A duet from Bach's cantata "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" arranged for organ and a solo instrument

Ausra and I are preparing for our new organ duet recital on November 18 and are on the look out for the delightful pieces to play together.

What can be more delightful than arias from J.S. Bach's cantatas? They are so beautiful and rather seldom heard. So the plan is to arrange for the organ duet a few of the arias from such beloved cantatas as "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott", BWV 80, Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben", BWV 147, Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme", BWV 140 and others.

Arranging the arias from cantatas is nothing new. Bach himself created the collection of 6 Schubler chorales out of some of his cantatas.

While I was doing this (and enjoying playing with Ausra what I have arranged so far), I thought that some of our students would love to play them too. But not every organist has a partner organist around.

So what can you do? Luckily a lot of people are still making music together but not as organ duet. Maybe with a friend or a spouse who plays a solo instrument.

This is a duet "Alles was von Gott geboren", BWV 80/2 by J.S. Bach from Cantata "Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott" arranged for organ and solo treble instrument (oboe, flute, trumpet, violin, etc.) (full score - 6 pages, solo part - 2 pages). Let me know if you need a solo part for a transposing instrument. 

The organ part has a real trio texture. In the original scoring, the pedal part is played by the cello, violone, maybe bassoon, harpsichord or continuo organ. The left hand is sung by the bass soloist. The right hand part is played by the violin and the solo part - by the soprano solo and embellished by the oboe. Here's a nice recording of this music.

​When you play it, try to imitate the sounds that these performers make on the organ and let me know, how your experience with this delightful duet goes.

You can check out the score here.