Label: Brilliant Classics

This disc has a lot going for it. Thomas Zehetmair is a world-renowned violinist; the Amsterdam Bach Soloists comprise a little over a dozen players from the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra; and while they perform on modern instruments, they adhere largely to historically informed performance practice. Thus, we get the best of all worlds: world-class playing; smooth, mellifluous sound; and convincing interpretations.

In this extensive 50-disc set, Brilliant Classics presents 500 years of organ music. The pieces presented here offer a survey of diversity, value, and historical importance. The first portion of the set is devoted to pieces from the early period. Groundbreaking organ composers such as Cavazzoni and De Macque, who developed the capriccio and canzon forms and composed complex counterparts to the periods vocal music, are featured here. The Baroque and Classical eras are represented in this set by the likes of powerhouse composers Mozart, J.S. Bach, C.P.E. Bach, Handel, Telemann, and Haydn.

Along with the two books of piano studies by Gyorgy Ligeti, the Etudes of Philip Glass have taken their place as modern classics of the literature, serving both a didactic purpose to train the fingers and minds of their performers, but also bringing their unique soundworlds to new audiences. Glass himself remarked that the first book, compiled from work between 1991 and 2012, had a twin objective, to explore a variety of tempi, textures and piano techniques.