I’m not sure yet. Listened to it once so far and I feel a bit underwhelmed. I understand al the fuss about the person, but I think I’m able to separate that from the music – his last few albums were pretty good. But in this case, I can’t escape comparing it to the original. And I think I prefer Bruce’s album. What I think of it in its own right? I think I’ll need a couple more listenings.
It’s not that I always prefer the original per se. For example, I don’t Like Taylor Swift’s “1989” at all, and think Ryan’s cover of the entire album is vastly superior.
I’ll take a pass for now. I liked what he did with 1989, but I don’t get excited by his original efforts. I’m going to go with my first instinct which is to not bother. If you’d said “Exceptional!” I might have given it a listen.
Couldn’t resist this. But in fact I thank you Ged, because for some reason I always end up preferring and playing Rain Dogs over Swordfishtrombones, whereas I certainly think it’s (also) a masterpiece. Thanks for making me play it again!
I took my son to a Classic Album Sundays event and during the warm up Colleen put on a Tom Waits track. I said, I thought sotto Voce, to my son that I can’t stand TW, apparently there were a lot of people who felt the same in the crowd.
The discovery of this and related albums brought a big smile on my face… The combination of musical beauty and taste, together with sheer purity of sound, make these albums a standout.
Wolfgang Rübsam was born in 1946 in Germany, where he studied piano and organ with Helmut Walcha at the Musikhochschule in Frankfurt. He did additional studies with Marie-Claire Alain in France and Robert T. Anderson in Dallas. In 1973 he won several prestigious prices as interpreter, and only a year later, at the age of 28, was appointed as professor of sacred music and organ at Northwestern University. He counts with more than 130 recordings and is an internationally respected expert for the music of Bach.
Fast forward to 2016, when the well-reputed American instrument maker Keith Hill made for Rübsam a one-manual Lautenwerk, very much as Bach is known to have owned. From the linked description by Keith Hill:
That brings me to the present Lautenwerk used in this recording. It has only one manual, with one set of gut strings and two sets of jacks to pluck the same 8’ set of gut strings in two different places: one, positioned farther from the nut, for producing a flutey, hooty sound and the other, closer to the nut, for a more nasal timbre. This present lautenwerk also has a brass 4’ set of strings that are there purely for the sympathetic vibration, similar to the effect heard on a Viola d’Amore. That set of 4’ brass strings adds the aliquot “halo” effect because it causes the rather dry sound of the gut strings to have much more of a singing quality. Thus one might be tempted to call this lautenwerk a “Lautenwerk d’Amore”.
Since 2017, Wolfgang Rübsam has released a series of albums playing on this instrument, from which I have selected Bach’s French Suites. These pieces with their dance movements I find particularly well adapted for the sound of the Lautenwerk. Rübsam also has released recordings with transcriptions of the violin sonatas and partitas and cello suites, amongst several more. These are recordings well worth exploring…
But in fact I thank you Ged, because for some reason I always end up preferring and playing Rain Dogs over Swordfishtrombones, whereas I certainly think it’s (also) a masterpiece. Thanks for making me play it again! 
