Charles-Marie Widor’s ten organ symphonies sit at the heart of his extensive oeuvre. They reveal Widor’s mastery of the form with their profundity, technical difficulty and sonorous color. Symphony No. 7, Op. 42, No. 3 inaugurated a new, orchestral approach to the genre and encompasses dreamlike sonorities, Chopinesque melancholy and majestic bravura. The Symphonie gothique, Op. 70 makes explicit reference to Gregorian chant, developing a kind of theological ‘programme music’ that is both austere and consolatory.

Michael Haydn’s colorful and inventive music is uplifting and expressive in equal measure, but his music has been eclipsed by that of his elder brother Joseph, and by Mozart. Sacred music is central to Michael Haydn’s oeuvre and was considered by some contemporary critics as superior to Joseph’s. Encompassing a broad range of textures and styles, parts of the Missa Sancti Nicolai Tolentini demonstrate Haydn’s music at its most exhilarating and energetic, and his supreme gift for empfindsames (‘sensitive’) lyrical writing is also to be heard in the Vespers.

Biographical information on NicoloÌ Corradini is scarce, but we do know he spent most of his life in Cremona, the city where he was most likely born. His works include a Book of Madrigals for 5 to 8 voices with viol consort (published in Venice in 1620), the First Book of French Canzoni (Venice, 1620), Motets for 1 to 4 voices (Bartolomeo Magni, Venice, 1624) and the 4-voice Ricercari recorded here, from 1615. The only surviving copy of this latter collection – held at the International Museum and Library of Music of Bologna – is missing its frontispiece and colophon, but according to Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini it was printed, like his Motets, in Venice by Bartolomeo Magni. This is the only set of Corradini’s music that fully lends itself to performance by a solo keyboard player, as the Canzoni are clearly better suited to a group of multiple instruments. Each of Corradini’s ricercars – which cover the full range of 12 church modes – is based on multiple themes (called fughe). This polythematism keeps hearers of these grandiose musical paintings intrigued with a variety that – while clearly based on the architecture of the 16th-century choral motet – at times goes beyond it in a way more akin to fugues of the early 18th century, decades ahead of his time.

Claudio Merulo (1533–1604) enjoyed great renown in his time. +
His famous Toccate expresses most vividly his considerable skill in the practice of intavolare diminuito. + These world premiere recordings present the entire corpus of Merulo’s Toccate: the 9 Toccate contained in the First Book of Toccate d’intavolatvra d’organo (1598), the 10 Toccate contained in the Second Book of Toccate d’intavolatura d’organo (1604) and the 7 manuscript Toccate drawn from the Nuova intavolatura d’organo tedesca.

On their first album featuring madrigals and canzonettas by Andrea Gabrieli, the WESER RENAISSANCE ensemble led by Manfred Cordes was already in its element. On SWR2 Radio Michael Stegemann commented: “A most highly entertaining and successful album. Perfect balance in the mixture of singers and winds, audio transparency of the polyphonic structures, great textual intelligibility.” And on the ensemble’s second Gabrieli release, now with madrigals, psalms, and organ works by this master delighting so much in experimentation, his intention and wish to offer intelligent entertainment to his fellow human beings are clearly shown. By 1566 at the latest, Andrea Gabrieli was appointed to the coveted post of organist at St. Mark’s Cathedral, and already during his lifetime he was esteemed in particular because of his enormous versatility.

Widor’s cycle of ten organ symphonies underwent profound development and transformation over many years. Classical elements became more obviously virtuosic and, by the time of these Op.42 symphonies, his musical language had become monumental. Symphony No. 5 in F minor is world famous for a single movement, its concluding Toccata, a moto perpetuo of astonishing brilliance, but the whole work is imbued with structural and musical genius. Striking rhythms, dynamic contrasts and technical roulades mark out Symphony No. 6 in G minor. Also included is a graceful movement from Symphony No. 8 (8.574207) that Widor later omitted.

The output of Marcel Dupré (1886-1971) is so vast and various that only scholars and fellow organists can expect to grasp its scale. Most listeners require a discerning ear to pull out some of the many highlights. The Italian organist Alessandro Perin has done so here, without confining himself to Dupré’s ‘greatest hits’, the characteristic pile-ups of chorale harmonies and torrents of semiquavers in toccatas and variations that find their natural home on the instruments of Cavaille-Coll as an apotheosis of the French Gothic organ style. Instead, Perin’s selection is more diverse. It begins with the Suite Op.39: four pieces originally written as part of a collection of 12 Studies, though they bear no trace of didacticism. Rather, there is a Lisztian quality of invention to their virtuosity, from the glittering cascades of the opening Allegro agitato to the driving counterpoint of the finale. The four settings of the Ave maris stella chant are progressively more ornate, from a simple statement of the chant over a walking bass, through an intricate Bachian chorale prelude, to a final, brilliant toccata. The ‘old Christmas carol’ featured in Op.20 variations is known in English as Now the green blade riseth: in one of his most justly celebrated works, Dupré treats the theme to a dazzling array of transformations, stretching the organist’s technique to the limit. At the height of the Second World War, Dupré composed the Evocation in memory of his father, and gave its first performance at the Cathedral in Rouen in 1941. Exactly what is being evoked is left to the listener to decide, though only the tender second-movement elegy casts its gaze back with fondness; the strident progress of the first movement seems to reflect the troubled times, and the finale has its own struggles to overcome in a final blaze of C major triumph.

Andrew Nethsingha and The Choir of St John’s College, Cambridge release the second volume in the highly-praised Magnificat series and present nine settings of the Evening Canticles by celebrated Organist-Composers, written between 1932 and 1952, and non-church musicians from 1974-1989. The recording culminates with a contemporay setting by Julian Anderson, composed for the Chapel’s 150th anniversary. “These first volumes are designed to complement one another. Magnificat 1 started earlier, with Stanford in the 1880s; Volume Two brings us briefly up to the present day. The first release contained celebrated works by Tippett and Leighton from 1961 and 1972 respectively, in between the two main periods represented on this disc. Both albums contain iconic works by Howells, written a year apart. We hear composers creating different orders of priority for the parameters of composition.” - Andrew Nethsingha

Made between December 1948 and June 1950, these recordings enjoy an unusual history which is bound up with the burgeoning industry of classical music retail in the postwar era. Among the best stocked record stores in New York at that time was The Gramophone Shop on 42nd East Street, co-owned by William H. (Bill) Tyler and Joseph F. (Joe) Brogan, an Irish-American collector and dealer. Trying to rival or surpass the mail-order business of H. Royer Smith in Philadelphia, the shop issued (in 1929 and 1931) two fat paperback catalogues, The Gramophone Shop Encyclopedia of Recorded Music. Three further editions, from 1936, 1942, and 1948, remain standard reference works. The store also ran it's own mail-order business with the reputation as a specialist in rare and high-quality recordings from Europe. From that arm of the business naturally developed the store's own label, marketed as the Gramophone Shop Celebrities (GSC) series. This is the first time these recordings have been available on modern media.

The 150th anniversary celebrations of Florence, Capital of the Kingdom of Italy (1865-2015) create an opportunity to know and appreciate the voices of the two precious organs preserved in the basilica of San Lorenzo, and the music composed by musicians active in Florence. The organ built by Fratelli Serassi in 1864, with more than 60 registers and three keyboards, is one of the most impressive and unique of its time. The Renaissance-era organ dates to the mid-15th c. The recording features Florentine works from the Renaissance, Classical and Romantic eras, many of which are world premieres.

Renewed interest in outstanding Italian organ works of the 19th and 20thc. explains the decision to dedicate recordings to the work of Polibio Fumagalli, a prominent and prolific figure in 19th c. Italy and a link between the old and the new concept of organ construction and composition in Italy. An organ teacher at the Conservatory of Milan (among his students was Marco Enrico Bossi), Fumagalli succeeded in moving from the Italian opera style to the neoclassical, symphonic tendencies of the German and French style. Organist Fabio Re plays the monumental Valenza cathedral Serassi (1852) organ.

One of Respighi’s masterpieces, Gli uccelli (The Birds) includes transcriptions of birdsong and music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in writing of evocative, captivating lyricism. Trittico botticelliano, an illustration of three paintings by Botticelli, employs dance rhythms, modal melodies and a variant of the medieval hymn Veni, Veni Emmanuel in deft, often sublime fashion. The Suite in G major, cast for strings and organ in the form of a Concerto grosso, is heard on this première recording in its original edition.

The ‘time of breakthroughs’ contained in the title of the album, which is the key for the selection of the repertoire recorded on it, can be interpreted on multiple levels. On the one hand, it refers to the period of rebirth of Poland – to one of the most important turning points in the history of this country, which was ‘witnessed’ by music of the composers presented on the album. On the other hand, it points to the turn of the 20th century – an extremely colorful time in the history of the multicultural and vibrant city of Katowice, whose dynamic development, mainly related to its industrial aspect, also included the cultural sphere. One of the important points on the then cultural map of the city was undoubtedly the Evangelical church built in 1856, within the walls of which the material of this album was recorded.

Shortlisted for the Gramophone Awards!

Counter-tenor Iestyn Davies and and the viol consort Fretwork present a new recording of works for viol consort and voice drawn from 17th-century Germany, following their critically-praised 2019 album of works by Michael Nyman and Henry Purcell. Featuring performances from organist Silas Wollston and counter-tenor Hugh Cutting, the recital ranges widely over the 17th century – from the early years with three curiously similar sounding friends: Schein, Scheidt and Schütz, to the most significant member of the Bach family before Johann Sebastian, Johann Christoph Bach. From their they travel down North Sea to the foothills of the Alps, including Buxtehude’s predecessor at the Marienkirche in Lübeck – Franz Tunder (whose daughter Buxtehude was to marry) and another north German composer who worked in Copenhagen, Christian Geist. Giovanni Felice Sances is an outlier here: he was born in Rome, but spent the second part of his life working for three successive Emperors in Vienna, where viol playing was still very much in vogue. In 2021, Fretwork celebrates its 35th anniversary. In the past three and a half decades they have explored the core repertory of great English consort music, from Taverner to Purcell, and made classic recordings against which others are judged. In addition to this, Fretwork have become known as pioneers of contemporary music for viols, having commissioned over 40 new works. Iestyn Davies is a British countertenor widely recognised as one of the world’s finest singers celebrated for the beauty and technical dexterity of his voice and intelligent musicianship. Critical recognition of Iestyn’s work can be seen in two Gramophone Awards, a Grammy Award, a RPS Award for Young Singer of the Year, the Critics’ Circle Award and recently an Olivier Award Nomination. He was awarded the MBE in the Queen’s New Year’s Honours List 2017 for services to music.