Classical Music | Piano Music

Johann Sebastian Bach

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645 from Cantata BWV 140  Play

Heidi Louise Williams Piano

Recorded on 02/13/2007, uploaded on 01/26/2009

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimmer, BWV 645 from Cantata BWV140       Johann Sebastian Bach

The great piano virtuoso Ferruccio Busoni was known for his lifelong involvement with the music of J. S. Bach.  Among his greatest contributions as a composer are the celebrated piano transcriptions of select works of Bach, which include his arrangement of Ten Chorale Preludes published in 1898, which Busoni took from a variety of Bach's organ chorale prelude sets.   'Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme' (originally from Bach's Cantata which bears the same title, BWV 140) offers rich organ-like sonorities and broad dimensions of counterpoint.  Philipp Nicolai's original 1599 chorale melody projects through the piano's middle register, as it weaves between the steady marching of bass octaves and the enchanting countermelody played by the right hand.      Heidi Louise Williams