In contrast to the Well-Tempered Clavier, which remained omnipresent in general musical and cultural consciousness after J.S. Bach's death, and the Goldberg Variations, adorned in the 20th century with an almost mystical aura, Bach’s seven keyboard toccatas have been unjustly relegated to the shadows. Composed between about 1707 and 1713, the Toccatas contain "stylus phantasticus" (fantastical style) elements of the North German baroque and are a delightful mixture of virtuoso, recitative, arioso, concertante, imitative and fugal sections, entirely in the original musical sense of the word toccare, to explore by touch.

This recording also features Bach's Prelude and Fugue BWV 894, probably written during his Weimar phase. The title Prelude is perhaps a little misleading, since it is actually a concerto-like movement, and the fugue is also more like a gigue riding out on a ceaseless hunt. Bach ingeniously reshaped the work into his Triple Concerto BWV 1044 during his Leipzig period, interpolating a second movement taken from the Trio Sonata BWV 527. Wolfgang Rübsam came up with the original idea for this recording of transferring the middle movement of BWV 1044, lifted by Bach from BWV 527, to the equivalent position between the original Prelude and Fugue movements of BWV 894.

Bach demonstrably owned at least two lute-harpsichords, listed in his estate catalogue of 1750. Rübsam’s decision to record all these works on such an instrument has proved extremely fortuitous, especially with regard to the toccatas. The poetic tone of Keith Hill's instrument – sonorous and noble in the lower registers, brilliant in the higher registers – forms an almost perfect synthesis with Rübsam’s imaginative playing.

Howard Skempton is recognized as one of the UK’s most renowned and respected living composers. Although particularly influenced by Benjamin Britten (with whom he worked), John Cage, and Cornelius Cardew, Skempton’s music inhabits its own unique sound world. His major new work, 50 Preludes and Fugues for Organ (written 2022-23), is given its world premiere recording by Matthew Owens on two of the finest organs in the UK, St George’s Church, Hanover Square, London, and Merton College, Oxford. Inspired by J.S. Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues, Skempton takes us on a contemporary journey in his own inimitable style and pays homage to Bach through two extra pairs of Preludes and Fugues. Additional works on this album include the composer’s earliest organ work, Wedding March (1971), and his latest, Recessional 2, written especially for this recording.

Highly acclaimed organist Stephen Farr presents an album of organ works by composer Francis Grier, performed on the American-built Dobson Organ of Merton College, Oxford.

Grier demonstrates an individual approach to timbre and texture in writing for the organ and shows fascinating traits which are a testament to a wide range of musical, and non-musical, influences extending beyond the bounds of the cathedral world to experiences drawn from his years in India.

The album features "A Celebration for All Saints," commissioned by Farr and first performed in 2022, "De Profundis" scored for organ and cello, performed here by Indira Grier, "Flourish and Reverie" dating from shortly after Grier’s return from India in 1990, and "Wir haben schwerlich," composed to join works by a variety of composers in the Orgelbüchlein Project.

When in 1913 Respighi settled in Rome where he would reside for the rest of his life, he would produce a large amount of highly varied music-some of it now well-known, much of it less so. Geoffrey Simon’s championship of the little-known works of celebrated composers has proved highly successful on both record and in the concert hall, and his exploration of Respighi’s catalogue has yielded a number of colourful compositions whose neglect hitherto remains something of a mystery. The works recorded on this Cala Signum reissue cover a wide range of moods, from the opulence and excitement for which Respighi was noted in his famous Roman Trilogy, to more reflective pieces inspired by nostalgia for the music of the past.

Celebrated as one of the finest Tudor composers, Thomas Weelkes served as organist and choirmaster at Winchester College and Chichester Cathedral and although famed for his madrigals, wrote more Anglican services than any other major composer of the time. Performed by the professional Irish vocal ensemble Resurgam with The English Cornett & Sackbut Ensemble, this album celebrates the sacred music from this prolific composer in Weelkes’ 400th anniversary year.

Transcription has always been a widespread musical practice, following the desire to arrange pieces originally written for an instrumental and/or vocal ensemble for an instrument like the organ or harpsichord or, later, the piano. The eighteenth century was a very fertile period for transcriptions, reaching its pinnacle among Johann Sebastian Bach’s circle. The transcriptions Bach (1685-1750) made during his time in Weimar both for organ (three concertos by Vivaldi and two by Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar) and an astonishing 14 for harpsichord (by various Italian composers) are of great artistic value. However, Bach also adapted his own works originally written for instruments or voices, ‘appropriating’ them for the keyboard. These included the first movement of his Trio Sonata No. 4, taken from the sinfonia from the cantata Die Himmel erzählen die Ehre Gottes BWV 76 (for oboe d’amore, viola da gamba and basso continuo) and the Schübler chorales, which started off life as arias in various cantatas.

The aim of this recording is to offer a series of transcriptions that were originally written for instruments other than the organ. The transcribers include Bach himself, contemporaries of him, two 19th century composers: Alexandre Guilmant and Robert Schaab, a pupil of Mendelssohn, ending with the present organist, Stefano Molardi himself.

Stefano Molardi is a “renaissance man”, organist, harpsichordist, scholar, historian and writer. He recorded extensively: the complete organ works by J.S. Bach, organ works by Bach family members, complete organ works by Kuhnau and other repertoire. His playing is clear, crisp, free and rhythmically vibrant. His recordings received 5 star reviews in the international classical magazines. Played on the Johann Nepomuk Holzhey (1797) organ at the Neresheim Abbey, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, the specifications of which are included in the booklet.

J.C.F. Fischer was likely Bohemian, and a very influential musician and composer in his day. Little is known of his career until the 1690s, when he was named capellmeister to Ludwig Wihelm of Baden, where he remained until his death at Rastatt. His largest and perhaps most significant work is the Musicalischer Parnassus of 1738, a collection of keyboard pieces organized into nine suites. In it, Fischer combines the French orchestral style with the German style. Each of the suites is named for one of the nine Muses. This recording features movements from the Urania and Euterpe suites, along with a Prelude and Chaconne from his remaining oeuvre. This repertoire is usually associated with the harpsichord and rarely performed on the organ, yet there are similarities with the “variations” style so often employed by Buxtehude and Bach in organ works.

Kerll, the Saxon son of an organist and organ maker, showed musical promise from a very early age. He travelled to Vienna to study under Valentini, then capellmeister at the Viennese Imperial Court, and he converted to Catholicism, which later led him to Rome where he likely had contact with Carissimi and Frescobaldi. He was named principal musical director to the Elector of Bavaria in 1656, and became one of the most acclaimed composers of his day. His influence on Handel and J.S. Bach is notable. His works display a mastery of the Italian concertante style and highly developed contrapuntal technique.

Flores de Musica pera o instrumento de tecla & harpa is the only known work of Portugese composer Manuel Rodrigues Coelho. Printed in Lisbon in 1620 and boasting more than five hundred pages, Coelho’s Flores de Musica is one of the largest music works printed in the seventeenth century. Celebrating the 400th anniversary of its original publication, a new edition in three volumes has been published with the research being used to inform this major new recording series. Organist André Ferreira is joined by Ars Lusitana, an early music ensemble founded in 2011 by Maria Bayley, dedicated to the research and performance of Portuguese music.

Vivaldi's "Four Seasons" is one of the greatest evergreens of all time. The sound painting of the Venetian violin virtuoso simply casts a spell over everyone. David Gorol and Theophil Heinke go one better: Their arrangement for violin and organ makes use of the richness of sound of the queen of instruments and adds a whole new dimension to Vivaldi's already broad palette. In addition, there is the A minor Concerto, which Bach had already transferred to the organ. The fact that a historical jewel, the famous Trost organ in Waltershausen, can also be heard in its original sound makes this brand-new Super Audio album a triple listening pleasure. Above all, Vivaldi's sound extremes are considerably expanded with the organ: it thunders and flashes in the summer thunderstorm, it's a joy; the horns blow cheerfully for the hunt, and at the latest when the birds warble in spring, one no longer wants to miss the flute stops of the listed instrument.

The adaptation is by no means trivial: the highly virtuosic violin part, which David Gorol presents on a modern instrument with somnambulistic certainty and a fine feeling for the drama of the score, remains untouched. In favor of a brilliant expression, a retuning to the historical pitch of the organ was dispensed with - a challenge for Heinke, who thus has to orchestrate in extremely unusual keys. As an encore, Gorol and Heinke also offer the distinctively arranged A minor Double Concerto. Here, the violin performs directly with the second soloists part played by the organ.

This series marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Anton Bruckner, which falls in 2024. It’s dedicated to Bruckner’s symphonies, most of them recorded in new transcriptions for organ by Hansjörg Albrecht. The 7th recording was made on the church organ of Hofkirche in Luzern with the transcription of Bruckner’s 6th Symphony by Eberhard Klotz. The bonus track on this volume is the composition “Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini” for organ by the Italian composer Andrea Lorenzo Scartazzini.