The most famous scion of a musical family which stretched across at least ten generations, Johann Sebastian Bach had a very strong sense of history, tradition, and his evolving place in it, and was instrumental in curating and adding to the library of the music of the Bachs, which was known as the Altbachisches Archiv. This archive mostly comprises vocal music; now the Italian organist has created a fascinating instrumental counterpart, with short organ works by ten members of the family ranging from Heinrich Bach (1615–1692) to Wilhelm Friedemann Ernst Bach (1779–1845). And so, during the course of the disc, we move, always guided by the constraints of Protestant thought and liturgy, through austere low Baroque chorales to spectacular, late-Classical fantasias.
00:00:00 Chorale ‘Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott’ (Psalm 51)
00:02:45 Prelude and Fugue in E-Flat Major: I. Prelude
00:04:15 Prelude and Fugue in E-Flat Major: II. Fuge