In a church in a quiet northern Italian town, Alice Castello, survives a hidden jewel: an organ dating from 1749, perfect for Bach’s organ music.

The latest release on the acclaimed VIVAT label, performed by renowned Italian organist Luca Guglielmi, presents a remarkable programme of some of Bach’s finest keyboard works, performed on the organ in the Chiesa di San Nicolao, Alice Castello.

Guglielmi’s striking Bach programme is compiled from works collected by two eighteenth century scholars, Padre Martini and Friedrich Wilhelm Rust, that would surely have been heard in the famous Abbey of Montecassino, a magnet for musical travellers on ‘The Grand Tour’. Martini and Rust played a major role in the creation of the first collected edition of Bach’s works.

The vivid sound of the unique surviving eighteenth century Italian organ in San Nicolao, Alice Castello, and the equally stunning acoustic of the church, is brilliantly captured in this new VIVAT release.

Extensive presentation includes 44 page booklet with authoritative liner note in four languages (English, Italian, French & German), together with illustrations and session photographs, as well as comprehensive details of this unique eighteenth century organ.