J S Bach S Great Eighteen Organ Chorales

This work explores Bach's great eighteen organ chorales - among Bach's most celebrated works for organ - from a wide range of historical and analytical perspectives, including the models used by Bach in conceiving the individual pieces.

On the 250th anniversary of the composer's death, this volume offers an in-depth look at the "Great Eighteen" organ chorales, among the most celebrated works for organ, and a milestone in the history of the chorale. Addressed to organists, scholars, and general listeners alike, this lucid and engaging book examines the music from a wide spectrum of historical and analytical perspectives. Stinson examines the models used by Bach in conceiving the original pieces, his subsequent compilation of these works into a collection, and his compositional process as preserved by the autograph manuscript. Himself an accomplished organist, Stinson also considers various issues of performance practice and concludes with a discussion of the music's reception--its dissemination in manuscript and printed form, its performance history, and its influence on later composers. Completely up-to-date and presenting a wealth of new material, much of it translated into English for the first time, this study will open up fresh perspectives on some of the composer's greatest creations.

In this penetrating study, Russell Stinson considers how four of the greatest composers of the nineteenth century-Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt, and Johannes Brahms-responded to the model of Bach's organ music. His book represents a major step forward in the literature on the so-called Bach revival.

Marcel Dupre prepared these short works, not as "another version" of the famous chorales and chorale preludes of J. S. Bach, but rather as a means of making the beginning organist aware of the beautiful chorale melodies and to prepare him or her for the study of Bach’s works. Included are registration suggestions, fingering, pedaling notation, and dynamics. This is an important book for the development of the organist’s technical and artistic skills, and at the same time for the presentation of beautiful organ chorales.

In J. S. Bach at His Royal Instrument, author Russell Stinson delves into various unexplored aspects of the organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach. Drawing on previous research and new archival sources, he sheds light on many of the most mysterious aspects of these masterpieces, and their reception, and shows how they have remained a fixture of Western culture for nearly three hundred years.