Complete Bach Organ Works to be Available as Free Downloads

Betsy Goolian, Editor, Michigan Muse

November 2007

James Kibbie, Professor of Organ at the University of Michigan School of Music, Theatre & Dance, is engaged in an ambitious undertaking, recording the complete organ works of Johann Sebastian Bach.

“This is the project of a lifetime,” says Kibbie, who is widely regarded as an authority on the performance of Bach’s organ works. “More than anything else, it will define my work as a Bach performer.”

When finished, the three-year project will make the complete canon of Bach organ works—some 270 compositions totaling approximately 18 hours—available as free Internet downloads. Many of the works are being performed on the original 18th-century Silbermann organs, which the composer himself played. Bach composed for organs ranging from the 17th-century North German instruments he admired in his youth to the mid-18th-century organs he himself helped design during his “Leipzig years.” For these recordings, Dr. Kibbie has selected instruments matched to the varying stylistic requirements of the Bach repertoire.

The first phase of the project, now completed, consists of 95 Bach works recorded on the organs of the Dresden Kathedrale and the Georgenkirche and Marienkirche in Rötha, Germany. Those recordings include the Leipzig Chorales, the Kimberger Chorales, and a variety of other works by Bach and are now available on Block M Records, a University of Michigan recording label managed by the School of Music, Theatre & Dance.

The Web site also includes information on the organs and the registration for each work. The remaining works in the Bach catalogue will be added in 2008 and 2009.