A distant relative and contemporary of J.S. Bach, Johann Gottfried Walther (1684-1748) is well known in musicological circles for the excellent manuscript copies he made of works by Bach, Buxtehude, and other important figures in the development of organ music. His own compositions are largely based on Lutheran chorales, while his Preludes and Fugues reveal varied influences. The spirited little F major fugue, for instance, could have stemmed from Pachelbel’s feather-pen, while the looser-knit D minor Preludio con fuga pays tribute to the North German school.
Like Bach, Walther arranged a handful of instrumental concertos for organ. The two Albinoni concerto transcriptions opening this disc, though, are not as musically interesting as the Gregori, Telemann, Gentilli, and Meck concertos also offered here. I suspect that Craig Cramer shares my sentiments, for he imbues these works with his perkiest fingerwork and most variegated registrations. For me, the large-scale Partita based on Jesu meine Freude is the most cohesive, sustained, and harmonically engaging work in this first volume of Naxos’ survey of Walther’s complete organ output. It receives a bracing, colorful, and forward-moving a performance to match. The engineering stresses clarity over ambience, all to the advantage of the St. Bonifacius Organ in Tröchtelborn and, of course, to Cramer’s lucid artistry. Recommended.
