BACH: The Silbermann Organ of St. Georgenkirche in Rötha
Kåre Nordstoga (Organ)
BACH IN RÖTHA
With this recording, Kåre Nordstoga brings his monumental recording project of J.S. Bach’s organ works (14 CDs) to a close. He plays on the Silbermann Organ in Rötha, an organ Bach himself played. From the first recording session in 2009, the project has grown into 14 gleaming silver discs containing music of pure gold! The final album does not consist of leftover pieces, but rather of a carefully curated selection drawn from across Bach’s entire opus. On the choice of works and instruments, Kåre Nordstoga has this to say: “What constitutes Bach’s complete works is not easy to define, and this project does not attempt to gather every single marginal work. I have taken the liberty of relying on my own judgement when it comes to the more peripheral corners of this enormous collection.
As for the selection as a whole, I must clarify right away that this is not a scholarly collection intended to define the concept of ‘Bach’s complete organ works’. That concept is a subject of debate. Naturally, I also took the unique characteristics of the various organs into account, though without adhering to too many rigid principles in doing so. My main priority was for each disc to feel like a recital, ensuring the programming made the best possible sense in context.”
In this final release, we are taken back to Bach’s school years in Lüneburg, where the teenage prodigy astonished his teachers. We meet the young Arnstadt organist as he composes in the temperamental North German tradition, while also trying his hand at the Italian style. We hear how French court music inspired the Weimar organist. And with the great Prelude in E Minor, Nordstoga takes us to one of Bach’s organ recitals from his Leipzig years.
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Tracks
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750)
Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 533
Aria variata alla maniera italiana in A minor, BWV 989 Thema
Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548
Prelude and Fugue in C minor, BWV 549
Credits
- Performer
- Kåre Nordstoga (Organ)
- Composer
- Johann Sebastian Bach
- Producer
- Vegard Landaas
- Engineer
- Thomas Wolden
- Editing
- Vegard Landaas
- Mastering
- Thomas Wolden
- Executive producer
- Vegard Landaas
- Booklet editor
- Alison Bullock Aarsten
- PR
- Camilla Momkvist-Skau
- Accounting
- Torgeir M. Landaas
- Session photo
- Thomas Wolden
- Design
- Anna-Julia Granberg | Blunderbuss
- Recording location
- St. Georgenkirche, Rötha
- Recording country
- Germany
- Recording year
- 2025
- Recording dates
- 13.10.2025 | 14.10.2025
- Original source
- DXD (352.8 kHz, 24 bit)
- Series
- Bach Organ Works
- Discs / tracks
- 1 disc | 21 tracks
- Release year
- 2026
- Label
- LAWO Classics
- Duration
- 1:07:30
- EAN
- 7090020184616
- ISRC
- NOEHX2645
Biographies
Kåre Nordstoga
Kåre Nordstoga (b. 1954) studied at the Norwegian Academy of Music under Søren Gangfløt, Bjørn Boysen and Kaare Ørnung, among others. Following his debut concert in 1978, he continued his studies under David Sanger in London, and was for a time organist at Ullern Church before coming to Oslo Cathedral in 1984. He has also been associated with the Norwegian Academy of Music, where he was appointed professor in 1994.
As cathedral organist at Oslo Cathedral, Nordstoga frequently performs a large repertoire, which has included two popular concert series with Bach's complete organ works. His recordings include the organ music of Bach, Brahms, Franck, Widor and Liszt, all of Bach's violin sonatas recorded on the cathedral's chancel organ in collaboration with violinist Geir Inge Lotsberg, as well as several recordings of Norwegian organ music. Nordstoga is an active concert organist.
In recent years he has been soloist with the symphony orchestras of Oslo, Bergen and Trondheim, and he has been invited to organ festivals abroad, including Aarhus, Notre Dame in Paris, and the Musashino Cultural Center in Tokyo. In 2006 he was awarded the Lindeman Prize for his active contribution to musical life.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Johann Sebastian Bach was born on 21 March 1685 in Eisenach into an extensive family of musicians. Orphaned by the age of ten, he was raised by his elder brother Johann Christoph in Ohrdruf before receiving a scholarship to the Michaelisschule in Lüneburg in 1700. His first appointment, in 1703, was as a court violinist to Duke Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar, but within months he became organist at the Neue Kirche in Arnstadt, composing his first significant organ works and, in 1705, travelling to Lübeck to study with Dietrich Buxtehude. In 1707 he became organist of St Blasius's Church in Mühlhausen and married his cousin Maria Barbara; the following year he entered the service of Duke Wilhelm Ernst in Weimar as court organist, rising to concertmaster in 1714 and building a reputation as an organ virtuoso.
In 1717 Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Köthen appointed him Hofkapellmeister, a productive period that yielded much of his instrumental output, including violin concertos and orchestral suites, though it was also marked by the death of his wife in 1720; he remarried the following year to Anna Magdalena Wilcke. In 1723 Bach was elected Thomaskantor in Leipzig, a post he held for the rest of his life, composing there his great vocal works, including the St John and St Matthew Passions and over two hundred cantatas, until his death on 28 July 1750.