Bach’s Concerto No. 1 in D minor (BWV 1052) was originally composed for harpsichord. But the brilliant Latvian organist Iveta Apkalna together with the Frankfurt Radio Symphony orchestra here play it in a magnificent adaptation for the pipe organ, harpsichord, and string orchestra, recorded live in February 2020.

Iveta Apkalna is in a league all her own. Since 2017, she has served as the titular organist of the Klais organ at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, Germany. For anybody who does not know what this means: The Elbphilharmonie is Hamburg’s new flagship concert hall with exceptional acoustics designed by the world-renowned acoustician Yasuhisa Toyota. The handmade organ in this remarkable hall has 69 registers and its 4765 pipes are “sitting,” as it were, among the listeners in the auditorium. The audience is completely engulfed by the sound whose acoustic waves are not just audible but become physically palpable.

This concert was not recorded in the Elbphilharmonie, but it lets us, for a moment, step into the great soundscape created by the musical mind of master composer Johann Sebastian Bach.

Related:

Wikipedia entry on the Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052

Organist Iveta Apkalna’s homepage

German article about the Klais Organ in the Elbphilharmonie

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