Bach’s Organ World
Though J.S. Bach’s musical interests were international, the organs he regularly played were all in central Germany. With the help of audiovisual aides, this paper introduces twelve instruments—organs that Bach knew and played, or that set standards for the performance of his music in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth centuries. These instruments include those at: Dresden Court Church, Pomssen village church, Störmthal village church, Naumburg St. Wenceslaus Church, Altenburg Castle Church, Tegkwitz village church, Halle Marktkirche (Reichel organ), Wittenberg Castle Church, Berlin ”Amalien-organ,”” Berlin Cathedral, Brandenburg Cathedral, and Tangermünde St. Stephen’s Church.
Quentin Faulkner is Larson Professor Emeritus of Organ and Music Theory/History at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where he taught organ and developed a series of courses in church music. During the winter semester 1998–1999, he was Fulbright Guest Professor at the Protestant College of Church Music, Halle/Saale, Germany. He has performed numerous organ recitals in the United States and in Europe, in particular on historically significant organs. He is the author of J.S. Bach’s Keyboard Technique: A Historical Introduction (1984); Wiser than Despair (1996), a book on the history of ideas in church music; and Basic Bach (1997), an edition of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein and three free works. Since 2008, he and his wife, Mary Murrell Faulkner, have led four Bach’s Organ World tours to Central Germany.