A Good Dose of Bach

Now that we have DSL, I can listen to music and watch those YouTube videos easily (I know...I'm so behind the times). The other day I was talking about organs, as I’d love to see a small, simple Allen organ in our church someday, and Sam argued with me that we already have one. We don’t: we have a Clavinova (a full-size Yamaha keyboard), so I was trying to describe what a real organ is. Apparently not doing a very good job, I remembered how easy it is for me to find something online and found a real showman's rendition of Bach’s Fugue in D Major. It was great to see my boys bouncing up and down and dancing to Bach organ music! That also led to a neat little video of the same song along with some commentary on Bach by a young German (who speaks very good English, I might add), who did a marvelous job playing it on a simply beautiful pipe organ.

Sharing the videos with Brewmaster that evening, he asked if this was a piece I ever learned: yeah, right. I wish. I told him of my last big Bach piece that I never quite mastered, Fugue in G Minor, aka “Little Fugue” (which really isn't that little). Trying to find a good recording of it on YouTube was very difficult, but alas I finally found one with an “air-organ” performer—the way I have to settle for playing real organ music these days. It’s rather amusing! He has good technique and is really playing it on his desk, although the video is a couple beats ahead of the audio, but when he brings in the first pedal line it’s almost together. A bit goofy, but at least it was a good audio recording and I was able to relive the good ol’ days of when my fingers were in better shape.

I can’t leave you with just that, though. After listening to the organ recording, you simply must listen to another I never thought I’d hear….ever. It will blow your mind!