Franz Liszt called Saint-Saëns the best organist of his time; despite all of his acclaim as a pianist and of course as a composer in major capitals, the French considered him an organist first. Saint- Saëns didn’t object; in fact, after performing piano concerti with orchestra, it was to the organ he would often turn for his obligatory encore. And quite frequently his encore was, as it turns out, the next piece on today’s program, the Prelude and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 543 of J.S. Bach. 

What is it about this piece? It wasn’t only Saint- Saëns who revered it. His friend Liszt arranged it as a solo piano work, touring with it. Both Clara and Robert Schumann championed it as a piano showcase, as did Fanny Mendelssohn, while her brother Felix was happy to include it regularly in his organ recitals. The same could be said of very few other organ pieces of its time. The famous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor comes to mind; it similarly thrived in alternate iterations. Perhaps not surprisingly, the two works share much in common. They both give us what we tend to want from organ pieces: bursts of virtuosity (showy passages), catchy themes and melodies, hypnotic rhythm, contrapuntal brilliance, and a flourish (called a coda) at the end. They were both likely written in the first decade of the 18th century, when Bach was still a young man. 

But what else, finally, is it about this piece? Well, perhaps there’s another reason it was much beloved of Saint-Saëns and others in the 19th century. It may be the piece in which Bach reveals himself, much as Saint-Saëns would 150 years later, as one finding a voice for a nascent tradition; where he shows himself to be one with a rare ability and desire to reconcile—to bring together beloved traditions and thus to create something broadly comprehensive. The word often used in describing Bach’s ultimate project as a natural synthesist is “universal.” And while we hear the term used most often in reference to his great final works, we find its raw, exciting roots here in this piece. It’s French music and it’s Italian music and more than anything else, it is very German music. 

And so as we hear this piece we can close our eyes and take a trip back to the court of Louis XIV and his close companion, the musician Jean-Baptiste Lully, and hear the disciplined, driving dance beat that stood at the heart of their distinctively French project. We can imagine ourselves back in Vivaldi’s world, hearing his concerti, virtuoso vehicles for the most skilled performers, and beholding their intensity alongside the vivid, pictorial, deeply vocal quality that runs through much of Italy’s music and which so fascinated the young Bach. More than anything else, we can take ourselves back to the young Bach’s world— the world of organ improvisation, of the liturgy, of the masters such as Buxtehude whose work is filled with such spontaneity alongside such strict contrapuntal discipline. Bach somehow had the skill to bring all of this together, to sum up all that had gone before. And he did it here. 

Program notes by Alan Murchie