‘J.S. Bach, Concertos for Organ and Strings’

In all likelihood, Bach never actually composed a Concerto for Organ and Strings. Nevertheless, in 1725 Bach played a concert on the Silbermann organ in the Sophienkirche in Dresden. If we are to believe a newspaper article, the German grandmaster apparently played ‘various concertos with sweet, underlying instrumental music’. The exact music that Bach played is not known, but it’s quite possible that he combined several sinfonias. Bach wrote eighteen cantatas in which he deployed the organ as a solo instrument in the sinfonias. Bart Jacobs, titular organist at the cathedral in Brussels, took up the challenge of reconstructing virtuoso organ concertos using these sinfonias. The CD was warmly received and won national and international accolades, including the Diapason d'Or de L'année 2019 and the Klara Award for the Best Belgian CD 2019.