This CD recording is part of the Henry Aldrich Choral Project, an ongoing research project to bring original choral works by Henry Aldrich to a wider audience through the creation of modern performing editions and CD recordings. Edited by Dean Jobin-Bevans, Professor of Music at Lakehead University, Canada, the collection includes verse and full anthems, choral arrangements, recompositions, and occasional music. Each of the choral scores has been edited to include standardized barring and time signatures, modern vocal clefs, organ reductions, and instrumental parts for accompaniment.
Corrette & Dandrieu: French Organ Music from the Golden Age, Vol. 8
Nimbus
CD
$20.99Jan 19, 2024
David Ponsford is an organist, harpsichordist, musicologist and conductor, and an authority on keyboard music of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He was extremely fortunate to be able to study organ with Peter Hurford, Lionel Rogg and Piet Kee, and harpsichord with Kenneth Gilbert and Gustav Leonhardt. Since 2021, he has taught organ and harpsichord & organ continuo at the Royal Academy of Music, London. The present CD is volume 8 in the series ‘French Organ Music from the Golden Age’, performed by David Ponsford on French historic organs.
Stanford & Howells Remembered / Rutter, The Cambridge Singers
Collegium Records
CD
$12.99Jul 17, 2020
This recording is a choral tribute to the sacred music of two visionary composers who, among their other achievements, made distinctive, lasting and much-cherished contributions to the musical repertory of the English Church: Charles Villiers Stanford and Herbert Howells. It is a newly remastered set of the Cambridge Singers’ 1992 Stanford and Howells recording, which has been expanded with almost twenty minutes of previously unreleased material including Stanford’s resplendent Latin Magnificat. John Rutter and the Cambridge Singers are joined by star organist Wayne Marshall in the magnificent acoustic of Ely Cathedral.
In 2001, under the umbrella title la Serenissima, Richard Rijnvos started a series of compositions dedicated to the city of Venice. This multi-year 'work-in-progress' currently includes seven compositions, the most recent two of which are the subject of this recording. Jan Hage is particularly known as an advocate and sought-after performer of contemporary organ music. In 2006 he received the silver medal of the Parisian Societe Academique Arts Sciences Lettres for his services to French organ culture. Jane Chapman is one of Britain's most distinguished classical harpsichordists. Her repertoire stretches from early music to contemporary avant-garde. Described in The Independent on Sunday as "Britain's most progressive harpsichordist", and in the Guardian as "a fearless contemporary music performer" she is at the forefront of creating and inspiring new music for harpsichord.
Jan Kraybill- Sonic Splendor! Her amazing pipe organ performances give new dimensions to beloved orchestral favorites. In the 19th and early 20th century, organists of exceptional artistic skill developed organ transcriptions of orchestral music into a true art form. Each of the works on this disc is spectacular in its original form. To create "The Orchestral Organ", we have chosen works of many different composers, adapted into organ transcriptions of the highest artistic order. These transcriptions are not intended for comparison with, or replacement of, the original orchestral versions. In presenting them we are offering fascinating new dimensions for these compositions, whether familiar or new to the listener. Within the pieces are a variety of tone colors and compositional details that exhibit the remarkable abilities of organist Jan Kraybill, and showcase the spectacular Julia Irene Kauffman Casavant Organ at the Kauffman Center’s Helzberg Hall in Kansas City.
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REVIEWS:
Kraybill's performance has a nice balance of verve and control. The overall impression is of joy and pleasure in the music, which flows from her understanding and touch. Her selections allow her to explore various moods and emotions, which is always quite pleasant. The progression of the album shows a sound sense of movement.
– Poaitive Feedback (David W. Robinson)
The recorded sound is thrilling. The Julia Irene Kauffman Casavant 102-rank organ at the Kauffman Center’s Helzberg Hall is big and brawny, the performances precise and committed, and the label has done their usual audiophile magic. The lower pipes of the organ are very deep, and will test your system.
Bruckner: Early Orchestral Pieces Arr. For Organ / Rudolf Innig
MDG
SACD
$24.99Sep 04, 2020
Throughout his life, Anton Bruckner was initially highly regarded as an organist. Rudolf Innig demonstrates with a spectacular listening experiment how much the great symphonic composer was also influenced by "his" instrument: Innig transferred early orchestral works by Bruckner to the organ with loving attention to detail. The result: astounding. And equally good. Bruckner was 39 years old when he completed his two-year composition course with Otto Kitzler, ten years younger than him, with some orchestral pieces and a full symphony. The works already show Bruckner's preference for irregular periods, as he also used them in his organ improvisations, and his preference for sequencing rather than complex motivic processing, and the great dynamic developments. Thus the "Three Orchestral Pieces", which use motifs from Beethoven's piano sonatas, among other things, are given the typical Bruckner tone; with a grand gesture, Bruckner avoids the so obvious stylistic copy of the classical model. Extended organ points, also and especially in the G minor overture, do the rest, and in Innig's organ adaptation, the journeyman pieces acquire an astonishingly convincing plausibility. Rudolf Innig chose the Goll organ in the Marktkirche in Hanover for his Bruckner project. The sound of the large four-manual instrument is perfectly adapted to the needs of the 19th century.
Berlin!: Organ Works by Berlin Composers / Sieling
MDG
SACD
$24.99May 15, 2020
During the nineteenth century Berlin quickly developed from a muddy provincial backwater into a metropolis of world rank. Things went upward at the same pace in the arts and culture, and at their summit Wilhelm Sauer built his magnificent organ, which was dedicated along with the Berlin Cathedral in 1905. Cathedral organist Andreas Sieling has mined some choice nuggets of Berlin organ music from this extremely productive period, including some premiere recordings and an old Berlin hit in a really surprising recording. Mendelssohn of course is a must. The Three Preludes and Fugues op. 37 by this composer who spent his formative years in Berlin are the oldest selections on this lovingly produced Super Audio album. Mendelssohn received instruction in organ from the St. Mary’s organist August Wilhelm Bach, who exerted unrivalled influence on Berlin’s church music over the decades. Otto Dienel was also a Bach pupil; for his popular “Organ Recitals” at midday he skillfully linked classical forms such as the chorale setting with programmatic tones. Today Franz Wagner, August Haupt, and Philipp Rüfer will hardly ring a bell, even among organ experts. However, all three were very successful during their times. Haupt’s Concert Fugue, recorded here for the first time, circulated from hand to hand as a copy until a former pupil in the United States had it published. Rüfer was also in great demand as a teacher; Karl Straube and Albert Becker numbered among his pupils. Andreas Sieling has a full musical arsenal available to him on “his” Sauer organ: 113 stops on four manuals and the pedal enable him to produce unmatched sound color. The outstandingly designed pneumatic action guarantees virtuosic playing even amid heavy-duty chords, and the velvety rich sound of this masterful instrument especially finely brings out the quality of the compositions.
Gdansk Organ Landscape, Vol. 1: Like a Phoenix From the Ashes / Szadejko
MDG
SACD
$24.99Jul 17, 2020
After more than 70 years of silence a great organ has risen again in the Trinity Church of the Gda?sk Franciscans. With determination, passion and diligence, Andrzej Szadejko worked on the reconstruction of the baroque organ, which finally was completed in 2018 by the Dresden manufacturer Wegscheider. His multi-colored portrait represents the opulent sound conception of Baltic organ building from the early 17th to the middle of the 18th century, but also revives the grandiose musical culture of Gda?sk's golden age. The anonymous Fantasia at the beginning of the programme is chosen from the Gda?sk tablature of 1591 and sounds in festive Gothic blockwork registration. The Baltic metropolis cultivated relations with the whole world. So it is not surprising that even the famous Sweelinck composed 8 variations on a "Poolsche Dans" in distant Amsterdam - a welcome occasion for Andrzej Szadejko to use the Renaissance voices - like the wonderfully creaking shelf - as soloists. Of course, Buxtehude cannot be missing: With classical Sesquialtera registration in the chorale arrangement "Durch Adams Fall ist ganz verderbt" or in the grandiose "Magnificat", which Szadejko arranges according to old practice alternating with the exquisite Choralschola, the master of North German organ art is shown to his best advantage. Froberger, Muffat, Kerll, but also Böhm and Bach and even Frescobaldi as guests from more southern regions prove the versatility of the new instrument reconstructed according to historical models. Probably the only one of its kind in a baroque organ in the world is the large pedal, which was erected in 1703 after a lightning strike in its own case on the south wall of the church, in which the impressive 32' sub-bass is located.
The Glory & The Dream: Choral Music by Richard Rodney Bennett / RBC Chamber Choir
SOMM Recordings
CD
$20.99Jul 20, 2018
Somm Recordings celebrates the sublime choral music of Richard Rodney Bennett – best known to a wider audience for his Academy Award-nominated scores to Murder on the Orient Express and Far from the Madding Crowd – with 11 first recordings and a vivid new recording of his choral masterpiece, The Glory and the Dream. Performed by the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir, directed by Paul Spicer and with dexterous support from organist Nicholas Morris, The Glory and the Dream features 12 varied and vivacious choral pieces composed over more than 50 years. The album’s striking title work sets Wordsworth’s ode Intimations of Immortality to music that conjures childhood rapture and adult fears with the utmost finesse and feeling and features a fearsomely complex and challenging organ accompaniment. Dating from 1961, the earliest pieces here are Two Madrigals in which Bennett treats the rich ornamentations of the 17th century to a wholly modern perspective. The most recent work, One Equal Music – a sinewy, austere anthem with a serene ending – was completed in February 2012, just 10 months before the composer’s death at the age of 76. Bennett’s fascination with the Elizabethan and Jacobean eras is also to be found in the elegiac partsong A Contemplation Upon Flowers, the vocal fanfare This Day and Time, a somber meditation on the finality of life and lasting effulgence of Christ’s eternal being, and the simple but affective carol I wonder as I wander. Other seasonal pieces include the early, plainchant-infused The Sorrows of Mary, the gentle ‘hush song’ Lullaby Baby and late, substantial Remember, O thou man, a fervent and heartfelt prayer ending in quiet contemplation. Previous Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir recordings on SOMM have included admired recordings of choral music by Herbert Howells, Samuel Barber and John Joubert, together with partsongs by Ireland, Delius and Stanford.
Following the great success of Gerhard Weinberger’s new and most comprehensive recording ever of Bach’s organ works (German Record Critics Prize, 2009), Mr. Weinberger and CPO now turn to a new edition featuring the organ compositions of Max Reger in performances on selected magnificent organs surviving from Reger’s period. The composer’s overall oeuvre for the organ enabled this instrument to gain new prestige. Vol. 1 contains works offering eloquent testimony to Reger’s veneration of Bach.
Praetorius & Siefert: Complete Organ Works / Friedhelm Flamme
CPO
SACD
$36.99Nov 18, 2016
The penultimate volume of our edition featuring organ works of the Northern German Baroque focuses on the complete organ works of Jakob Praetorius the Younger and Paul Siefert. Hieronymus Praetorius, the organist at the Church of St. James in Hamburg, is regarded as the most important founding figure in the field of independent Northern German organ artistry. Three of his four songs, Jakob, Johann, and MIchael who already in 1604 had contributed a quarter of the eighty-four cantional settings to the renowned Hamburger Melodeyen Gesangbuch, is said to have developed a special form of fingering and pedal technique making it possible for the organist to assume a very relaxed sitting position and corresponding to his serious, sober, personal disposition. According to the music critic Johann Mattheson, Praetorius's works were "mroe serious" and "more forcefully elaborated" than those of his friend Scheidemann.
This instrument revolutionizes organ building. The main organ in the church of St. Martin in Kassel, consecrated in 2017, already boasts numerous innovations; now the experimental organ, completed in 2021, turns the laws of organ building that have applied for centuries on their head. With a technically highly innovative trick, the traditional Rieger company has succeeded in having the wind flowing into the organ pipe controlled by the touch of the key, stop slide and bellows system. The new sound cosmos of swelling and dying tones that opens up inspires young composers to experiment, documented for the first time on a brand-new Super Audio album that presents both instruments as a convincing unit in overwhelming spatiality. The main organ in St. Martin's is also visually an eye-catcher: the facade is spread across the entire width of the nave, with tufts of artificial hair in front of its labia moving with every breath of wind. With two stops tuned in the middle tone, even the oldest organ music can be heard authentically, while a quarter-tone manual invites composers and audiences alike to embark on a journey of tonal discovery. St. Martin has been known for its innovative spirit for centuries, and Johann Sebastian Bach was drawn to Kassel in 1732 to examine the organ. Bach is both the beginning and the end of Manz's program, which is extraordinary in every respect, with Messiaën's Pentecost Mass at its center. Works by Cabezón, Praetorius, Böhm and de Grigny represent the Renaissance and Baroque, while pieces from Caspar Johannes Walter's composition class represent contemporary, youthful music. Otfried Büsing uses the entire spectrum, from delicately disappearing tones to the mighty quarter-tone cluster: a gigantic rush of sound!
LISZT Ad nos, ad salutarem undam Fantasy and Fugue for organ and orchestra (arr. Dupré). Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen (orch. Weiner). Orpheus, for organ (trans. Liszt). Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H (orch. Bischof) • Martin Haselböck, cond; Christian Schmitt (org); Deutsche RP (Saarbrücken/Kaiserslautern) • CPO 777 472–2 (69:58)
During his Weimar years, Liszt’s friend, the organist Alexander Winterberger, spurred his interest in the organ, prompting the composition of two of his most ambitious works, the Ad nos… Fantasy and Fugue (1850) and the Prelude and Fugue on B-A-C-H (1855, revised 1870). Thereafter, Liszt experimented, transcribing a number of his own works, including the tone poem Orpheus. The Weinen, Klagen,… variations, composed for piano in 1862, were transcribed for organ the following year. Considering the metamorphoses visited upon them by their composer, the step to orchestral arrangements by other hands was small, if ambitious. Depending on venue and acoustics, the instrument, registrations, and the acumen of engineers, these organ works can come across as towering masterpieces or murky monster-pieces. One of the joys of the orchestral transcriptions is hearing details often covered in cavernous rumble or obscured by distance on the organ standing forth boldly from the orchestra, their intricacies revealed, while their climactic moments acquire major clout and transparency. Weiner’s tilt at Weinen, Klagen,… is indebted to mid-19th-century models, highlighting a Gothic, cobwebby aura clinging to Liszt’s kaleidoscopic variations. Rainer Bischof’s take on the BACH Prelude and Fugue, on the other hand, is brash, brassy, and unabashedly modern in its use of an overloaded wind and percussion contingent (in addition to the cited vibraphone, do I hear a wood block, tubular bells, and a glockenspiel, among other novelties?) to make for metallic brilliance, glittering passage work, and climactic cataclysmics. The Gothic stunner, however, is Marcel Dupré’s arrangement of the Ad nos … Fantasy and Fugue for organ and orchestra, a feat placing what many believe to be Liszt’s greatest single work in company with the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony and Poulenc’s Concerto for Organ and Orchestra.
One expected more of Christian Schmitt, whose recent go at Koechlin’s organ works (CPO 777 512–2, Fanfare 36:4) demonstrated an arresting keenness to that composer’s psychic, haunted atmospherics. His Orpheus is well-paced in the way that one thing leads to another, though having heard performances in which episodes escalate with fraught portent—e.g., Olivier Vernet’s solo rendering, or, as we’re considering transcriptions, his duo with Laurent Cabasso on piano (a six-CD intégrale, Ligia 0104226–11)—Schmitt’s dynamic range and resources of feeling are audibly constricted. The Ad nos … arrangement compels more adventurous playing, but Schmitt is disadvantaged by the recessed capture of the organ in Luxembourg’s Philharmonic Hall which allows orchestral overshadowing. That said, the upshot is still thrilling, magnificent, and magisterial. To the last point, one may feel that, in their orchestral and orchestra/organ garb, one is hearing these works for the first time. Martin Haselböck, himself an organist of exceptional prowess, who has performed the originals many times and recorded them at least twice, leads with a sweep alert to detail and, in the Ad nos … Fantasy and Fugue, manages the organ/orchestra dialogue with potent eloquence, though the recording imbalance becomes distracting in the fugue. The orchestral works come across in immediate, transparent, often walloping sound. Enthusiastically recommended.
This album comprises seven solo, chamber, and orchestral pieces composed over almost forty years. It does not include any compositions for Japanese instruments or for early instruments which are well-represented in other albums by David Loeb. All of the pieces were written specifically for the performers who have played them here.
