On the face of it, this looks like just another organ recital, but in reality it celebrates the remarkable philanthropy of a small Alsatian community who have collectively funded, over nine years, a beautiful organ in Saessolsheim in the north of Alsace. Here it is played by a local son, Francis Jacob, an accomplished young player whose programme is an imaginative cross-section of Bach’s organ works. He is not afraid to play a fugue without a prelude if he feels it serves the greater architectural good of the programme. Indeed, his ideals of passing through carefully ordered genres, keys and colourific possibilities are engaging and perceptive. Layers of inner reference operate in a fashion not unlike Leo van Doeselaar’s inspired inclusion of 17th-century motets on chorale tunes with which the composer prefaced his performances from the Clavier-Ubung III. Here, the project is more organ-based, self-consciously designed to show off the kaleidoscopic possibilities of Bernard Aubertin’s responsive instrument (albeit with some rather rough-edged voicing). As with Van Doeselaar, a chorale in a different form illuminates Bach’s own arrangement. Here, two congregational singers with almost deliberately parochial voices provide the community spirit. The mezzo is arrestingly natural, bringing out the communicative essence of the chorale.
As for Jacob’s playing, one is struck by the ebullience and vitality of his fast playing, rhythmically assured and with a strong feel for instrumental timbre, not just organ sound – the key to discovering allusions and subtexts as the Bach player must. Lift and immediacy of articulation prevail over endless swathes of legato. How refreshing it is to hear such glowing colours in the opening chorale prelude, Valet will ich dir geben (a work with some striking formal similarities to Komm, heiliger Geist which opens the ‘18’ Leipzig chorale-prelude set).
For all its invigorating quality, however, there is a tendency in Jacob’s playing to resist the poetic instinct, as if he is mistaking it for indulgence. Schmucke dich sounds unyielding, calculated and even wearing. He produces an idiosyncratic equivalent in the middle movement of the Trio Sonata in C major (what possessed him to break this restful melody up into little squares?), and yet all is forgiven in a deeply touching O Lamm Gottes, a chorale marvellously disguised as a taut canonic web irradiating ethereal harmonic consequences – this is where the expressive effect of dissonance is more at consonance with the underlying conceit than consonance could ever be! Jacob rattles off Allein Gott with supreme dexterity, and the dazzling upper partials are further evident in a compellingly neurotic reading of the A minor Prelude. The programme of two short CDs ends with the E flat St Anne Fugue, not as grand or mature in conception as Van Doeselaar’s, but carefully considered and, like most of this recording, it conveys a notably immediate, ‘one-off’ and animated musical presence. I know I’ll come back to this