maybe works for other 2 manual pieces from Orgelbüchlein too, but adds a bit living breath. On the few organs I played, this one has the only tremulant what I find useful - not too deep.

The adagissimo - I simply played as written - no ritardando, instead adagissimo. One reason is that there is such a beautiful strange surprisingly coming harmony before the last bar starts, what makes sense to me to relish longer. But I agree, a ritardando is another good choice too.

Thank you all for taking time to listen and comment!

They are up the site !