January 2: The Six Trio Sonatas BWV 525-530 (David Goodenough, organ)

I prefer Bach performances with a strong sense of forward propulsion. It’s gotta move! I’m not necessarily referring to tempo, but rather to high articulation and clarity of each melodic line while still pushing the beat.

A few years ago I heard Evan Shinners’ recording of these Organ Sonatas adapted for piano. They’re great, and driving in the way I like, but there is also a relentlessness in the playing that feels overwhelming after a long listen.

So I turned to the original organ versions, and did the fun thing where you can listen to dozens of different versions of a piece on Apple Music. (I find it fun! If you’re here, so do you?) Pretty quickly you learn what you like and what you don’t — sometimes you know the performance is like a wet sock on a stone floor, and you can just skip to the next performance, no harm no foul, it’s amazing.

The organist who most captured my ears was David Goodenough, whose recordings of the Six Trio Sonatas for Organ are lively and bright. They’re performed on an 18th century organ in a German church, and the sound is huge and warm.

These sonatas all blast off with strong melodies that Bach puts through the spin cycle. Here’s are the opening licks from Trio Sonata #1 (BWV 525) and #2 (BVW 526) which frame out the entire pieces that follow, including hints of the recapitulations to come:

525:

526:

The highlight movement of these works is the Andante of Trio Sonata #4 (BWV 528). This is one of the all-time great pieces of music, so beautiful and surprising throughout:

A bonus: The pianist Vikingur Olafsson released this dramatic video of a piano transcription of that Andante movement, which must have went viral at some point (3MM+ views!). This performance benefits from the broader dynamics of the piano, and of course Vikingur’s extraordinary tone and musicality:

Bonus two: Here’s David Goodenough playing some Bach at Westminster Abbey. I love the acrobatics involved, and how he has to sometimes peek at his feet: