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Recording

Le Grand Jeu

French Baroque organ favourites
Collection L’Age d’or de l’orgue française No. 4
Gaétan Jarry
65:19
Château de Versailles Spectacles CVS024
Music by d’Angelbert, Charpentier, Corrette, Couperin, Dandrieu, de Grigny, Handel, Lully, Marchand, Purcell & Rameau

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CD cover of Gaétan Jarry

Not for the first time, the in-house Versailles CD production team have come up with a disc that isn’t really quite what it says it is, but that might well catch the eye of those browsing in the palace shop, not least because of the picture on the front of the packaging.

Given the working title of ‘French Baroque Organ Favourites,’ I doubt that any EMR-reading organists would have come up with a programme which included Dido’s Lament and/or Handel’s Sheba and in which Corrette out-gunned Couperin by eight and a half minutes to one and a half. And not a Noël in sight. Yes, there is some organ music – the tiny Couperin, more substantial Dandrieu and Grigny – but most of the programme is arrangements principally of Rameau and Lully.

It’s all very well played of course, though some of what we hear wouldn’t be possible without modern recording trickery, and we do get a good trip around the organ’s sound-world (it is a marvellous instrument) but for me that isn’t really the point. You realise how distinctive and rich the true repertoire is when track 4 begins and Dandrieu’s splendid Easter Offertoire succeeds a pair of contredanses by Rameau. The word ‘idiomatic’ sprang to mind, and the organ sounded so much happier.

The booklet essays (French, English & German) are long on gush and short on real information about the music, though there is a useful biography of the organ and some more good pictures. Overall, however, this is not really EMR/HIP material.

David Hansell

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Recording

Buxtehude: Complete Organ Works I

Friedhelm Flamme
135:50 (2 CDs in a single jewel case)
cpo 555 253-2

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I was brought up on the renowned Danish organist, Finn Viderø’s recordings of Buxtehude which he made in the 1950s, largely on the 1942 Marcussen organ in the Klosterkirche at Sorø, Denmark. They were notable for their clarity and rhythmic precision, and while he did not use a historic instrument, the Marcussen organ there was an early example of a mechanical action instrument designed on werkprinzip lines and the recordings were energetic and crystal clear – as an elderly and rather mannered schoolmaster once said to me, ‘absolutely spiffing – no smudge!’

Fashions have changed, and organists now search out historic instruments appropriate to the style of the music they wish to record. I find then slightly curious that for the first two CDs in a new complete Buxtehude – and maybe for them all – the accomplished organist, Friedhelm Flamme, should choose the Christoph Treutmann Orgel (1734-7) in the Klosterkirche Grauhof, near Goslar. It is a favourite organ of his and he has recorded both Michael Praetorius and Vincent Lübeck there.

But this instrument postdates Buxtehude, and it definitely not in the North German style. It seems to have been chosen largely because is has – as had the organ in St Mary’s Lübeck since 1685 – a well-tempered tuning, and so makes the playing of some of Buxtehude’s works in more remote keys like E major and F# minor less astringent. It stands in a large Baroque Augustinian abbey built by an Italian architect from Lombardy between 1711 and 1717, and, although Treutmann had worked with the Schnitgers in north Germany, the sound in the resonant acoustic feels more like a southern German instrument to me. There are a number of string and flute stops that increase this sense of a later Baroque sonority, as well as the fine 32’ Posaune, mentioned in a laudatory contemporary review of the organ by Johann Hemann Biermann, where he says, ‘The structure and outline of this very magnificent and precious work presents itself to the eye as noble and lively beyond all measure. […] It also possesses an all the more pervasive harmony and corresonance (sic), so that it might well brook comparison with a thunderstorm rumbling in the air, namely, when the Posaune 32’ bass is added.’ It is indeed very fine, and, like all the pedal reeds, speaks extremely promptly; if he were recording the organ works of Pachelbel, for example, I might well have applauded his choice of instrument.

The 32’ Posaune is used in the pedal solo of the opening piece, the Praeludium, Fuge und Ciacona in C (BuxWV 137), and it is difficult to hear anything else with any clarity when it is drawn. But Flamme then uses it moderately sparingly, and so allows us to hear the way the other ranks – especially the foundation stops – combine to create a range of more subtle effects in the chorale preludes.

Each CD is planned as a complete recital in itself, with pieces chosen for their related keys. This makes for good listening, but make it harder to follow with a score. On the first CD, the Partita on Auf meinen lieben Gott (BuxWV 179) brings welcome relief before we plunge back into the E minor Ciacona, with all four pedal reeds throughout against the principal choruses of the coupled Hauptwerck and Oberwerck.  The complex three-section prelude on Ich dank dir schon durch deinen Sohn (BuxVW 195) is splendidly played, with a light 8’ pedal, and some of the preludes and fugues have an equally light registration – again the clarity of the pedal flues as well as the reeds shows to great advantage.

In the second CD, after the Toccata in D minor with its contrasting sections and multiple changes of manuals and registrations, we hear Mit Fried und Freud ich fahr dahin (BuxWV 75), Buxtehude’s setting of the Nunc Dimittis with its canonically complex variations, written in memory of his father and capable of multiple performance possibilities, including with voices and viols. I do not much care for his D minor Passacaglia (BuxWV 161) with its nightingale effects, but again we hear what the organ is capable of.

The F major Toccata (BuxWV 157) shows Flamme playing these showy but harmonically simple pieces with the rich 16’ and 8’ manual reeds, and he follows this by small-scale manualiter canzonettas and fugues, sometimes based on 4’ pitch. The disc ends with the amazing Praeludium in E, with its rich chromatics, demonstrating the need for a well-tempered instrument, that influenced his choice of the Klosterkirche Grauhof Treutmann instrument.

On the showing of these first two CDs, this will be a significant series, challenging other established complete organ works by Vogel, Bryndorf and others who chose to play on more recognisably Danish/North German instruments. While it deserves a warm welcome, the choice of instrument(s) matters as well as the playing. Has Flamme in his search for a colourful instrument thought of using the stunningly re-habilitated Stellwagen organ (1659) in St Mary’s Straslund for Buxtehude? It was Stellwagen who rebuilt the Totentanz organ in St Mary’s, Lübeck in 1653 and worked on the large organ there that Buxtehude played as well, so there would be a good historical reason, even if it has a not very extreme meantone temperament. However, in the booklet, there is a good essay on the Treutmann organ and its history, an introduction to the style and development of Buxtehude’s writing and in particular, the detailed registration chosen for each movement of each work. This is a great help to the listener, particularly when the monumental sound threatens to obscure some of the finer points of both the music and the playing.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

F. Couperin: Complete works for organ

James Johnstone Tribuot Organ 1699 Seurre
100:59 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
Metronome METCD 1098 & 1099
+ Jean-Henri d’Angelbert: Complete works for organ

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In earlier reviews of James Johnstone’s organ playing, I have commented on the importance of finding a characteristic and appropriate instrument on which to perform the music, and this recording of the Couperin organ masses follows this tradition splendidly. The organ is neither well-known nor very large but turns out to be a gem by the Parisian builder Julien Tribuot. It was built for the Cistercian Abbey of Maizières in 1699 and was mercifully preserved when the abbey was dissolved by being sold in 1791 to the parish of Seurre on the Saône, where obscurity saved it from 19th- and 20th-century ‘improvements’, until its careful rehabilitation by Bernard Aubertin in 1991.

Like much else in the French organ music of the period, conventions for registration were detailed and highly prescriptive. Only on a French organ of the period can you hope to reproduce the required sounds with any accuracy and only a player who understands the conventions of notation and ornamentation in the period will get it feeling right.

I bought the L’Oiseau-Lyre edition of the Couperin Masses in October 1958 from UMP, and I remember struggling through some of it in a break-out room when a voice over my shoulder said, ‘No-one has taught you how to play this, have they?’ That was the legendary Felix Aprahamian, music critic and friend of Poulenc and Messiaen, who introduced me to the conventions of the ornaments and notes inégales, and fixed for me to go and play the Cliquot organ in Poitiers Cathedral. So my admiration for James Johnstone’s choice of instrument, disciplined approach to the registration and strict observance of the conventions of rhythm and ornamentation knows no bounds: he plays this repertoire with a detailed knowledge of the style on an appropriate organ that I’ve never heard before in an acoustic that allows the detail and flexible rhythms of his inégales to be appreciated and enjoyed.

This time too he has included not just the details of the specification of the organ in his booklet, but also full details of the registration for each movement on his website (www.jamesjohnstone.org). The pedal organ characteristically has reeds at 8’and 4’ pitch for use with the Plein Jeu and otherwise an 8’ flute; the 3rd and 4th manuals (Récit and Écho) have but a single stop on each – a five-rank cornet. We never hear the Écho cornet, and the flute on the Pedale is surprisingly insubstantial – it is a reconstruction, and I had expected something with a little more body for the bass of the movements en taille, but the robust Cromorne on the Positif en Dos is splendid and makes a surprisingly adequate balance with the Trompette and Clairon of the Grand-Orgue in the dialogue movements.

It is by the fluid rhythms of the recits en taille that I think players of this repertoire – which looks so plain on paper until it is brought to life by a player who has the conventions of late 17th- and early 18th-century French music in his bones – should be judged, and I think Johnstone has it. In his monograph French Organ Music in the Reign of Louis XIV (CUP 2011), David Ponsford analyses in great detail the genesis and development of the genres of the music of this repertoire, and shows how the styles relate to the quest in France for a living, breathing style that was capable of human emotion and expression.

This recording offers a perfect worked example, and I am very glad to have heard it. It is neatly produced and edited by Carole Cerasi, the harpsichordist and a fellow professor of Johnstone’s at the Guildhall. I particularly value Johnstone’s nose for sniffing out such high-quality, lesser-known instruments, and look forward to further discoveries for his Bach series.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

In chains of gold: The English pre-Reformation verse anthem, volume 2

William Byrd to Edmund Hooper: psalms and royal anthems
Magdalena Consort, Fretwork, His Majestys Sagbutts & Cornetts, Silas Wollston organ
70:29
Signum Classics SIGCD609

Byrd: Hear my prayer, O Lord rebuke me not, Have mercy upon me O God Fantasia BK46, Teach me O Lord, Christ rising again, I will give laud, Look and bow down Bull: Almighty God which by the leading of a star, Fantasia MB 16, Deliver me O Go. Cosyn: Voluntaries 1 and 3 Morley: Out of the deep Hooper: Hearken ye nations, O God of gods John Mundy: Sing joyfully

We were lucky enough to receive two copies of this recording for review, and here are the two reactions to it. Firstly (in the order in which they arrived in my inbox!), Richard Turbet then David Stancliffe.

This is the second volume in the series which began with a well-received disc of all the surviving consort anthems by Orlando Gibbons. It features Byrd, plus his pupils Morley and Bull, and their contemporaries Edmund Hooper and John Mundy, with organ solos by Benjamin Cosyn. The music itself is varied and of the highest quality, the performers are among the finest in this repertory, the scholarship behind it is in the distinguished hands of Andrew Johnstone whose doctoral thesis is on Byrd’s Anglican music, and the artistic director is Bill Hunt, founder-member of Fretwork who, at the time of writing, is engaged upon a doctoral thesis about consort anthems.

The proceedings get off to the best possible start with the first of three Byrd premieres: Byrd’s oeuvre runs to well over five hundred works, and his entire repertories of Latin, keyboard and consort music have been recorded. However, there are many gaps in the English-texted music, both sacred – liturgical as well as domestic – and secular. Hear my prayer, O Lord is one of Byrd’s three surviving verse anthems (with an accompaniment for the organ and therefore intended for use in the Anglican liturgy) but Andrew Johnstone feels that he has evidence that it originated as a consort anthem, with an accompaniment for viols indicating domestic performance. Although this is open to interpretation, it is entirely appropriate to be open to alternative possibilities and to air them in a project such as this. In any event, this piece is a gem and its eventual appearance on a commercial recording is greatly to be welcomed. O Lord rebuke me not is the second of Byrd’s surviving liturgical verse anthems on this disc, and again Andrew Johnstone feels that there is evidence of domestic origins. There have been a couple of previous recordings of it with an organ by cathedral choirs (Salisbury and Lichfield), but it is no less welcome here in this experimental – and, who knows, perhaps authentic – guise. The third of Byrd’s trio of surviving liturgical verse anthems Teach me O Lord is performed as such, with organ, but with an intriguing slant to its interpretation. The verse is in triple time, and the chorus in duple. Normally this is performed as dotted semibreve = semibreve when passing from verse to chorus (with the reverse from chorus to verse), as in volume 10a of The Byrd Edition (p. 43 passim) or simply retaining the value of each note, i.e. semibreve = semibreve. In this recording the verse and chorus are rendered with a proportional relationship between the triple and duple sections, resulting in the verse being sung much more briskly than is usually the case. Having recovered from the initial surprise and listened several times, I am still not convinced, but none of us were there at the time, Byrd’s manuscript does not survive, contemporary sources are inconsistent, and insufficient research has been published, so it is again thoroughly worthwhile to use this recording as a vehicle for such an experiment.

The second of Byrd’s premieres is I will give laud, one of several fragmentary songs that survive in a lutebook from the Paston collection from which crucial parts are missing, hence their skeletal appearance in volume 16 of The Byrd Edition. Andrew Johnstone has done heroic work in making this song performable, and there is word of a forthcoming publication containing several other such Byrd reconstructions. The text is the usual excruciating paraphrase of a psalm, in this case the luckless XXXIV, perpetrated by Thomas Sternhold, and the form is ten verses sung by a soloist in the measure of a galliard, accompanied by a quintet of viols, with a chorus repeating the final two lines of alternate verses.

The third of the trio of Byrd premieres is the majestic Look and bow down. Byrd, who was what we would nowadays call the Master of the Queen’s Musick, sets a poem by Queen Elizabeth thanking God for assisting mainly Herself in seeing off the Spanish Armada in 1588. Again, major reconstructive musical surgery was required from Andrew Johnstone. (At least two previous attempts, by experts on respectively Byrd and the Paston sources, had been made, to try to create a performable song out of the intractable fragments.) It was first sung outside St Paul’s Cathedral, so the decision was taken for this recording to use an accompaniment of winds, as would have been the practice at the time. Mean and triplex soloists respectively sing the first two verses, the final lines echoed by the chorus, then the soloists join together in the final verse, to make a glorious conclusion with the four wind instruments, the organ and, for the repetition of the final couplet, all the available singers. The resulting sound is magnificent, with the prevailing dignified minor tonality giving way to a moving evocation of “The soul of me his turtledove” in the final line.

That concludes the Byrd half of the disc, and it is followed by Bull’s famous Starre Anthem and Deliver me, O God, another premiere, which is set to a text said also to be by the Queen celebrating the defeat of the Armada. Towards the end of the record are two powerful anthems by Edmund Hooper, a fine composer who seems to have been neglected simply because of the sheer number of gifted contemporaries. He is no less gifted than most of them, however, and although there is a fine recording of his services and anthems by The Choir of Selwyn College, Cambridge under Andrew Gant (Lammas LAMM 096D), these two works receive their premieres on the present disc. Hearken ye nations is a bracingly grumpy work which loquaciously celebrates the failure of the Gunpowder Plot, while O God of gods was composed for the Accession Day of James I as king of England and, like Byrd’s Look and bow down, ropes in winds, a substantial chorus, and even a session musician on tenor dulcian, to bring the proceedings to an appropriately regal conclusion.

All the other pieces on this disc – the better-known anthems needing less editorial labour and the works for organ – go towards making this a most attractive and enthralling programme, supported by a booklet that is both scholarly and readable. From an engineering point of view, just occasionally the second vocal line down could have been given more presence (such as in the third verse of Look and bow down), otherwise this recording sounds as elevated as the quality of the music it presents. The performances leave nothing to be desired. The viols and wind are, as I have already said, the top of their profession. All the singers are excellent, among whom Elisabeth Paul and Zoe Brookshaw (“mean” and “triplex”) have prominent roles. But every individual performer, alongside their technical and musicological colleagues, has been crucial in making this an outstanding disc.

Richard Turbet


This is the second volume of Bill Hunt’s great project to edit and record the corpus of pre-Restoration Verse Anthems, of which Volume 1, focussing on Gibbons, appeared in 2018 and was reviewed in January of that year.

This second volume has a wonderful range of music starting with William Byrd and moving through John Bull and Thomas Morley, interspersed with short voluntaries for the organ by Benjamin Cosyn, to John Mundy and the great discovery for me – Edmund Hooper, whom I only knew as the composer of a set of evensong canticles. Three of Byrd’s penitential psalms begin the programme, and after Teach me, O Lord, Christ rising again and I will give laud (a splendid five-part reconstruction by Andrew Johnstone of a swinging lyric rather in the manner of Though Amaryllis dance in green), comes Look and bow down, a setting of words by Queen Elizabeth herself which was ‘performed at Sainte Pauls crosse in London’. It is accompanied by cornets and sackbuts on this recording as in all probability it was sung outside the cathedral after the Bishop of Salisbury’s sermon at the conclusion of the service to give thanks for deliverance from the Spanish Armada.

One of the welcome features of this distinguished recording is the care taken to make the texts clearly audible. This is where the Reformation concern for the clarity and audibility of the text and the musical seconda prattica championed by Monteverdi and the composers of the new dramatic word-settings emanating from Italy coincided. I particularly enjoyed the Magdalena Consort’s director Peter Harvey articulating the bass verses in John Mundy’s Sing Joyfully with such clarity and feeling: it is not always easy to make the bass part in such music melodically interesting as well as so wonderfully resonant. His rock-steady pitching against which the other voices can tune is a model for this kind of consort singing. For drama, I admired Benedict and Hugo Hymas’ passionate declamation and articulation of the expressive words – again possibly by Queen Elizabeth – in Bull’s Deliver me, O God, which follows his well-known ‘Starre Anthem’.

The ensemble singing is outstanding. This struck me most forcibly when the full voices entered after Elizabeth Paul’s opening verse with the viols in Byrd’s O Lord, rebuke me not. Breathing as one, the singers with the admirable Eleanor Minney on top contrive an organ-like unanimity of sound that contrasts with the single voice verse. Such alternation between a single voice with viols and this rich homophonic sound is a characteristic of the verse anthem genre, and throws the text into prominence by repeating it word for word. Only Andrew Johnstone’s illuminating note on the Byrd settings reveals that he is the reconstructing detective of several of these pieces, so imperceptible is his skilful hand, and I look forward to many of his Byrd reconstructions coming into the public domain.

While the singing is agile as well as rich (listen to the nimble rhythms in Christ rising again), the playing is equally elegant. Fretwork shares the bulk of it, and their sinuous lines weave a magical backdrop to the voices. Mostly the singers pick up a responsive style – much of this is music for private chapels and long galleries rather than the formal worship of church services, so a reflective, understated style is called for in many pieces. To my mind, only Zoë Brookshaw sometimes sings with too much vibrato on unimportant notes; otherwise, the singers vary their style between verse and chorus very perceptively.

But the real triumph of this project is to unite scholarship, performance practice and passionate music-making. Often two of these three are fulfilled, but rarely all three. You can sense the energy and passion in the project from the commitment of the musicians, all skilled practitioners in their fields. But behind them stand Andrew Johnstone and Bill Hunt – the presiding genius. And as always with Bill’s projects, there are unanswered questions: for me, the one I hope to pursue is that about the music desk in Bishop Andrewes’ chapel. I have a very clear memory of an enclosed pew with a central desk on the right-hand side of the chapel at Wolvsey, the palace of the Bishops of Winchester near the cathedral in Winchester. Am I right in thinking that this might well have held a consort of viols? Certainly, the substantial mediaeval chapel with its distinctive ‘Laudian’ fittings has never, as far as I know, had an organ.

To raise more questions than you answer and to excite your followers with the same passion to find out more is the mark of all inspired educators, and this CD is with its splendid notes is a fine example of that.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

J. S. Bach: Orgelbüchlein BWV 599-644

Stephen Farr (T. H. G. Trost organ, Stadtkirche Waltershausen)
79:02
Resonus Classics RES10259

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In the time of lockdown, music that echoes an underlying structure that is bedded into our subconscious seems somehow more necessary. The philosophical and mathematical sides of Bach’s creative genius provide patterns of order and stability that give confidence to those who feel all at sea in the present uncertainties, so a new recording of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein starts with an advantage. In the Orgelbüchlein, Bach uses the framework of the Lutheran liturgical year to order a number of exercises on the myriad different ways in which to prelude the Lutheran chorales appropriate to the seasons of the year and major themes of Lutheran piety, and listening to all 46 tracks of Stephen Farr’s CD in just under 80 minutes provides a patterned experience that has its own satisfying internal logic, though the surviving numbers in the Orgelbüchlein represent only a fraction of the 164 pieces that were planned, as the many blank pages in the autograph attest.

What sort of pedagogical exercise is this? The preludes range from the relatively simply structured if elaborate pieces where the chorale melody is clearly heard at the top of a polyphonic texture like BWV 601 Herr Christ, der ein’ge Gottes-Sohn or 625 Christ lag in Todesbanden through the more elaborately decorated works such as BWV 622 O Mensch bewein or BWV 634 Liebster Jesus, wir sind hier to the even more complex or inventive BWV 608 In dulci jubilo or BWV 629 Erschienen ist der herrliche Tag, where the chorale – heard in canon at a bar’s distance – is given a kind of acoustic echo. Then there are those that use an ostinato phrase like BWV 615 In dir ist Freude or BWV 637 Durch Adams Fall to punch out the key theme or the more complex canonical structures of BWV 611 Christum wir sollen loben schon with the chorale in the alto and free-running imitation in the other parts or BWV 624 Hilf Gott, dass mir’s gelinge with its additional obbligato line in running triplets from beginning to end under the chorale in canon at the fifth. Some have reminiscences of Pachelbel’s chorale variations like BWV 632 Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend’, or Bach’s own trio sonatas like BWV 639 Ich ruf’ zu dir. All this gives an infinite variety as well as stretching the organist’s technical capabilities.

As always, Stephen Farr’s playing is faultless; but his choice of instrument here doesn’t make it easy for him. Instead of a more compact and responsive instrument such as was available to Bach in Weimar during the time when the bulk of the Orgelbüchlein was written, he chose the large (and somewhat unwieldy) organ by Trost that dates in the main between 1724 and 1730 in the more developed Thuringian style where many ranks clearly have to be coaxed into speech.

This famous instrument, conserved in the 1990s and sampled for Hauptwerk, gives him almost unlimited tonal and aural possibilities, and the large number of 8’ ranks in every department can be used either singly or in combination to give subtle shades. And the slow-speaking Pedal can cause problems on certain notes, and he quite often needs to couple it to the Brustwerk to aid its clarity. The booklet gives the specification and detailed registration for each piece, which is splendid and there is additional information available on www.organartmedia.com/en/heinrich-gottfried-trost. In his notes, he admits that the organ is hard to play, and makes a good case for his performance choices. The booklet is a model of clarity and information and sets Farr’s realisations within the performance tradition well presented in Nigel Simeone’s essay.

As always with Stephen Farr’s recordings, this is model of how to do it, and those who have his Clavier-Übung III on the Trinity Cambridge Metzler or the Chorale Partitas on the Sussex house organ by Aubertin will need no further encouragement to get this outstanding CD.

David Stancliffe

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Recording

de Grigny: [Premier] Livre d’orgue | Lebègue: Motets

Nicolas Bucher, Ensemble Gilles Binchois, [Marion Tassou dessus, Vincent Lièvre-Picard taille]
159:13 (2 CDs in a card triptych)
Edition Hortus 184

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You have to work quite hard to divine what music these discs offer so here’s a summary. Disc 1 is Nicolas de Grigny’s organ mass from his sole Livre d’orgue, with appropriate plainchant insertions (three cheers for this!). On Disc 2 there are his alternatim hymns, again complete with the necessary chant, and settings of those same texts by Lebègue. The booklet (French and English) contains neither the texts/translations nor any real commentary on the music (not a word on the Lebègue) and the English translation is often more a string of words than meaningful sentences. Also missing are full details of the organ, and I couldn’t find them on the website to which reference is made either, though it’s sonically quite splendid – four manuals and all the colours. However, like all the modern players I have heard, Nicolas Bucher eschews the tremblant fort when it comes to the grands jeux though I can’t believe that there isn’t one.

Bucher does, however, play with great love of and understanding of the style (he is the general director of CBMV) – noble is the word that springs most readily to mind to characterise his approach. This would also be an appropriate epithet for the singing of the well-researched chant – though sometimes it does verge on the ponderous, as if a concern for perfect ensemble were over-riding a true feel for the lines.

I’m afraid that the performances of the Lebègue motets contributed little to my enjoyment of the programme.

So, poor supporting materials, some thrilling organ sounds and music good enough to have attracted the interest of JSB, no less. But that’s another story.

David Hansell

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Recording

Awesome Organ

Best loved classical organ music
74:57
Naxos 8.578179

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This CD is a compilation of recordings dating back as far as 1988 of some organ favourites (there’s a movement from a Handel organ concerto (originally conceived for the harp!), two from Poulenc’s organ concerto and – inevitably – some Widor) alongside Baroque “hits” like Bach’s celebrated Toccata and Fugue in D minor (rather ironically, given its heritage) and some less familiar stuff like a Prelude in F by Buxtehude, a Toccata in E minor by Pachelbel and a Prelude and Fugue by Böhm. So it’s a nice selection of works for the instrument, albeit probably not (in the strictest sense) for our readers – especially since the “comprehensive booklet notes” promised on the back of the CD are typical Naxos fare.

Brian Clark

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Recording

Back to Bach

Famous Organ Works
Kei Koito (Arp Schnitger Organ (1691/92, Martinikerk, Groningen)
70:45
deutsche harmonia mundi 1 90759 15582 0

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This is the next CD in the series of recordings released by Kei Koito on finely conserved period organs. This time it is the turn of the Arp Schnitger organ in the Martinikirk in Groningen in the Netherlands. The booklet has the organ’s specification, but you need to download the registration chosen for each work from Koito’s website. This is a small inconvenience for something that not only enhances the listener’s experience of the works played but gives an insight into the kind of tone-colours available of one of the most spectacular surviving organs of the period.

The instrument has a complex history: a gothic organ of 1450 was altered in 1482, and then altered in Renaissance style in 1542, added to in 1564 and 1627-8, altered in 1685-90, then substantially rebuilt and enlarged with enormous 32’ Principal pedal towers by Arp Schnitger in 1691-2 after various disasters. In 1728-30 it was given a new Rugpositief by Schnitger’s son and Hinz, and again repaired and enlarged by Hinz in 1740 after subsidence. Then between 1808 and 1939, when the action was electrified, it was altered and substantially re-voiced, so that the historic origins of the organ became scarcely discernable. A major work of restoration was then executed over more than an eight-year period between 1976 and 1984 by Jürgen Ahrend to bring it back to its supposed 1740 shape and sound, with the advice of Cornelius Edskes. The result is very fine, but it has none of those slight variations between notes that make many organs surviving in more or less their original form so melodically fluent, and is a characteristic of – for example – a careful reproduction of a 1720s Denner oboe.

I have not had the opportunity to examine the organ in detail myself, but the photographs on the website make it clear that the frame and action are entirely new and much of the pipework has been re-voiced (again). Of the 53 stops, 20 are in origin Schnitger or earlier, 14 are from the eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries and 19 are entirely new. 

Koito plays a good mixture of pieces opening with the Dorian Toccata and Fugue (BVW 538) and finishing with that in D major (BWV 532). In the middle there is the early G minor Prelude and Fugue (BWV 535) and the G major (BWV 550). Among the interesting other pieces are the trio on Was Gott tut, das ist wohlgetan – only recently added to the canon – and the trio on Wo gehest du hin after Cantata 166ii, while there are choral preludes on An Wasserflüßen Babylon (BWV 653), Nun danket alle Gott (BWV 657), Komm Gott Schöpfer Heilige Geist (BWV 667), O Lamm Gottes unschuldig (BWV 656) and Herzlich tut mich verlangen (BWV 727). Two Fantasias complete the programme – super Jesu, meine Freude (BWV 713a, 1&2) and Ein fest Burg ist unser Gott (BWV 720) with the rare hints in the autograph for registration. Together they make a varied recital and show off the organ splendidly. As with her previous CDs, the playing is neat and the recording excellent.

As far as her playing is concerned, Koito can be utterly focussed on the rhythmic clarity like in the Dorian Toccata and Fugue, or very subtle – listen to how she phrases the opening of the fugue in the G major (BWV 550), where later she negotiates the tricky passagework in measures 140-143 without missing a trick. And the registration with the Hinz Hobo of 1740 and its tremulant in BWV 584 contrasts elegantly with the opening of the Fantasia super Jesu, meine Freude, where the 2’ Octaaf on the pedal for the choral balances the Rugpositief 4’ Speelfluit beautifully. And the build-up through the verses of O Lamm Gottes, unschuldig (BWV 656) is beautifully registered, and the shading possible on an organ like this with seven manual and five pedal reeds allows for an almost infinite variety of tone as well as subtle changes in volume.

One other feature that makes this such a good recording is of course the acoustic and the way this is handled by the recording engineer. When I first heard the surviving organs in the Netherlands in the late 1950s, I was astonished at the reverberation in many of the churches and wondered at the clarity that seemed to be possible. The amazing blendability of numerous ranks of upperwork, voiced on what seemed then to be astonishingly low wind pressure, seemed to be a gift of many of the barn-like buildings and so very unlike the screaming upperwork that the advanced classical merchants were pedalling as “Baroque” in England.  These days we are lucky to have creative artists working painstakingly at the conservation of these extraordinary survivals, and the Martinikerk organ in Groningen has no fewer than nine known organ builders responsible for the instrument over the years, even if we think of it mainly as the creation of Arp Schnitger. Would it sound so stunning if it were relocated to a dry concert hall acoustic?

David Stancliffe


We have received a second review of this disc.

Don’t be put off by the populist title of this CD. Although some of its contents are well known, there are less famous pieces too and the whole makes a highly satisfactory recital on the historic organ in Groningen’s Martinikerk, one of the largest survivals of the baroque period. Dating originally from the 15th century – and retaining some of those pipes – it was rebuilt many times, most famously by Arp Schnitger and his son in the period 1692-1729. Subsequently neglected, it was restored to its 1740 state by Jürgen Ahrend in the early 1980s and is once again a splendid instrument. Koito is not phased by its history, or its size, and produces a varied palette of registrations which shows it off to advantage, helped by the sound engineers who have successfully dealt with the challenge of reproducing it with both resonance and clarity. She plays four big Preludes/Toccatas and Fugues (including the Dorian), two Fantasias and five Chorale Preludes, plus a couple of charming Trios. I particularly enjoyed An Wasserflüssen Babylon BWV 653 which showcases a beautiful sesquialtera and a flute, and the Fantasia on Ein feste Burg BWV 720 which exploits the reeds. The big pieces on full organ are impressive too, especially the final Buxtehudian Prelude and Fugue BWV 532. Tiner notes are informative about the music though, strangely, not about the organ. Indeed, one has to search quite hard to find a mention of the instrument at all, only in very small print on the back cover, which seems odd given its importance. We are directed to Koito’s own website for further information and reflections, including a full list of registrations for each piece. Overall, this is a very satisfying recording.

Noel O’Regan

Categories
Recording

Dandrieu: Magnificats Vol. 1

Jean-Baptiste Robin Grandes Orgues 1710 (Chapelle Royale – Versailles)
70:51
Versailles Spectacles CVS023

With all due respect to both composer and performer, this CD is all about this organ though the combination of the music and the instrument for which it was arguably written is also a point of some significance and interest.

The Versailles organ was developed by three generations of the Clicquot family during the 18th century (1711, 1736, 1762) and was spared damage and removal during the revolution. However, work in 1872 and 1935 changed its character to the point at which a new spirit of ‘authenticity’ required complete dismantling in 1989 and a comprehensive rebuild to restore the 1711 voices. These are distributed over four manuals and pedal and can deliver all the characteristic registrations of the Classical French school. As one of the resident organ team, Jean-Baptiste Robin understands the instrument perfectly though doesn’t quite give us the full tour. Like most modern players he is not quite brave enough to include the tremblant fort in the Grand jeu, though if that wouldn’t work on this instrument where could it?

The music – 33 movements averaging about 2 minutes each – is a mixture of liturgical styles (it would have been good to include the chant for at least one of the Magnificats) and more ‘popular’ sets of variations on carol tunes, together with a few odds and ends. It’s all attractive, and at times positively imposing, and is given sympathetic and stylish performances by J-BR. I don’t always warm to his approach to inégalité, though what he does is a perfectly reasonable choice from the range of options.

The booklet (in French, English and German), notwithstanding a few lumpy translation moments, is luxurious with notes on the music, player and instrument and several striking pictures. A further release will include Dandrieu’s transcriptions for organ of his own chamber compositions. Let’s hope we don’t have to wait too long for this sequel, and fingers crossed for the tremblant fort!

David Hansell

Click HERE to buy this on amazon.co.uk

Categories
Sheet music

New sheet music from Ut Orpheus

Schickhardt: Principes de la Flûte avec Quarante deux Airs à deux Flutes
Edited by Nicola Sansone
vi + 43pp.
FL29 ISMN 979-0-2153-2555-5
£18.95 (UK retail; from website €16.95 + P&P)

After what must be the briefest introduction to notation ever (Schickhardt’s four tables with explanations in French and Flemish), and a fingering chart including trills, it is straight into the music. The first piece is all of six bars and played in unison; the second is shorter but has more notes and tonguing indications, then the third is already conceived in two voices, introduces binary form and only has tonguing marks for certain parts, then the remaining 39 pieces work their way through a variety of keys and dance styles as well as occasional through-composed movements. While the upper voice might “take the lead” more, it certainly does not hog the limelight; the composer is very careful to involve both players in a thoroughly musical dialogue. None of the pieces is longer than two pages, and the majority are far shorter, so these are study rather than recital pieces. That said, I can definitely see a market for this nicely printed volume.


Buchner Ut orpheus edition cover

Buchner: 2 Sonate a Tre from Plectrum musicum Op. 4 (Frankfurt 1662)
Edited by Nicola Sansone
iv + 16pp.
FL30 – ISMN 979-0-2153-2556-2
£21.95 (UK retail; from website €19.95 + P&P)

Ostensibly published as a set of sonatas for strings, the “Viola da braccio” part-book for these two sonatas (nos. 10 & 11 in the set) give the scoring as “Flautto vel Viola da braccio”, so the editor is correct to publish them as recorder music but sadly a little hopeful in describing the piece on the cover as “Treble Recorder in G” – unless, of course, that is a misunderstanding of the English usage of Treble in this context to refer to Alto. Printed originally in the soprano clef (middle C on the bottom line), the opening phrase of Sonata X extends to E which is below the instrument’s standard range. But worse is to come – just in case someone was screaming at the screen about fudging that note – as bar 67 has a D, and then bar 78 has a C. Sonata XI has the same range, so there is little doubt that the music is actually far better suited to a Tenor Recorder. Were I to have edited this piece for publication, I would have ignored that fact that there is a separate bass part, since it is identical to the continuo line; rather than fifteen staves per page with the (also identical) figured bass squeezed into the available space, the layout would be much more comfortable. The music is well worth playing, and groups programming – for example – sonatas and concertos by Telemann for the same line-up should not hesitate to deploy these as variety.


Chaconnes and Grounds Ut orpheus cover

Chaconnes and Grounds from English Baroque Masters
Edited by Nicola Sansone
v + 30pp.
HS253 – ISMN 979-0-2153-2542-5
£23.50 (UK retail; from website €20.95 + P&P)

The eight pieces in this very useful volume are by Thomas Williams and Gottfried Keller (one ground each) and Gottfried Finger (three grounds and three chaconnes), all of them taken from four volumes printed in Amsterdam at the beginning of the 18th century. The range of the solo part suites the treble (=alto) recorder perfectly and the music here is far more demanding than in the Schickhardt collection above. Violinists should not be put off, though, as there is much elegant music here which will help younger players in particular to find ways to differentiate between each iteration of the theme above which they must weave their filigree. Ut orpheus has already published the source books (FL2, FL6, FL11 and FL17), should you fancy playing more of the repertoire than variations on a bass! 


Coelho Flores de Musica Ut orpheus edition cover

Manuel Rodrigues Coelho: Flores de Musica (1620) Vol. I: Tentos (1st-4th tone)
ECHO Collection of Historical Organ Music [volume 3]
Edited by João Vaz
xxvi + 128pp.
ECHOM3 – ISMN 979-0-2153-2606-4
£56.50 (UK retail; from website €50.95 + P&P)

I am by no stretch of the imagination a keyboard player. That said, in order to develop something akin to a reasonable technique, I remember shutting myself away in a practice room at university and devoting hours to playing Andrea Gabrieli’s organ music; it had the perfect blend (from my perspective, at least!) of sustained chords and moving parts, limited harmonic movement and few – if any – demanding leaps (especially in the left hand). That is also how I would described the contents of this excellent volume which contains 12 Tentos (three in each of the four modes). The original (as shown in the facsimiles dotted throughout the book) was printed on four staves; in compressing them on to two, the editor has (to my mind) sometimes been a little too pedantic (why print a superfluous bar’s rest when there are two other parts vying for the space on the staff at the time?) and not pedantic enough at others (where a note is inflected in one voice but not in the other, if the second accidental is not in the original, should it not be bracketed as an editorial insertion?) One small quirk of the printing is the notation of triplets; instead of the standard chunky 3 over the middle of the figure, this volume prints small 3s over the first note of each group which, in keyboard music, made me think they were fingering instructions. These are, however, minor faults in such an excellent volume. If I had access to an organ (or even a piano!), I think I might be tempted to sit down and play these pieces!

Brian Clark