This Dutch production was made in close cooperation with Philips and Marantz Europe, who are headquartered in Holland. Five Schoeps mikes were used for the five-channel Pyramix System DSD recording, using Ed Meitner's convertors. The recording engineer gets two pages in the booklet to talk about his approach to recording these works. The site was the RC Bartholomeus Church in Zevenbergen, which has a rich acoustic. The philosophy of recording was to bring the atmosphere of the venue to the listener by retaining the ambience. This meant micing at more distance from the organ pipes. As a result, in silences between tracks you can hear the sound of the pneumatic pump and at times the action of the organ itself. The idea is for the softer passages to float in the church's ambience but for the climaxes to never blow one away.
Sonically the production is entirely successful, and the listener can concentrate on the realistic feeling of sitting in the church during the performance of this cycle of preludes and fugues inspired by Bach's original. Normally heard on the piano (Keith Jarrett has one of the best versions out), organist Ras decided that not only were the works flexible for different keyboards (as were Bach's) but some even sounded better on the organ than the piano. There were many decisions to be made regarding registrations - which of course are not used with the piano. The process was like orchestrating Shostakovich's piano works - selecting the appropriate timbres for each voice or section. There are more than 300 changes of register on the SACD, and very few edits were made in an effort to preserve the flow of the performances.
Definitely not a recording to be replayed through 'diddy-sized' speakers
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