The organ used for this recording, located in St. Marien in Osnabrück, was designed by Dirk Andries Flentrop and Traugott Timme and completed in 1967.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Bach's "Clavier Übung" cycles, including this one, were intended as spiritual exercises for understanding the theological content and subtle word-music relationship in his work, not merely as technical etudes.
Compositional Technique
Bach's chorale setting "Dies sind die heil'gen zehen Gebot" uses an octave canon with ten chorale lines to symbolize the Old and New Testaments, pointing to Christ as the fulfillment of the law.
Performer Biography
Carsten Zündorf, the organist on this recording, has been the civic director of church music at St. Marien in Osnabrück since 2006 and has recorded a CD series of Bach's organ music.
Compositional Technique
In "Jesus Christus, unser Heiland" BWV 688, Bach uses a theme that is simultaneously in its original form, melodic inversion, and retrograde motion, allegorizing Christ turning away God's wrath.
Composition History
Johann Sebastian Bach published his "Third Part of the Clavier Übung" in 1739, a year when Leipzig celebrated Martin Luther's reformation of liturgy and theology.
Compositional Technique
The "Third Part of the Clavier Übung" is structured around the number three, honoring the Trinity of God, with three themes in its opening prelude and three times three chorale settings.
