English and German Baroque Organ Music

The first half is devoted to the North German organ school—the tradition that profoundly influenced Johann Sebastian Bach himself. Bruns's Prelude and the works of Buxtehude exemplify the stylus phantasticus, with its improvisatory freedom, virtuosity, and dramatic contrasts. Buxtehude's Passacaglia and Prelude and Fugue in G minor reveal the artistry of the composer whom the young Bach famously walked hundreds of kilometers to hear in person. Alongside these German masters are three English voluntaries by John Alcock, a genre characteristic of the English church tradition. The first half culminates in Bach's monumental Prelude and Fugue in C minor, BWV 546, where the legacy of the North German school is transformed into a mature and monumental artistic vision.

The second half focuses on English Baroque music alongside Bach. It opens with Jeremiah Clarke's celebrated Trumpet Voluntary—long attributed to Henry Purcell and also known as the Prince of Denmark's March—followed by a selection of works by Purcell himself, the central figure of English Baroque music. Two galliards by John Dowland take the listener one step further back, into the late Renaissance world of lute music. Framing this English repertoire are two of Bach's great organ masterpieces: the Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548 and the Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543.

This organ recital offers an opportunity to hear how the shared language of the Baroque—improvisatory fantasy, polyphony, and variations over a basso ostinato—takes on distinct voices in the German and English traditions, while both ultimately converge in the towering figure of Johann Sebastian Bach.