Luogo e data di registrazione		Lutherse Kerk, Haarlem (Holland) - 31 Agosto / 1 Settembre 1992
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Producer / Recording supervisor		Wolf Erichson
	Recording Engineer / Editing		Stephan Schellmann (Tritonus)
	Prima Edizione LP		Nessuna
	Edizione CD		Sony "Vivarte" | LC 6868 | SK 53 114 | 1 CD - durata 63' 22" | (p) 1993 | DDD
	Cover Art		"Der junge Gelehrte und seine Schwester" by Gonzales Coques.
	Note		-

Georg Böhm was horn in the Thuringian village of Hohenkirchen near Ohrdruf on Septemher 2, 1661. He was the son of the local schoolmaster and organist, Balthasar Böhm, whose wife Martha, née Schambach, hailed from an equally musical family. Following his father's early death, Böhm enrolled at the Lateinschule at Goldbach and, from 1678, at the Gymnasium at Gotha. He matriculated at the University of Jena on August 28, 1684. Nothing else is known about his studies there, or about his musical development, although a glance at the flourishing musical scene in Central Germany at this time, with its countless Kantors and organists, suggests that it is here that the roots of his musicianship lie. His earliest links with northern Germany were forged during his years of study in Jena. It is clear from the University’s records, for example, that two of his fellow students were from Hamburg, where their fathers were active in the city’s principal churches, the Katharinenkirche and the Nikolaikirche. With the completion of his studies in Jena we lose all trace of Böhm for a number of years. We know only that at some date after 1690 - and certainly by April 1693, when his second son was baptized - he had settled in St. Jacobi, one of Hamburg's five parishes, each of which was named after one of the city’s five main churches. Although Böhm never held the post of organist in Hamhurg, he was unanimously elected organist of the Johanniskirche in Lüneburg on August 30, 1698, a post which he retained until his death on May 18, 1733. Although nothing definite is known about Böhm’s musical training, his works contain evidence of a numher of different influences. Further indications come from the manuscript sources of his works, which have survived only in the form of copies: there are no extant holographs. Moreover, although the earliest influences on Böhm must date back to his days at school and university in Central Germany, even his early works survive only in copies made during his Lünehurg years. There is no doubt that a considerable influence on the young Böhm was exercised by Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706), who from 1678 to 1690 was organist at the Predigerkirche in Erfurt, a town situated only some sixteen miles distant from Gotha. It is entirely conceivable that Böhm visited Erfurt during the summer of 1684, while on his way to Jena. Pachelbel's influence is particular clear in the case of Böhm's chorale partite, many of which have survived in the same manuscript sources as Pachelbel’s own works. Chorale partite are variations on a church anthem or hymn and, in Böhm's day, were normally intended for domestic consumption. Today, by contrast, they are generally played on the organ and, therefore, in church. All the works recorded here, however, are harpsichord pieces, as is clear from the low A’ in Ach wie nichtig, ach wie flüchtig. (The organ keyboard extended only down to C.) Moreover, the low A’ suggests that it was a relatively large harpsichord which was used. Equally typical of harpsichord writing is the ending of Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten: with its broken chords and octave intervals in the bass, the presto section is designed to bring the work to a brilliant, resounding conclusion, an effect which the sudden change of tempo helps to underline. It is Böhm's chorale partite, above all, that demonstrably influenced Johann Sebastian Bach. With his move to Hamburg - a leading centre of music at this time - Böhm not only left behind his Central German homeland, he also found himself faced by a multiplicity of new impressions and stylistic trends associated with the rich north German tradition. In Hamburg there were important instrument makers, a long history of secular and religious music, an opera house, and churches with splendid organs. The co-founder of the "Oper am Gänsemarkt", the elderly Johann Adam Reincken (1623-1722), was organist at the Katharinenkirche, which boasted a magnificent, four-manual instrument. Arp Schnitger (1648-1719) had been active in the city since 1682 and was responsible for four-manual organs at the Nikolaikirche (1682-87) and Jacobikirche (1689-93). Another composer on friendly terms with Reincken was the Lübeck organist, Dietrich Buxtehude (c.1637-1707). Like Reincken, Buxtehude had written a number of keyboard suites playable on either harpsichord or clavichord which adopted the four-movement form - allemande, courante, sarabande and gigue - established by Johann Jacob Froberger (1616-1667). Böhm himself must have known at least some of these suites, since the majority of his own suites are similar not only in their structure but also in their use of certain features such as the “style brisé”, a style whose origins may be sought in French lute music. In much the same way, the variation technique that Böhm uses in the Allemande and Courante of his F minor Suite is clearly indebted to these models. Of particular interest, here is an anonymous volume published by Étienne Roger of Amsterdam, it contains not only the F minor Suite recorded here but also three Fugues by Pachelbel, two works by Reincken and at least one Suite that can be attributed with some certainty to Buxtehude. Whereas the final movement of the F minor Suite is headed Ciaccona in the manuscript source, it is described as a Passacaille in Rogers printed version, thereby providing yet further proof of the terminological confusion that existed between the chaconne and passacaglia as genres. This final movement replaces the gigue in Böhm's Suite, which is otherwise orientated to north Gertnan stylistic models. The clavichord was much esteemed in Germany as a domestic instrument, a popular and viable alternative to the lute, which was itself often used in suites. Harpsichord music of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries frequently sounds as good, if not better, on the sensitive clavichord, as may be heard on the present release, where both the E-flat major and C minor Suites have been recorded on such an instrument. According to research undertaken by Jean-Claude Zehnder and published in the “Bach-Jahrbuch 1988", Böhm was active at the Hamburg Opera, where he was introduced to French taste by Lully's pupil, Johann Sigismund Kusser (1660-1727) Kusser had published six orchestral overtures (or suites) in 1682 in his Composition de musique suivant la Méthode Françoise. Böhm’s D major Suite differs in two respects from the other suites discussed hitherto. In the first place, it is generally regarded as the first surviving example of an overture suite for harpsichord (a form which had previously been the preserve of orchestral music), the cycle being modelled on the French ballet suite, with a French-style overture (slow - fast - slow) followed by a series of dance movements. Second, the piece also differs from Böhm's other harpsichord works from a technical point of view, inasmuch as it is less obviously suited to the keyboard. The solution to this mystery may be found in the workls only source, the socalled “Andreas-Bach-Buch", which suggests, in all likelihood, that the D major Suite is a harpsichord transcription of an earlier orchestral piece. The original is by Böhm, the transcription possibly by Johann Sebastian Bach’s elder brother, Johann Christoph (1671-1721), who was responsible for compiling the manuscript as a whole. We are dealing here with the same kind of elaborate adaptation as that undertaken by Johann Sebastian Bach himself when transcribing other composers’ concertos for solo harpsichord or organ. The D major Capriccio falls into three thematically related, fugue-like sections. The sense of tension is increased by the fact that each section has a different tempo marking, so that the music seems to accelerate, before being brought to a purposeful conclusion. Böhm's G minor Prelude is his most original contribution to the harpsichord repertory, its composition being very much "sui generis". G minor chords sprout forth, so to speak, from a pedal point on G; cadenzas, modulations and sequences lead to D major, thence to F major and back to G minor. A brief, surprising and improvisatory Adagio section then follows, leading the musical development to a full cadence in D major, which gives way in turn to a magisterial Fugue, the subject of which is a richly decorated, descending line structured around five notes. The Fugue is followed by a series of virtuoso broken chords which appear, as it were, to mirror the opening, before majestically full-toned chords bring the work to an end. Harry Joelson-Strohbach (Translation: © 1993 Stewart Spencer)