Selected Works Vol. 1: Organ Book

C.P.E. Bach's organ works demand serious musicianship while remaining genuinely playable at an intermediate to advanced level. These pieces showcase unexpected harmonic movement and rhetorical gestures that keep both performer and listener engaged, making them ideal repertoire for organists who want to move beyond purely functional liturgical music into genuine artistic expression.

These pieces inhabit an expressive middle ground between the contrapuntal rigor of the elder Bach and the galant elegance of the emerging Classical period. They sparkle with unexpected harmonic turns, lyrical passages that sing across the manuals, and moments of genuine intellectual engagement that reward careful practice.

Intermediate to advanced organists seeking repertoire beyond standard liturgical fare. This collection serves students preparing recitals, church musicians expanding their artistic reach, and organists interested in the historical bridge between Baroque keyboard idiom and Classical style.

• Approach each movement as a conversation between different manual registrations; prepare your stop changes in advance and mark them clearly in the score so transitions feel intentional rather than mechanical.
• The harmonic language shifts dramatically from phrase to phrase, so shape each section with clear rhetorical intention rather than letting the musical argument drift.
• Balance the keyboard texture across manuals; these works rarely sit comfortably on a single manual and benefit from the conversation between great and swell divisions.

Program individual movements from this collection as recital openers or interludes, allowing audiences to discover a major keyboard composer many know only by reputation. These works also serve well in mixed-repertoire recitals pairing Baroque, Classical, and Romantic organ literature, demonstrating the continuity of the keyboard tradition across centuries.

• Independent manual coordination and dialogue between keyboard divisions
• Harmonic analysis of unexpected chromatic movement and voice leading
• Expressive gesture and rhetorical phrasing within keyboard texture
• Registration planning and stop changes that serve musical intent
• Stylistic awareness of pre-Classical keyboard writing