With the complete recording of Bach’s organ works on various instruments, Jörg Halubek’s “Bach Organ Landscapes” project paints a panorama of organ landscapes and organ building traditions. Since 2020, he has portrayed nine different locations and their unique organs on six double albums to date. With a careful eye for the unique cultural heritage of the instruments of the Bach regions, he is in search of the original Bach sound. A rich collection of digital material accompanies the publication:
www.organ-landscapes.com/
The seventh album “Arnstadt ∙ Brandis ∙ Zschortau” will be released on January 19.
“This album primarily reflects the experimental phase of the young Bach, which is very strongly associated with Arnstadt,” explains Jörg Halubek. The selected preludes, fugues, fantasies and chorales were presumably mostly composed during Bach’s time as organist in Arnstadt and his employment at the princely court in Weimar as a chamber musician, court organist and later concertmaster. For this recording, Jörg Halubek chose three organs in the Leipzig area: the reconstructed Wender organ (1703) in the Bachkirche Arnstadt, Bach’s first organist position, the organ by Christoph Donut (1705) in the town church of Brandis and the organ by Johann Scheibe (1746) in the village church of Zschortau. The Scheibe organ here already represents a later type, and there is a positive report on this organ by Bach himself. Jörg Halubek has assigned one of the three organs to each work in order to do justice to the stylistic diversity as an interpreter.
Harpsichordist, conductor and organist Jörg Halubek is one of the most versatile artists in the music scene. In recent years, he has performed primarily as a “maestro al harpsichord”, including with his orchestra il Gusto Barocco and at international guest appearances. His expertise in dealing with early music is demonstrated by numerous recordings, including Georg Friedrich Händels/Georg Philipp Telemann’s “Cleofida” (2022) or Johann David Heinichen’s “Flavio” as well as Bach’s violin sonatas with Leila Schayegh. With these albums, Jörg Halubek continues his partnership with Berlin Classics.
