Concerto Copenhagen’s performances ooze abundantly with charm, wisdom and warmth. Passages for recorders, oboes and bassoon during the Largo of Concerto No 1 in B flat are played exquisitely. Courtly rhythms spring disarmingly in the Vivace of Concerto No 2 in B flat…Lars Ulrik Mortensen’s harpsichord continuo is imaginative in its support for the intimate dialogue between two cellos and Frank de Bruine’s beautifully judged oboe solo. The Minuet that concludes Concerto No 4 in F major is correctly an elegant dance…Mortensen’s fluent playing of the tricky quick organ solos in the concluding Allegro are articulated flawlessly. Such classy moments make this one of the most endearing artistic interpretations of Op 3 in recent years...

-- David Vickers, Gramophone [6/2012]

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Handel’s op. 3 concerti grossi have long been viewed unfavorably in some critical circles thanks to the reflection cast by the composer’s superior op. 6 collection. Yet the earlier works are thematically attractive, rhythmically varied, and expertly sequenced, despite being constructed piecemeal out of music composed over a long period of time. They’ve proven popular as well with modern listeners as a whole, and there’s no danger of their falling out of circulation—not with more than 15 recordings available in the current catalog.


Lars Ulrik Mortensen’s approach is straightforward, and inclining a bit to the decorous side. He phrases elastically in the adagio of the Third Concerto (the alternative solo flute version, rather than the usual oboe), but not as freely as Egarr/Academy of Ancient Music (Harmonia Mundi 2908292). Again, the opening vivace of the Sixth Concerto moves along with stately pride, but it misses the snap of Egarr’s trills that give it a swaggering air, or the delicacy and fleet pacing of Creswick/Northern Sinfonia (Naxos 8.553457). Next to these two versions, there’s a slight facelessness to this album, despite the virtuosic performances of Concerto Copenhagen.


Which isn’t to discount it; those listeners who find the likes of Egarr or Creswick too characterful will probably prefer these readings. There’s a fine sense of energy, movement and balance to timbres from Mortensen in the Fourth Concerto’s Ouverture, and as in the fugal allegro of the Fifth Concerto, all lines are clearly exposed, easy to follow. Then, too, if he doesn’t accent as sharply as several others, Mortensen does use longer-held notes as one among several methods of accenting—a period-accurate point, and providing a subtle variation to the standard phrasing heard on most other discs.


My own preferences still lie with Egarr in a period-instrument mood, and with Iona Brown/Academy of St. Martin (Hänssler 98.918) when not: unsentimental, brightly articulated, dance-like where required, but capable of great flexibility. But there’s much to be said in favor of this expertly performed recording.


FANFARE: Barry Brenesal

Organ Works of the North German Baroque featuring Flamme’s interpretation of Boehm’s complete organ oeuvre on the Creutzburg organ in the Church of St. Cyriacus in Duderstadt. Bohm, born in Thuringia, was 24 years older than Bach and the organist at St. John’s Church in Luneburg when the young Bach was residing there. Even if documents for a pupil-teacher relationship are lacking, the presence of the highly talented young musician in this town cannot have escaped Bohm’s notice.

The Akathistos Hymn to the Virgin Mary is a lyrical masterpiece in 24 stanzas that has been treasured for nearly 1,500 years by Eastern Christians. Father Ivan Moody's 1998 setting, composed specially for Cappella Romana, weaves beloved Greek melodies into Russian choral textures as it progresses from reverent contemplation to ecstatic transcendence. Vocal ensemble Cappella Romana combines passion with scholarship in it's exploration of early and contemporary music of the Christian East and West. It's name refers to the medieval Greek concept of the Roman oikoumene (inhabited world), which embraced Rome and Western Europe as well as the Byzantine Empire of Constantinople ("New Rome") and it's Slavic commonwealth. "purity and radiance in perfect realizations" (Gramophone) "The sound is splendid" (American Record Guide) "light and warmth over an ancient musical ground" (Willamette Week)

I cannot imagine a better place to start to get to know the French organ repertoire... Lovers of the genre should place their orders at once.

The CD opens with a display piece which is much more than just display: the whole disc might well have been devised to demonstrate that there is much more to the great French organ tradition than just a mighty sound. Much of the music is quiet and reflective and the bravura works, like this Tournemire improvisation, have more to offer than glorious sound.

This is one of the improvisations which Tournemire recorded and which were subsequently transcribed by Duruflé. Tournemire insisted that improvisations could not and should not be recaptured but this Improvisation on the Te Deum is a fine piece, worthy of preservation. The CD notes attribute this work to L’Orgue mystique, a cycle of 51 pieces on Gregorian themes for the major festivals of the liturgical year but, whereas that work consists of improvisation-like pieces which Tournemire actually wrote down, the Te Deum improvisation was not written down until Duruflé’s labour of love in transcribing it 28 years later.

Duruflé’s transcription in Ian Tracey’s hands almost persuades one that one is hearing the actual process of improvisation, yet at the same time the playing is totally assured. The Liverpool organ may not be a Cavaillé-Coll, but it is a fine instrument.

Only careful listening identifies the plainsong tune of the Te Deum but that is part of the art of composing such pieces. Bach sometimes buries his chorale melodies fairly deeply in his preludes and Duruflé’s own music based on plainsong themes sometimes requires a deal of detective work. Try his Four motets on Gregorian themes, coupled with his own performance of his gorgeous, Fauré-inspired Requiem and his Mass Cum jubilo on Apex 2564 61139 2, a budget-price distillation of two Erato CDs which have long been in my collection.

The two short pieces by Bonnet which follow are fairly insubstantial but they make an excellent bridge between the display of the Tournemire and the Saint-Saëns improvisation, itself an exercise in virtuosity which receives a glorious free-wheeling performance from Tracey. There is very little Saint-Saëns organ music in the record catalogues; a performance like this reminds us that there is much more to him than The Carnival of the Animals, as I have pointed out in my recent review of two of his Piano Concertos. (Jean-Yves Thibaudet with the OSR under Charles Dutoit on Decca 475 8764).

The title of Franck’s Grande Pièce Symphonique, which is used as the generic name of the CD as a whole, implies employment of the big guns but, in fact, the dominant mood of this piece is restrained, with frequent markings of dolce, pp and even ppp. The opening andante serioso is subdued and reflective: Tracey captures the serioso mood here as well as the mood of the succeeding allegro section, faster but still no troppo e maestoso. The notes in the booklet compare the opening section to a processional but I was put more in mind of a hushed and expectant congregation awaiting the start of Vespers.

In the quiet and reflective andante opening of the second movement, too, the image conjured up is of the preparation for an important service – a role which Tracey, in his capacity at Liverpool Cathedral, will have performed many times. He captures all these quiet passages extremely effectively, especially in those sections marked cantando, and the recording registers every detail, with individual manual- and pedal-parts coming over very clearly. The Liverpool reverberation is kept to a minimum.

The finale also opens pp, but with a hint of a storm to come. When those bigger guns finally arrive, in the wonderful fugue and the concluding outburst of joy, they are all the more effective for having been kept so long in reserve – and for Franck’s retaining a considerable degree of restraint even when they do fire. This is certainly not a showpiece for the sake of mere show and Tracey shows admirable restraint where a lesser organist might well have gone overboard. These grander moments are also very well captured by the engineers, even in normal stereo. One is again aware of the resonance of the building without its ever interfering with the clarity of the recording.

Those seeking to expand their knowledge of Franck’s organ music will inevitably reduplicate the Grande pièce, albeit at bargain price and on French organs. Either Jennifer Bate on the Beauvais organ (Regis RRC2054) or Marie-Claire Alain on the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Caen (Apex 2564 61428 2) will do very nicely. Both are 2-CD sets selling for around £9 in the UK.

The Gigout Scherzo provides a lighter, capricious moment before the Widor: delicacy of touch is paramount here and this Tracey very ably provides.

The Widor Symphony is not the one with the Toccata: that is No.5, already recorded in full by Tracey on CHAN9271. Listeners may welcome the chance to get away from that ubiquitous piece and at the same time hear another of his symphonies in its entirety: the Fourth Symphony is as good a piece as any to choose. Don’t expect these works, despite their title, to sound too symphonic: they are more like a suite than a symphony. Again Tracey’s chief rival in this work is Marie-Claire Alain’s authoritative account on the Cavaillé-Coll organ at Saint Germain (Warner Elatus 2564 60341 2, at mid-price).

Franck left his big guns till the end of his Grande Pièce; the Widor Symphony does the opposite, starting with a fff marking at the beginning of the opening Toccata. This is a big movement – by definition a Toccata is designed to show off the player’s expertise in ‘touching’ the keys. (From Italian toccare, to touch.) Tracey makes the Toccata sound big without being entirely overwhelming and without setting off too much reverberation: if anything, I might have wanted him to sound just a little more ferocious. The Fugue begins quietly with the 16’ pedal tone which the score calls for held in restraint; the effect is ethereal.

The third movement, marked dolce, opens even more ethereally, with the pp organ barely audible. This is the best-known movement, often played as a separate piece. The booklet compares it to Daquin’s Noëls but, having recently reviewed an excellent Hyperion Helios reissue of the Noëls (CDH 55319) I have to say that the relationship is a distant one apart from the cantabile nature of the music, excellently captured by Tracey. The central section, written in four staves – i.e. with two sets of pedal parts – is fiendishly difficult but Tracey, with art that conceals art, makes it sound effortless.

The Scherzo and Adagio are again gentle movements, the pp opening of each setting the tone. The mood of the Adagio anticipates that of Fauré’s Requiem by twenty-one years. Tracey’s nimble playing in the Scherzo, his lighter touch in the Adagio and the recording are once more absolutely first class.

It is a mark of a fine recording not only that it captures the loudest moments without distortion but that it makes an equally good job of registering music on the threshold of hearing. The Chandos engineers score in both respects on this CD – just don’t try to play it in the car: the volume required for the quieter movements to register would place you in the head-bangers’ league in the louder movements.

The Finale begins fff, a marking which recurs at several points in the movement. The big guns are unleashed at the start but Widor is careful again not to make the effect too overwhelming and Tracey’s playing contributes to the comparative restraint, especially in the central part of this movement. The closing bars bring a confident conclusion to the work, confidently executed.

I have already indicated that the recording is first-class even in stereo. In SACD surround-format I am sure that the ambience of Liverpool Cathedral is perfectly captured, albeit without too much of the reverberation of this building.

I’m going for broke and nominating this my Recording of the Month. I cannot imagine a better place to start to get to know the French organ repertoire – unless it should be one of Ian Tracey’s other recordings in this series. Lovers of the genre should place their orders at once.

-- Brian Wilson, MusicWeb International

One of the nicest organ recordings I’ve heard.

I’ve been aware of Charles Koechlin for a very long time, having played flute pieces of his for almost as long as I can remember. It’s only relatively recently however that his name seems to have been cropping up more in the CD catalogues, with fascinating and remarkable works such as the piano cycle Les Heures Persanes showing previously little known aspects of the composer. Organist Christian Schmitt has here recorded a representative sample of organ works by Koechlin, and as many of these are première recordings this disc will add considerably to our supply of Koechlinalea.

Koechlin himself was more of a pianist than an organist, and the conventional nature of earlier works such as the Choral in F minor develops into further extremes of contrapuntal extremity as evidenced by the later opus numbered Choral Final du Requiem, which pushes canonic techniques into a labyrinthine elegy. If you like Hindemith’s organ sonatas, then the three Sonatines which Koechlin wrote during 1928-29 occupy comparable melodic and harmonic territory. Koechlin’s fascination and deep study of Bach comes through strongly in the Finale of Sonatine III, and the first and second of these pieces contrast with the rest of the programme in also having lighter Pastorale movements. There is also a good deal of melodic charm in the Quatre Chorals, produced as a by-product of the composer’s own composition classes.

This programme contains what is apparently Koechlin’s last work, the eccentric Pièce pour orgue, Op. 226, which shows the composer exploring the essence of his own expressive palette in what the booklet notes describe as “sketchy textures.” More monumental is the extended Fugue Op.133 II originally written for “a symphonic string apparatus”, and with seemingly impossible chromatic lines. More gentle and improvisatory is the Adagio pour Grand-orgue Op.201, which nonetheless builds a remarkable structure in which one can become totally immersed.

The recently rebuilt 1950s Marktkirche organ is a tremendous instrument, and very well suited to this music. A more nasal French sound might arguably be more appropriate, but whether consciously or not the organ sound here points to the universality of Koechlin’s expressive world and to my ears is both appropriate and highly enjoyable. The CPO recording is very rich and deep even in plain stereo. As an SACD multi-channel experience it really is of demonstration quality. This is one of those inspiring releases which anyone keen on organ music and 20 ^th century repertoire should have around. The organ music of Charles Koechlin should hold no fears for anyone attracted by the romantic worlds of Widor and Duruflé, and indeed it often harks back to more ancient worlds in its sometimes antique style and use of the models of Bach. This organ sound is woodsmoke and nostalgia to me, and has restored my faith in its qualities as a truly expressive instrument. Superbly performed and produced with useful booklet notes, it is one of the nicest organ recordings I’ve heard for a long time.

-- Dominy Clements, MusicWeb International

This is rather terrific. It is an example of the transcriber's art as high as Bach's and a whole CD of it, full of Italian concertos we never hear, as well as ones we do. What we have here is a kind of super-abundant version of Bach's arrangements of Vivaldi and others. These are 'concertos after' and reflect the transcriber's skill who has turned them into organ sonatas with some degree of freedom. There was a Vol. 1 of transcribed (Albinoni, Gregori, Telemann, Gentili) and original works which I've not yet heard. Walther was a year older than his distant relative, J. S. Bach. The two became friends when Bach spent time in Weimar. Walther was acknowledged as one of the great organists of his day, playing not only his own compositions but, as Vol. 2 shows, collecting those of other composers.

Born in Erfurt he received tuition from Johann Bernhard Bach. Organist at his home city's St Thomas he formed a friendship, based on much travelling, with Werckmeister, studied with Pachelbel's son, Wilhelm Hieronymus, then studied philosophy back at Erfurt university. As often happens to musical philosophy students in Germany around this time, he finally devoted his energy to music from thenceforth, and was organist at St. Paul's Weimar from 1707, joining the court orchestra by invitation of Duke Wilhelm Ernst, around the time Bach was leaving after the death of his wife.

Walther's own chorale preludes are represented, and 'Mache, dich' with its tinkling effects rather like some of Krebs's later efforts, recall one of the occasional stops no longer used in the organ vocabulary. They're very fine pieces and deserve to be better known. Walther's own modesty and low profile as a composer is the key to their comparative neglect. The transcriptions are suitable for the Italian or Italianate originals, the Vivaldi similar to Bach's and the Manzia unexpected in its use of flute stops. The Blamr is gentle, not quite bland, an attractive composition by someone hardly known to us. The Taglietti is full of panache and the three Torelli concerti that close the volume full of a graciousness one doesn't expect. The single movement d minor is full of questing for the home key, reflective and quasi-churchy. The B flat blows this away in brilliant ceremonials. The a minor is full of bright gothic gloom.

A really enjoyable disc, a true addition, beautifully recorded and played.

-- Simon Jenner, MusicWeb International

Richard Elliott, principal organist of The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, performs composer Robert Cundick's 'Organ Concerto' on the Lively-Fulcher Organ at Libby -Gardner Concert Hall, University Of Utah, with a string ensemble conducted by Ryan Murphy, associate music director of The Tabernacle Choir at Temple Square, with Alexander Woods, concertmaster. Elliott also performs four hymn settings arranged by Cundick on the Schoenstein Organ at The Conference Center On Temple Square, Salt Lake City.

This new release is the first recording to feature the Casavant Frères organ built during the early 1990s for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at Orchestra Hall. The beautifully produced recording highlights four substantial and worthwhile American works written between 1943 and 1990, in brilliant performances by organist David Schrader with the Grant Park Orchestra (which offers summer concerts in Chicago), conducted by the Uruguayan-born, Viennese-trained Carlos Kalmar. Hence, this disc will be of great interest to aficionados of organ music, as well as to those with a special interest in American music or in these four Pulitzer Prize-winning composers.

Samuel Barber’s Toccata festiva was composed in 1960 to commemorate the installation of a new organ donated by Mary Curtis Bok Zimbalist to Philadelphia’s Academy of Music. (At a cost of $150,000, the Aeolian-Skinner was the largest movable pipe organ in the world at the time.) Her gift also included the commissioning of a celebratory piece of music for the occasion. Barber’s Toccata is one of his very few works that have the ring of a “potboiler” (although, in fact, Barber declined the fee offered by his devoted, long-time patron). That is, its fabrication of hearty good cheer seems a tad forced, as it works through material strongly reminiscent of previous successes, most notably, Knoxville (the justly beloved vocal work whose deeply reflective nostalgia is almost diametrically opposed to the extroverted character of this showpiece). Nevertheless, Barber’s workmanship was never less than meticulous, and the resulting composition fulfills its requirements with impeccable panache. As fine as this performance and recording may be, however, those listeners whose interest is limited to the Barber will probably be happier with the original recording that featured E. Power Biggs with the Philadelphia Orchestra under Ormandy. I believe that this rendition is still available on an all-Barber CD reissue.

Speaking of Biggs, Walter Piston’s Prelude and Allegro was commissioned in 1943 by the esteemed organist for one of his weekly radio broadcasts. The Prelude offers a warmly expressive, long-lined polyphony that calls Barber’s own style to mind; the Allegro cuts less deeply than the opening, and displays the briskly vigorous, syncopated counterpoint generally associated with its composer.

The music of Leo Sowerby (1895–1968), a prolific composer based for many years in Chicago, has never gained a strong foothold with the listening public, although there have been recent efforts to prompt a reconsideration of his output. From my perspective, Sowerby’s music, like that of many mid-Western composers, suffers from a neutrality of affect, untroubled by either spiritual or emotional conflict. This 18-minute Concertpiece, dating from 1951, is representative of such a characterization: a robust, full-throated fantasia-like piece that falls loosely into three sections. Simple modal thematic material is developed into rather elaborate, chromatic textures. Post-Romantic in its musical language, but abstract in structure, the work is unavoidably comparable to Howard Hanson’s Concerto for Organ, Harp, and Strings, completed just ten years earlier. The works cover very similar terrain, expressively and stylistically, although Hanson’s offers a stronger personal profile.

The most recent composition is Snow Walker, written in 1990 by Michael Colgrass. Colgrass, who turned seventy this year, lived for some time among the Inuit in northern Canada. “Snow Walker” is apparently an Inuit image that represents death and resurrection. In five movements, this 22-minute work was inspired by Inuit mythology and by the composer’s impressions of the Arctic. Like much music of the 1990s, Snow Walker is oriented around gesture and sonority, rather than by the dynamics of harmonic melody, meter, or tonality. For me, a little of this sort of thing goes a long way; each time I listened to the piece, my interest had waned by the fourth section. (Actually, I suspect that Colgrass’s interest waned by the fourth section.) However, the first three sections are quite compelling in their preternatural way. The first movement, “Polar Landscape,” is enormously evocative; the second attempts to simulate a type of Inuit singing that resembles an unearthly sort of laughter; the third, entitled “The Whispering Voices of the Spirits Who Ride with the Lights in the Sky,” is almost terrifying in its eeriness.

In summary, this will be a welcome acquisition for those whose interests embrace this repertoire.

-- Walter Simmons, Fanfare