With over 600 lieder as well as sacred, chamber, orchestral and piano music to his name, Franz Schubert was one of the most prolific and influential composers of his generation -- a man whose music, heavily influenced by the likes of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, drove critics to later argue whether he was of a Viennese Classical or Romantic disposition. Many of Schubert's instrumental works remained unpublished during his lifetime, and it was only in the decades following his untimely death that the young Austrian's genius came to be fully appreciated.

Schubert is perhaps best known as a song composer, and the first volume of this series focuses on the lyrical qualities of his early string quartets. The disc begins with the 1823 'Rosamunde' Quartet No.13 in A minor D804: rooted in the world of song, the work earned its nickname from the slow movement -- a set of variations on a theme from the composer's incidental music to Wilhelmine von Chézy's play Rosamunde (written the year before). Also featured is the Quartet in D D94, which, despite its late numbering, is now believed to be one of Schubert's earliest string creations. Here the dramatic harmonic shifts point to a composer who, even in his teenage years, was already seeking to escape the confines of the Classical period.

Formed in Munich in 1996, the young Diogenes Quartet stands as one of the most acclaimed ensembles of its generation. Here they perform with aplomb, combining freshness of interpretation with technical mastery to create superlative readings that document the beginnings of Schubert's chamber music career.

Other information:
- A prestigious project: the recording of the complete string quartets of Franz Schubert, by the German Diogenes Quartet.
- Recorded in July 2012, Himmelfahrtskirche, München-Sendling.
- The German Diogenes Quartet has already recorded extensively, in rare repertoire of Humperdinck, Haas and Gernsheim for CPO and Brilliant Classics, this new release of "standard" repertoire present their excellent qualities: clear structures, long tension lines, tight and immaculate ensemble playing, and a passionate drive to deliver the emotional content of the works they love to play.
- Contains booklet notes on each of the pieces and a biography of the quartet.

This 2CD set aims to give the listener a good idea of the range of music composed by a remarkable musical dynasty, the Forqueray family. They were a family of organists, viol players and harpsichordists. They were every bit as remarkable as the other great musical dynasties, the Bendas, Stamitzs, Bachs, and the Strauss family. The most famous member of the Forqueray family (their Johann Sebastian) was Antoine, who was born in 1672, a virtuoso gambist. His output forms the backbone of the French repertoire for this instrument. None of his music was published during his lifetime, and his son Jean-Baptiste (born 1699), another viol player, devoted his time to publishing his father's works. Michel, born in 1681, and Nicolas-Gilles, born in 1703, were superb keyboard players. This set offers a rare chance to hear the music of all four composers, centred around characterful suites for harpsichord and viole da gamba but including songs.

Further information
- New recordings made in 2008/9
- Booklet essay by the artist
- An ideal introduction for those wishing to explore this important musical dynasty from the Baroque period

The six keyboard sonatas played here by Jenny Soonjin Kim are the only known instrumental works by the German composer Johann Friedrich Doles, Jr., as well as the only compositions of his ever to be published. Born in Freiberg near Dresden in 1746, Doles was a musical prodigy who studied and then practiced law in Leipzig. His father was Cantor at the Thomaskirche following the death of Bach’s successor, and there is a recorded meeting between Doles father and son and Mozart, during the latter’s visit to Leipzig in 1789. Doles Jr. himself died in 1796, five years after Mozart, and a year before his father, leaving extant only these sonatas and three vocal pieces. The set of six sonatas shares the fashionable galant style of the period, brought to fulfillment by the most musically innovative of Bach’s sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel. Four of the six sonatas are cast in minor keys, and their movements are brief and vivid in character, including exuberant minuets, flamboyant scherzos, lightning-quick finales and even a quirky ‘polacca’ of the kind that JS Bach composed in his First Brandenburg Concerto. This is Jenny Soonjin Kim’s third recording for Brilliant Classics, following two well-received albums of keyboard sonatas by another little-known contemporary of Mozart, Leopold Koželuch. Volume 1 of the series is ‘an inspired and inspiring collection,’ according to the All About Jazz reviewer: ‘Pianist Jenny Soonjin Kim plays with an almost Baroque flair well-fitting of the music… The period treatment that Kim brings to the Koželuch sonatas gives them a crisp texture and very nearly tactile character… Kim's performance is commanding and authoritative. The sonics are superb.’

This generous selection of opera arias and duets comes from Giacomo Myerbeer, a hugely successful opera composer who perfected the Grand Opera genre, and would go on to influence opera powerhouses like Verdi, Wagner, and Massenet. The duets and arias presented on this release come from the operas Robert le Diable, L’Africaine, Le Prophete, Les Huguenots, L’Etoile du Nord and Dinorah. French baritone Pierre-Yves Pruvot has won prizes at the den Bosch and Brussels vocal competitions. He is joined here by French-born soprano Hjordis Thebault, who has sung alongside the most high-profile singers in the field.

A classic pairing: two masterpieces of Russian chamber music in a new recording by three distinguished interpreters of Romantic-era repertoire. It was writing for this combination of instruments in the unlikely context of the slow movement of his Second Piano Concerto that seems finally to have convinced Tchaikovsky he could turn to the genre of piano trio proper and overcome his previous antipathy to it. In fact, following the death of the pianist Nikolai Rubinstein in March 1881, the Piano Trio was composed within less than a year, and with unusual fluency. Its unconventional format – a sonata-form movement followed by an extended theme and variations – takes as its model Beethoven’s final sonata Op.111. The emotional intensity of the first movement is dispelled by the lighter mood of the second, which may represent personal memories of Rubinstein, including visiting an amusement park and attending a ball, and the charmingly lopsided theme is apparently based on a folk melody he had heard in Rubinstein’s company. On the day of Tchaikovsky’s death in October 1893, Rachmaninov began work on a Trio élégiaque in D minor in his memory. He later composed a much more extended trio in homage to Tchaikovsky’s example, but this single movement is no less impassioned and accomplished in its way. Both trios have attracted countless great interpreters down the decades, to whose number may now be added the Russian pairing of Dmitri Makhtin and Alexander Kniazev, with the Hungarian pianist Klára Würtz, who has made many admired recordings for Brilliant Classics. Together they form a partnership of deep understanding and sympathy.

Here's a second release from Brilliant Classics of the Neapolitan musician Francesco Mancini (1672–1737), a leading light in his city's culture of composition and education as director of the Conservatorio di S Maria di Loreto, maestro of the Royal Chapel and composer of 29 operas and more than 200 cantatas. His modern reputation largely rests on his recorder sonatas (available on 94058); the new release extends our knowledge of that cheerful aesthetic to his recorder concertos, in similarly sprightly, period- instrument performances by young musicians with a background in this repertoire.

Corina Marti studied at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, famed nursery of talent in the performance of early music, and the concertos are led from the keyboard by another Swiss-based musician, Alexandra Nigito, who has already proved her expertise in this music with recordings of cantatas by Pasquini (on 94225).

The recorder concertos are more demanding to play than to listen to. One unusual stylistic trademark is the preponderance of fugue in the fast movements, but that does not imply a dryly academic style – like Mancini's sonatas, the concertos are full of memorable and deftly surprising melodies.

• Performed on period instruments.
• Recorded in May 2011 in Rome.
• Includes booklet notes in English and Italian.

F. MANCINI Recorder Concertos Nos. 1, 5, 6, 8, 10, 13, 14, 16-20 • Corina Marti (rec); Alexandra Nigito (hpd); Paolo Perrone, cond; Capella Tiberina • BRILLIANT 94324 (2 CDs: 110:40)


Although well known in his day, the Neapolitan composer Francesco Mancini (1672-1737) is now sufficiently obscure that (as of the date I write this) listings of the few recordings his works have received are intermixed in the Fanfare Archive with entries for Henry Mancini of Pink Panther film-music fame. This fall into oblivion may be due in part to the decline of the status of Naples following the formation of a united Italy in 1870, which entailed a decisive shift of political power to the north of the Apennine Peninsula. However, following the Norman conquest of Sicily and southern Italy in 1071, and the subsequent formation of the Kingdom of Sicily in 1130, Naples was one of the major centers of political power and cultural influence in Europe for some seven centuries. Mancini spent virtually his entire life in that city, holding the post of organist to the royal chapel from 1704 until his death. A rival to Alessandro Scarlatti, he repeatedly aspired to be awarded the latter’s post as maestro di capella . He assumed that position on an interim basis from 1702 to 1708 during an extended absence by Scarlatti, but gained it on a permanent basis only upon the latter’s death in 1725. In 1735 he suffered a completely debilitating stroke, but lingered for two more years before dying. His musical legacy includes 29 operas, 12 oratorios, and over 200 secular cantatas.


Back in 34:4 Raymond Tuttle reviewed a two-CD set issued by Brilliant Classics of 12 recorder sonatas by Mancini with the Ensemble Tripla Concordia. Now Brilliant has followed up with a set of 12 recorder concertos. Since virtually all the sonata numbers and key signatures are identical, I initially suspected that these were the same works under a different name, but that is not the case. Whereas the 12 sonatas are published works that first appeared in London in 1724 (with a misattribution to a “Sig.ra [sic] Francesco Mancini”!), the 12 concertos presented here are drawn from an unpublished manuscript of 24 concertos in a music conservatory in Naples, that also intermixes works by Alessandro Scarlatti, Domenico Sarro, Francesco Barbella, Giovanni Battista Mele, and Roberto Valentini (the English expatriate Robert Valentine)—hence their non-consecutive numbering. As Mancini was primarily an opera composer, his list of instrumental pieces is rather small, and these two collections would appear to comprise most of them.


As the informative booklet notes by musicologist Alessandro Lattanzi explain, these concertos are provisionally dated to c.1715, which was a good two decades before the influence of Vivaldi spread southward to Naples. Consequently, these works are penned in the older style of the “Roman-Bolognese school” of Arcangelo Corelli, Giuseppe Torelli, and Giovanni Battista Vitali, and the early works of Tommaso Albinoni. One movement—usually the second or third—is a strict fugue, while the other movements are (according to Lattanzi) written in a “rudimentary ritornello form” wherein “successive statements of the motto, jumping from one key to another, are placed side by side in a mosaic-like pattern, often with an almost mechanical alternation of solo and tutti, which provides no distinction between recurrent and non-recurrent sections.” While not worked out with the sophistication and imagination of Vivaldi, then, these are nonetheless well-crafted and entertaining works.


For me at any rate, the present recording presents these pieces in their best possible light. The interpretive style is one I would term “aggressive.” The period-instrument ensemble Capella Tiberina (consisting of six violins, one each of a viola, cello, and double bass, three performers on theorbo and baroque guitar, and a percussionist) plays with no vibrato, razor-sharp attacks, and driving rhythm. It is not a style that I would want to hear in music by Bach or Handel, and it might not even be suitable for Vivaldi, but here it provides a rollicking energy and spice that enlivens music that might otherwise sound repetitive and trite. The recorded sound is (pun intended) suitably brilliant. While not an essential acquisition, this set is recommended to fanciers of the recorder and of Baroque concertos alike.


FANFARE: James A. Altena

Boismortier (1689-1755) was a highly successful composer, active at the same time as Jean-Louis Rameau (1683-1764) during the Rococo era and the reign of Louis XV. He wrote over 100 compositions during his lifetime, and their characteristic lightness and grace made him immensely popular with Parisian sophisticates of his day. This set opens with an upbeat and charming trio sonata (Op.37/3) in which the recorder flits between playful and sombre melody lines with ensemble accompaniment. Boismortier is most known for his compositions for the recorder and the flute, but he composed for a wide variety of instruments. For example, this release includes two suite movements from his Pieces de clavecin Op.59 for solo harpsichord. 'La Puce' (The Flea) has a humorous staccato theme which jumps along the keyboard before evolving into a satisfying harmonic progression. Boismortier's music is a blend of Italian and French styles, and he was the first French composer to employ the Italian concerto style, of which this set contains two examples. An entrepreneur in the modern sense, Boismortier had no patrons and published his own music, a rare feat for the time. The composer earned enough from sales to be self-sufficient, meaning he could freely pursue the latest musical trends without having to conform to the tastes of commissioning aristocrats. Boismortier studied with the accomplished motetist Joseph Valette de Montigny (1665-1738), and he lived in Perpignan for several years working as a receiver for the Royal Tobacco Control before making a name for himself as a composer. Word of his sublime and effortless music soon reached Paris, and not long after, in 1724, he moved to the French capital, where he continued composing until his death. The set closes with rousing folk music in the fourth 'village dance' suite from his 4 Balets de village en trio Op.52. The rustic melodies contrast with an arrangement typically favoured by the elites: Boismortier employs flutes, recorders, violin and a steady basso continuo. This is perhaps a reflection on dual identity, by a composer who climbed the economic ladder from a humble upbringing in Thionville to join the ranks of Parisian high society.

Given their infrequent appearances on concert programmes, Dvorák’s string quartets have done rather well in the recorded catalogues. There are several recordings of the complete cycle of 16 works, which span the composer’s career. A couple have been made by native ensembles from the composer’s Czech homeland but also a couple more by central-European ensembles such as the Stamitz Quartet, who since their foundation in 1985 have been known as leading interpreters of Czech repertoire. The approach of the Stamitz Quartet is quite different from either the Panocha or Prague ensembles, noted David Hurwitz in Classics Today: ‘more relaxed, less rhythmically charged, and gracious in an old-world sort of way… The group also gives unusual stature to the somewhat formally scattered early works, particularly the monstrous Third Quartet, which at 72 minutes has to be just about the all-time longest string quartet that ostensibly observes the rules of classical form.’ Taken as a whole, the quartets chart the evolution of Dvorák’s style, from his interest in Wagnerian music in the years prior to 1870 – in the String Quartet in D major – to the folk-infused works of his later life, such as the String Quartet in G major Op.106, and show the influence of his time in the United States, with the String Quartet in F Op.96 'American'. If the only Dvorák quartet that you’re familiar with is the ‘American’, then this set will provide an embarkation point for what should prove an immensely fruitful musical journey.

Brilliant Classics proudly presents the brand-new 5-album sets series: QUINTESSENCE, attractively priced compact box sets containing essential core classical repertoire in outstanding performances. Aimed at attracting both the discerning classical connoisseur and the classical newcomer it presents the pillars of classical music: Bach Famous Cantatas, Dvorák Complete Concertos and Symphonic Poems. Mozart Complete Wind Concertos and Serenades, Beethoven Complete Violin Sonatas and Cello Sonatas and Sibelius Complete Symphonies and Symphonic Poems. World class performers include Staatskapelle Dresden with Herbert Blomstedt, Netherlands Bach Collegium with Pieter Jan Leusink, Klára Würtz, Timora Rosler, Kristóf Baráti, Berliner Sinfonie-Orchester with Kurt Sanderling and others. The fresh and colorful artwork is eye-catching while the booklet contains liner notes in English. A new series at an unbeatable price! The present release features Mozart’s complete wind concertos and serenades, performed by the Staatskapelle Dresden, Les Violins du Roy, and the Netherlands Chamber Orchestra.

J.S. Bach: Cello Suites

Legnani: Complete Music for Guitar Solo

An unprecedented and critically praised series reaches it's fifth and final volume with richly evocative settings of German and Russian poets, from Pushkin to Nietzsche and beyond. Though born in Moscow, Medtner had partially German ancestry, and nearly half his songs are set to German poetry, which he knew in the original. In previous volumes of their complete survey of his songs, Ekaterina Levental and Frank Peters have concentrated on the Russians; now they conquer the peaks, as Medtner did, of Romantic German poetry, with texts by Goethe, Chamisso and Eichendorff. Rather less well known as a poet was Friedrich Nietzche, but he was a figure who fascinated Medtner, and the settings here speak of deep affinity. In the booklet, Ekaterina Levental reflects on her own sense of affinity with the composer. 'It was love at first hearing. It was as if someone whispered to me a truth for which there were no sounds before. He sounded out for me emotions and feelings, images, associations, a world of felt knowledge and experiences that I had been carrying inside me all along, but had never heard expressed in such a way. Someone from the past spoke to me in a language that I seemed to understand totally instinctively. Passing on this knowledge and wonder and sharing it with the audience became my dream.' This cycle on record has been a passion project for both artists, and Peters also passes on his own insights into Medtner's notoriously complex piano writing. Between them, they have gone further than anyone else in documenting a perennially undervalued Russian song composer, who deserves to be considered alongside Rachmaninoff and Tchaikovsky in this vein. This final volume closes out the cycle with the Eight Lieder Op.61, which move between Russian and German poets in a quintessentially Medtnerian synthesis. 'All in all, Levental and Peters make the strongest possible case for the repertoire... Levental continues to strike us with the beauty and purity of her voice and the rhetorical sensitivity of her phrasing, unfailingly tied to the affect of the text.' (Fanfare)

Bottesini is of course familiar to many musicians and music lovers, particularly double bass players, since the composer-performer enjoyed an undisputed position as 'the Paganini of the double bass' throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. This recording is a collection of five important pieces with a virtuosic and concerto-like compositional style, where the violin and double bass often take the lead roles in dense, surprising dialogues. It gives fans of 19th-century music an opportunity to experience the technical and creative richness of a composer who was extraordinarily artistically courageous for his time and gives due credit to musicians who for various reasons have historically been undervalued by the prevailing musical hierarchy. Bottesini's creative boldness is evident in the way he dared to put forward the double bass as a virtuosic solo instrument, on a par with it's noble cousins, the violin, viola and cello. Many of his pieces feature solo parts that showcase dialogues between the extreme registers of the string instruments, from the 'demonic' violin with it's high notes at the limits of perception, to the abyss of the bottom notes of the double bass. No one before Bottesini had discovered the untapped expressive potential of the latter instrument, since it had always been considered essentially a reinforcement for the cello part, one octave down. Instead, he wanted to make the double bass 'soar'. The Andante for strings introduces the double bass as a deep soul often in unison with the orchestral strings. The piece is imbued with an aching intimacy and refined with a rocking, undulating rhythmic motion. His Fantasia on Bellini's 'La Sonnambula' introduces the always cantabile double bass as a voice from the outset, and it is easy to imagine how astounded the audience must have been to hear the melodious sound of this 'back-row' instrument poignantly reimagining Bellini's lyric opera. In the Gran duo concertante for violin, double bass & orchestra Bottesini brings together lyrical sensitivity and expressive power. Here, the violin conveys the greatest possible tensions, frequently leading then giving way to a double bass that performs with cello-like poetry. The String Quintet in F, reimagined as an orchestral piece by Massimo Belli with the backbone of a great symphony immersed in a romantic setting full of energy and drama. The Piccola preghiera (as Bottesini intended) reveals a sensibility quite similar to the Andante that begins this album. The style here is even more sober, with strings layering over each other in an all-encompassing world of sound, rich in harmonic progressions and peaceful resolutions. Other information: - Recorded February 2022, Trieste, Italy - Bilingual booklet in English and Italian contains liner notes by Marco Maria Tosolini and profiles of the ensemble and conductor - Giovanni Bottesini (1821-1889) is one of the most influential figures in the history of the double bass and Italian opera. Born in Crema, Italy, Bottesini demonstrated prodigious talent from a young age, mastering the double bass by his teens. His virtuosic abilities on the instrument propelled him to international fame, earning him the title "Paganini of the Double Bass." - Bottesini's contributions to the double bass repertoire are significant, composing numerous solo pieces, concertos, and orchestral works that pushed the technical and expressive boundaries of the instrument. His compositions showcase a deep understanding of the double bass's capabilities, blending melodic lyricism with dazzling technical displays. However, Bottesini's influence extended beyond the realm of the double bass. He was also a prolific conductor and composer of operatic music, writing several operas that enjoyed success in theaters across Europe. - This new recording presents concertante works for violin, double bass and strings, as well as a string orchestra version of the String Quintet in F major, music of great melodic charm and vibrant virtuosity. - Played by Francesco de Angelis, Francesco Siragusa (double bass) and the Nuova Orchestra Ferruccio Busoni, conducted by Massimo Belli, who recorded already several successful albums for Brilliant Classics, with works by Viotti, Cherubini, Tartini, Wolf Ferrari, Ghedini and others.

Suites, fugues, toccatas and variations by a well-travelled contemporary of JS Bach, in a new recording by an Italian harpsichordist with an impressive catalogue of Baroque rarities on Brilliant Classics. The music of Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch (1691-1765) has featured on a few enterprising collections of Baroque-era rarities, but this is the first-ever album to be entirely dedicated to the art of a composer whose style successfully mirrors his cosmopolitan outlook. Having received initial tuition from both his father Heinrich - another organist/composer - and from a pupil of Buxtehude, Hurlebusch left his birthplace of Braunschweig and embarked on a journey around Europe that, for the first half of his career, took him to Hambiurg, Tuscany, Venice, Stockholm and many points in between. On a stay in Leipzig, he met Bach and his sons; CPE mentioned Hurlebusch in dispatches as an excellent keyboard virtuoso. Finally, in 1742, Hurlebusch settled in Amsterdam, as organist of the famous Oude Kerk. On his travels, Hurlebusch had become familiar with diverse Italian styles such as the work of Corelli and Vivaldi, but he also remained open to more recent developments such as the galant style of the 1730s and 1740s. Published in Hamburg in around 1735, the volume of harpsichord music recorded here by Fernando de Luca is an expanded reprint of a collection published two years earlier as the composer's Op.1. It has never been recorded complete, but it discloses a wealth of invention in an outward-looking, extrovert style which must have suited Hurlebusch's gifts as a performer: this is music designed to make an impression. The volume opens with an extensive set of variations on a minuet. There are five suites of dances - allemandes, courantes, sarabandes, minuets and gigues, such as we find in Bach's solo-instrumental suites - and several freestanding fugues and toccatas. Fernando de Luca has recorded extensively for Brilliant Classics, including recent volumes dedicated to Jean-Jacques Beauvarlet-Charpentier (96774), Pierre-Thomas Dufour (96771) and Pierre-Claude Foucquet (96772). - Conrad Friedrich Hurlebusch (1691-1765) was born in Braunschweig (Germany) and died in Amsterdam. He received his first education from his father Heinrich Lorenz Hurlebusch, an organist and composer. One of his teachers was Buxtehude's pupil Johann Anton Coberg. As a keyboard virtuoso but also as a conductor, he devoted much time to tour through Europe, settling for relatively short periods in Hamburg, Vienna, Venice, Rome and Stockholm. During his 10 year stay in Hamburg he met Johann Sebastian Bach and his children in Leipzig. Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach, the second born, mentioned him as an excellent keyboard virtuoso. In 1742 he definitively settled in Amsterdam, having obtained the position of organist at the Oude Kerk, the oldest in the city, an office which had been held in the past by Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck and which he occupied until his death. He became one of the protagonists of Amsterdam's musical life and in 1743 he was granted Dutch citizenship. Due to his cosmopolitan background, Hurlebusch was familiar with many Italian musical styles (Arcangelo Corelli, Antonio Vivaldi), but he also remained open to more recent developments such as the Galant style of the 1730s and 1740s. - This new recording presents the two-part "Compositioni musicali per il cembalo, 1735" here recorded integrally by Fernando de Luca, consisting of five suites, five fugues, two toccatas and some variations, showing the composer at ease with the forms in use at the time and mixing French and Italian styles seamlessly. - Played on a French harpsichord after Blanchet (1754) built by C. Caponi (1985) by Fernando de Luca, one of Italy's foremost harpsichord players. He recorded to great critical acclaim the complete keyboard works by Graupner, Jollage, Dufour and Moyreau, published by Brilliant Classics. His recording of works by Jollage received 5 stars in the French Diapason.

A substantial survey of a modern landmark in French organ literature, full of colour, mystery and joy. If any organ music anticipates the explosion of lush harmony, unified musico-theological ideas and radical innovation with which Olivier Messiaen renewed the long tradition of French organ music, it is L'orgue mystique by Messiaen's one-time teacher at the Paris Conservatoire, Charles Tournemire. In a Bachian spirit of comprehensiveness, Tournemire wrote 51 suites for nearly every Sunday and select feast days of the church year. Gregorian chant permeates Tournemire's music, with motives drawn from the appointed proper chants for the day. On this 5CD collection, the Dutch organist presents 23 of the suites, in whole or in part, and arranges them according to the church year, with individual discs dedicated to the Sundays around Christmas and Epiphany, Easter, Pentecost and the Assumption. Each suite consists of five movements: a 'Prelude � l'Intro�t', 'Offertoire', 'elevation', 'Communion' and 'Piece terminale'. This final piece is no spectacular display piece: as one commentator has written, 'Tournemire seemed to have envisioned a period of meditation for the devout at the conclusion of the Mass rather than the usual noisy and hurried movements of the congregation toward the door.' Tournemire had himself been a pupil of Cesar Franck, and wrote, as Franck had done, for the full disposition of Cavaille-Coll organs which became synonymous worldwide with the musical equivalent of the Gothic revival. Tjeerd van der Ploeg made this recording in 1995 on the Mutin organ of the Eglise Saint-Pierre in Douai, France. This reissue makes an attractive sequel to his extensive 4CD collection of Tournemire's organ works outside L'orgue mystique (95983). The technical specifications of the organ is included in the booklet, which also features an essay on Tournemire by van der Ploeg. 'Tjeerd van der Ploeg plays the Mutin organ in the Saint-Pierre in Douai in an extremely imaginative manner and although he does not originate from the "Roman" tradition, he knows how to evoke the mystique of incense and pointed arches' (Luister). 'An excellent interpretation of Tournemire's subtle Impressionism, thanks to the clear recording and the tone-colours: enthusiastically recommended' (Nederlands Dagblad). - Charles Tournemire was born in Bordeaux in 1870. A child prodigy he became organiste-accompagnateur at age 11 at the St. Pierre in Bordeaux. At the Paris Conservatory he had lessons from de Beriot and Cesar Franck, after whose death he continued with Charles-Marie Widor. In 1891 he became organist of the famous Basilika St. Clotilde in Paris, a post he held till his death in 1939. - As a composer Tournemire was influenced by his teachers Franck and Widor. He expanded their harmonic system even more, using Gregorian Chant and even exotic elements from India to create a truly symphonic sound fresco of unprecedented scope and richness, evoking the mystical aspects of the Catholic faith. - This recording presents a wide selection from the liturgical cycle L'Orgue Mystique. This work consists of paraphrases of Gregorian melodies for Sundays and principal feasts of the liturgical year in three cycles: the Christmas Cycle, the Easter Cycle and the Cycle after Pentecost, divided into 51 offices, each having the same structure. It took Tournemire five years to complete this 'magnum opus' (from 1927 to 1932). In this cycle, he merged the symphonic, impressionistic style of organ music with liturgy. - Played by Dutch organist Tjeerd van der Ploeg at the great Mutin organ of the Collegiate Church St. Pierre, Douai, France, an impressive instrument built in 1922, one of the finest symphonic organs of France. - Tjeerd van der Ploeg's previous set of organ works by Tournemire on Brilliant Classics (BC 95983) received enthusiastic reviews in the international press.