L on Berben - Toccatas - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

It is no trifling thing for a keyboard artist to perform and record the 48, both books of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in their entirety. There's more to it than conquering the technical difficulties, which are formidable in themselves. A sense of awe must fill the soul of an artist as he or she stands before a musical Olympus. The commitment requires not just every fiber of physical strength and energy the artist is capable of marshaling, but a dedication to the belief that in the struggle and perseverance to reach the summit lies the triumph of the human spirit. The beginning of this review is it's end Niklas Sivelöv is such an artist. The rest is filler.

L on Berben - Von Allen Menschen Abgewandt [COMPACT DISCS] date 11/08/2005

?Very little is known about the life of Anthoni van Noordt. Following in the tradition of Jan Piertszoon Sweelinck, he was organist at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam from 1664. After the death of Dirck Sweelinck in 1652, the van Noordt family became Amsterdam's most important musical family. The van Hagerbeer organ in the Pieterskerk in Leiden, a large 17th-century Dutch city organ with a wide variety of stops, is particularly well suited for the performance of van Noordt's music. The organ still has many of the characteristics of a traditional Renaissance organ, but the earlier preference for strongly contrasting timbres has given way to greater homogeneity, generally tending towards a somewhat darker sound. Also new is the striving for solemnity and weight, expressed above all in the disposition of a 24' in the Hauptwerk and a Trompete 16' in the Pedal. The old variety of reed stops has disappeared, however, but there are still several higher stops such as Nasard 1½', Sifflet 1' and Tertiaan. Léon Berben offers us a colourful and lushly ornamented reading of van Noordt's 1659 Tabulatuurboeck van Psalmen en Fantasyen.