The International Historical Organ Recording Collection

This is the 20th release and to celebrate this I’ve chosen different works by J. S. Bach played by five different organists. As you can see, there are two duplicates; the Alfred Sittard and Fernando Germani have already been released (IHORC-02 and IHORC-11) but the transfer was made from other 78rpms which are of a quality worth presenting here. Looking back over the 20 releases here on IHORC, it’s very clear that recording organ works J. S. Bach for an organist of that period was standard, and the repertoire is quite broad. Of course there are numerous versions of the famous Toccata and Fugue in d minor, but about all genres of his organ works are represented here in some form or another. All the organists tried their hands on the “big ones”, but they also ventured into the more elusive parts of his organ production, e.g. Heitmann recorded the “Kunst der Fuge”, Walcha the “Schübler Chorales” (on the other hand Walcha has recorded the complete works twice, so he is a little out of the...

Alfred Sittard was born in Stuttgart in 1878. He studied in Cologne under F. W. Franke and became organist at Dresden Kreuzkirche in 1903, then in 1912 organist at the Michaeliskirche in Hamburg. In 1925 he became professor of organ studies at Universität der Künste in Berlin, where he died in 1942. In his lifetime he was considered one of the foremost organ virtuosos in Germany, which these recordings clearly show. Due to his influence through his teaching post in Berlin, he is a direct connection to the Berlin Organ School of the late 19th century and early 20th century among others like Max Reger and Karl Straube. The solo recordings were recorded from 1928 to 1932. The first six tracks were recorded in Alten Garnisonkirche in Berlin and the others were recorded at the Walcker organ in Michaeliskirche in Hamburg. Alfred Sittard was involved in the construction of this 163 stop organ in 1912.The organ was heavily damaged during the Second World War and in 1962 the organ company Stein...