Duruflé: Complete Organ Music / Henry Fairs

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DURUFLÉ Fugue on the Carillon of the Cathedral of Soissons. Prelude, Adagio, and Choral Variations on “Veni Creator.” Prelude on the Introit of the Epiphany. Scherzo, op. 2. Prelude and Fugue on the Name of Alain. Meditation, op. posth. Hommage à Jean Gallon. Suite, op. 5 • Henry Fairs (org) • NAXOS 8.557924 (73:21)


Duruflé, a student of Charles Tournemire and Louis Vierne, is unabashedly post-Romantic. His music is characterized by lyrical sweetness even when it is Plainchant derived or contrapuntally rigorous. For a recording to be successful, it must convey more than a dollop of atmosphere, the full impact of his delicate registration colors, and linear clarity. All of these prerequisites are fulfilled in these performances by Henry Fairs and his aptly chosen Organ of Notre-Dame d’Auteuil, Paris (Cavaillé-Coll 1884–1885).


This release encounters worthy competition from a Loft offering featuring Hans Davidsson performing on the Verschueren Organ, 1998, Göteborg, Sweden (Loft 1054), and a Sanctuary Classics Resonance disc featuring David M. Patrick on the Organ of Gloucester Cathedral (3073). In Meditation , op. Posth., Fairs is more meditative than the estimable David M. Patrick, and his pedal tones are more impressively recorded. In the feathery Scherzo, op. 2, Fairs is a bit more otherworldly than Patrick, and, as before, his pedal tones are more viscerally registered. The more dynamically varied Suite, op. 5, is given a splendid performance by Hans Davidsson on Loft, a company that has provided more than its fair share of stunning organ recordings. Davidsson’s recording is more close-up and timbrally colorful than Fairs’s, but doesn’t quite pack the full wallop of the piece’s pedal tones. The Loft effort has marginally less dynamic range than Naxos’s. Both performances are splendid. One’s preference will probably be dictated by the tolerance of one’s neighbors—the Loft offering has more impact when played at lower levels than does Fairs’s, which requires cranking things up a bit in order to taste it to the fullest degree.


In sum, this is a fine effort. The two comparison discs offer multi-composer collections, but Naxos, in its ongoing attempt to record the everything of everybody, dedicates its entire disc (which claims to contain his entire organ output) to Duruflé. Add to this Naxos’s budget price, and . . .


Typically, full organ specs are provided in the well-written and highly informative liner notes.


FANFARE: William Zagorski


Product Description:

  • Release Date: May 29, 2007


  • Catalog Number: 8557924


  • UPC: 747313292424


  • Label: Naxos


  • Number of Discs: 1


  • Composer: Maurice Duruflé


  • Performer: Henry Fairs