With 47 pages of detailed information (in four languages) on the music, the performer and the instrument, the booklet with this CD is so large I find I cannot replace it into the jewel-case without it either being torn to shreds or the plastic guides in the case’s cover snapping off. Yet I certainly don’t begrudge such a mine of fascinating information, even if the English translation is horribly unidiomatic. In such a weighty tome I almost missed the tiny blue line buried deep into page 46 which explains the peculiar changes to BWV540. This impressively muscular, visually and aurally arresting 1995 organ has a foreshortened pedal board which renders the top three notes required in the second of the Toccata’s mammoth pedal solos, as well as later in the work, unplayable. Bryndorf sidesteps the problem by missing bits out and transposing others, but the question remains; was it really a good idea to record this work on an organ incapable of meeting its demands?
It certainly was a splendid idea to entrust this entire programme to a player of the calibre of Bine Katrine Bryndorf. This 30-year-old Danish organist (new to me, I must confess) plays in a style which can best be described as ‘chunky’. By concentrating on the vertical rather than the horizontal aspects of Bach’s writing she throws it all into a quite different and, for my money, far from unattractive perspective. The music’s architecture is emphasized while its emotional content is greatly toned down. There are, nevertheless, moments of real beauty (the tinkling cymbelstern throughout BWV717) as well as awesome power (the stirring BWV546), and all is recorded with great presence and weight. Another immensely worthwhile addition to Hanssler’s gargantuan Bach project.'