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

The organ sonatas of Josef Rheinberger still feature large in the repertoire of church organists everywhere, thanks to their attractive melodies and fluent writing for the instrument. Rheinberger’s industry and his skill as a teacher have overshadowed his gifts as a composer in other genres, which this new release helps to redress with suites and tone-pictures for the combination of strings and organ.

While Rheinberger’s Abendlied Op.69 No.2 holds a Brahmsian appeal for choruses, his instrumental Abendlied Op.150 is much less familiar. Yet the combination of string- instrument and organ is intensely evocative of the warm mood of recollection intrinsic to the German genre of ‘Evening Songs’; Rheinberger balances the two instruments with great skill and sympathy so that the organ always supports the cello’s noble cantabile. The Abendlied features here in two recordings; arranged for cello, and in its original version for violin, as part of the complete set of six pieces. Cellist Marco Dalsass also contributes an arrangement of the Pastorale and Elegie from the same set, and it proves fascinating to compare the angelic song of the violin with the warmer baritonal register of the cello in the same music. Both violin and cello join the organ for the Suite Op.149: a substantial four-movement work lasting 40 minutes, opening in a passionate but Baroque-inflected C minor. A meditative set of variations on an original theme is followed by a solemn sarabande, beautifully conceived for all three instruments in the vein of a Romantic slow movement but essentially ecclesiastical in tone. Baroque forms – a free-flowing prelude, a tender Canzone and graceful Allemande – also soften the C minor tonality of the Suite Op.166 for violin and organ, before the Moto perpetuo finale brings the suite to a dazzling close with the most extrovert music in the collection.

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

Since only a very few compositions from Johann Wilhelm Hertel’s complete oeuvre were printed during his lifetime, the dissemination of his music was very limited and restricted. The rediscovery of this master’s two cello concertos in the early 1990s already represented a great enrichment of the repertoire of violoncello concertos from the age of Empfindsamkeit and the style galant around 1750. Bettina Messerschmidt became acquainted with Hertel’s music at the beginning of her career as a Baroque cellist and enthusiastically welcomed the warmth, power, and melodiousness of his compositions right from the very start. In the concertos she often develops a dialogue between the cello and the strings through contrasting expression of an intensity recalling the cello concertos written by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach around the same time. Along with two symphonies by Hertel, his only organ concerto, in all probability composed during 1756-57, is heard on our new releases. Here too the organ shines in dancy movements with fiery figurations

Performer, composer and teacher Marco Enrico Bossi (1861-1925) was the first internationally famous Italian concert artist. + He was conferred the highest ranks in the Kingdom, became an honorary member of the most prestigious foreign and Italian Academies and enjoyed the esteem and friendship of great musicians and men of letters. + These recordings, based on the critical edition of Bossi’s Complete Organ Works, were performed on organs built at the time the recorded pieces were composed.

Few pipe organs in history have received as much attention as the iconic “Hazel.” David Ball’s performance takes full advantage of this “King of Instruments’” potential. “It is always an honor to sit in front of Hazel’s console and play,” said David Ball, Cathedral Organist and Head of Music Ministry. “I am continuously in awe of the sheer power and breadth of this amazing instrument.” Juilliard-trained organist David L. Ball serves as Cathedral Organist and Head of Music Ministry at Christ Cathedral in the Diocese of Orange, California (formerly Crystal Cathedral).

David is a recognized and well-lauded performer—The New York Times declared his appearance in Juilliard’s FOCUS! Festival “a rousing performance.” David completed both the Bachelor and Master of Music at The Juilliard School in New York City, studying under Mr. Paul Jacobs. As Christ Cathedral Organist, David’s musical contributions underpin the Cathedral’s vast array of weekly services and events, accompanying the Diocesan, Cathedral, and Children’s Choirs and supporting the parish’s diverse congregation.

Giovanni Battista Candotti was born in 1809 and died in 1876. Self-taught musician and refined sacred music expert, he was Chapel Master at the Cathedral of Cividale del Friuli (Udine, Northeast Italy). He was still a child when he was sent to study in a seminary by his family, whose poor economic conditions would not have allowed him to pursue an advanced literary education. The great diligence shown from the earliest stages of his schooling, together with the swift progress he made both in theology and in literary subjects earned him a number of prizes and acknowledgements, also enabling him to complete his studies ahead of time. He stood out in Italian, Latin, Greek and Jewish literature. From his vast production, mainly of a sacred and liturgical genre, Gerwin Hoekstra, winner of the First Prize at the "International Organ Competition for Historical Organs of the Basso Friuli", VI edition, 2018, offers to us a significant anthology of typical pieces of the Italian Risorgimento style, at the 1850 Valentino Zanin organ from the church of Talmassons (Udine - Italy).