Having greatly enjoyed Nicholas Danby's previous foray into Bach for Sony Classical (CBS, 6/90) I was delighted to be sent this new release which inaugurates the mid-price Sony Digital Club. The publicity outlining the objectives of this series talks about remastering earlier recordings to give them ''that extra plus''—indeed the disc is marked DDD+—but this is a brand new recording appearing in the catalogue for the first time.
My only real criticism with the 1990 disc was an appallingly inadequate booklet. Documentation has been improved for the present issue with a substantial note about the music by Sven Hiemke and a short piece describing the organ by Danby himself: but no printed specification—a serious omission. The programme is well balanced and cleverly planned, although there is no justification for playing BWV731 twice, no matter how beautiful it sounds or how sensitively Danby plays it.
The organ makes a wonderful sound, possessing a gloriously meaty Pleno and some lovely solo stops, and Danby's registrations are clearly designed to give a comprehensive picture of the instrument's tonal resources—including a grotesquely out-of-tune Vox Humana for An Wasserflussen Babylon. His performances are thoroughly rewarding; sensitive but never overindulgent in the smaller pieces, strong, enormously self-assured in the larger works (I do find his very deliberate articulation in the C major Prelude and the B minor Fugue rather wearing on the ear). Better ears than mine might be able to detect that 'extra plus' in the recording, but it is sufficiently vivid to do full justice to both organ and player. My hope is we don't have to wait another five years for Danby's next Bach disc. R1 '9505085'