E. Power Biggs - Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor

Johann Sebastian Bach's Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor (BWV 582) performed by the concert organist E. Power Biggs playing the 1958 Flentrop tracker in the Busch-Reisinger Museum at Harvard University.

I had to cut this off at 10 minutes because of youtube limits

I would recommend that you stop this video at 8:06 and enjoy the fugue "in it's entirety" at this link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=af-C9dcd6hY

That way you can hear the entire piece uncut.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• classical
• bach
• biggs
• pipe
• organ
• BWV
• 582
• Passacaglia

[BigOrganPipes]

yes wallflower. they play this during the baptism scene in the movie the godfather

[msuber]

By the way the St Jacobi HamburgSchnitger Organ was built in 1512 and finished in 1516. It was rebuilt after the Second World War, as all the pipes and major parts survived the Allied bombing of Hamburg in a bunker underground.

[BigOrganPipes]

is that St. Jacobi organ the one that has the faces on the stop knobs that are carved out of wood ?

i saw that organ on the joy of music with Diane Bish

[msuber]

FYI, I just purchased a USB MPE turntable for Christmas and I will pot THE BEST recording of the Cminor EVER as stated in my previous posting. It will come soon my friends!!

[BigOrganPipes]

thank you. that will be great !!!

[bimjales]

Back in the late 50's when I was a teenager, a VW bus pulled up in front of our house as I was mowing the lawn.

A man stepped out and introduced himself as E. Power Biggs and wanted to know if he could go into our church and record the organ. (Ancient tracker) in Vermont. I was an avid lover of the organ, so I spent the rest of the afternoon listening to him record our church organ.

[BigOrganPipes]

awesome story !!!

thank you for sharing that :)

[smokinbill]

There's enough suffering in this one piece to fill the whole world.

[trygbugg]

I've listened to recordings of this marvellous Bach piece by many great organ players (e.g. Alain, Koopman and Richter), and Biggs' version here is by no means inferior to those!

[bewareofzealots]

@bimjales Wonderful comment. I know that he recorded a number of pieces from King's Chapel in Boston, where I was a parishioner for many years. His playing is magnificent.

[halloerde]

@russedav5 Yes, that is why many performances today refer to it as Passacaglia. The score says fugue (accent ague, or fugued), not fugue.

[halloerde]

@PericoDelLunar Agreed. I have also listened to many performances, and Biggs achieves a unique contrapuntal clarity, which eliminates all muddiness. In the hands of lesser composers, the passacaglia was a cover for inferior writing. Bach judoed it, into such a high form, that, after him; no-one dared to attempt it, until Brahms; at first tentatively, at the end of his Haydn variations; then fully, in the last movement of his 4th Symphony.

[jayanwalter15031957]

Best play of this Bach's masterpeace!

[russedav5]

Regrettably what is lost here is that if you look in the Schmieder catalog, this is not a two-part work like the Preludes and Fugues but simply Passacaglia, for what is mistakenly understood as a separate "Fugue" is rather the last and greatest of the variations that comes forth from the cadence WITHOUT a break, as the score clearly shows. continued-

[Serenityisepic]

First off, FANTASTIC! The organ has such beautiful tone. I prefer the interpretation I have of Thomas Trotter doing this at our church on our electric-action organ, but that may be bias. Anyways, hearing it on an organ that sounds close to what Bach interpreted it as, is... intense :D

[starlite528]

Sounds great :D

I'm not 100% sure, but I think you can use youtube's annotations to stop the video?

[PericoDelLunar]

I have heard this by many organists, but NOBODY plays it nearly as well. E. Power Biggs was the greatest organist of all time.