Herr Händel was german.

Werckstarck

Werckstarckn

That’s not by Handel!

10:30 gets me right in the feels.

@@ruperttmls7985 Of course it's not; where have I said the contrary?

I think , it´s a fugue.. The voices need not be independed on 100% of time and fugues of french romantic era seems more questionabled

Yes, it is a fugue. Händel prescribes a fugue here, but it is not written. Händel himself must have improvised a fugue here, as Richter also may have done. Herbert Tachezi, the organist on Harnoncourt's recording also improvises a fugue here. On other recordings the organist plays a slow movement of one of Händel's works.

If this was recorded when I think it was, late 1960s or very early 1970s, Richter was losing his eyesight and probably didn't have a lot to smile about.

David Griffiths it is sad to know this...

Richter deliberately did not smile when playing the organ. In an interview he tells that this is what his organ mentor and teacher Ramin in Leipzig had taught him: that emotion and feeling is to be expressed in the music, and not with "grimaces and other facial contortions". He has the same stoic expression no matter what he is playing. The same was true in his conducting: he deplored conductors who "gyrate and dance just to coax a crescendo". He preferred a minimalist approach to movement, and his musicians proudly said, "he conducted with his baton and his eyes". "He looked at us and we knew what he wanted." Amazing.

@@davidgriffiths7215 Richter began to have eyes problem in 1975, and he was successfully operated in 1978, but he had also an hereditary heart condition that caused his premature death in 1981, at only 54. These Handel concerts( op.4 and op.7) were played in 1970 in the Mozarteums Saal in Salzburg on the Arco Orgel.

Ja die Orgel Musik ist was ganz besonderes für mich, wenn es harmonisch gespielt wird.