Dean Billmeyer’s double CD, Straube Plays Bach, was released in September 2018 on the Rondeau label, as well as on iTunes and Naxos.
Karl Straube, organist and later cantor of the Leipzig Thomaskirche, edited the second volume of the Peters edition of Bach’s organ works, containing ten of the composer’s pieces, for publication in 1913. The performance instructions in this volume represent a unique documentation of late-Romantic German performance practice. Billmeyer’s recording, made on two historic Wilhelm Sauer organs with tubular pneumatic action in Leipzig (Michaeliskirche) and Bad Salzungen (Stadtkirche), Germany, is the first ever of all ten works in Straube’s edition.
In connection with the project, Billmeyer gave a workshop on Bach, Straube, and late-Romantic interpretation jointly with Christopher Anderson of Southern Methodist University for the American Guild of Organists in Dallas, Texas, in April 2019. Billmeyer also led a masterclass on Bach and Straube in Leipzig at the Felix-Mendelssohn-Bartholdy Hochschule für Musik und Theatre in May 2019. He performed recitals at the Leipzig Michaeliskirche and at the Freiberg Petrikirche, home of Gottfried Silbermann’s largest two-manual organ.
