At St. Wenzel's Church in the small city of Naumburg in eastern Germany (about 30 miles from Leipzig), Robert Clark makes the very first recording on the newly-restored 1746 Zacharias Hildebrandt organ. A "graduate" of the Gottfried Silbermann workshop, Hildebrandt and J. S. Bach, cantor at St. Thomas in Leipzig, had struck up a friendship based on Bach's admiration of Hildebrandt's organ at the church in nearby Störmtal. When St. Wenzel's Church experienced difficulties with the 30-year-old there, Hildebrandt repaired it. By 1743, he had a contract to build a new organ of 52 stops for the church and he completed it in three years. There is strong evidence that Bach had been influential in the choice of Hildebrandt to build the organ; Bach and Gottfried Silbermann examined it on behalf of the church. Over the ensuing 250 years, many changes to the organ occurred, especially in 1933. The $2.5 million restoration began in 1993 and entrusted to the Eule firm of Bautzen. The restored organ was dedicated in December, 2000. The very informative, 32-page CD booklet relates much information about the organ and its history, and establishes the strong argument that no other organ connected with Bach, whether the organ survives or not, has such "inestimable significance as an ideal 'Bach organ' . . . That of all those organs, it is this very one that not only has survived, but may again be heard just as Bach heard it when he first played it in 1746 — this has to be accounted a miracle of the highest order," writes Quentin Faulkner in the CD booklet. In this 2-CD set (at the price of one CD), Robert Clark plays: J. S. Bach: Komm heiliger Geist, Herre Gott, BWV 651 Allein Gott in der Höh, sei Ehr, BWV 711, 717, 662, 676, 715 Concerto in D minor after Vivaldi, BWV 596 Ach, Gott und Herr, BWV 714 Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig, BWV 768 Liebster Jesu, wir sind hier, BWV 731 Toccata and Fugue in D minor, BWV 538 Herr Gott nun schleuß den Himmel auf, BWV 1092 Prelude and Fugue in C Major, BWV 545 Schmücke dich, o liebe Seele, BWV 654 Von Gott will ich nicht lassen, BWV 658 Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659, 660, 661 Nun freut euch, lieben Christen g'mein, BWV 734 Prelude and Fugue in B minor, BWV 544 An Wasserflüssen Babylon, BWV 653 Prelude and Fugue in E minor, BWV 548 |