Organ Great

Olivier Messiaen - Organ Works Complete - Willem Tanke (2007) [8CD Box Set] {Brilliant Classics}
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© 2007 Brilliant Classics | 8639
Classical / Organ / Modern Classics

Remastered edition of Messiaen Complete Organ Works by Willem Tanke. Messiaen's organ works are a climax of 20th-century music, and Willem Tanke captures superbly their deep spiritual intensity, rivalling renderings by more well-known organists like Jennifer Bate and Gillian Weir. Take your time listening to the CDs: you will relish the music best if you spread the enjoyment out over a period of time. I always think of Messiaen as a composer whose pieces are threshholds into something beyond. The organ is particulary adept at opening the door. It's power and majesty and mystery as an instrument on its own does that, but Messiaen takes us to the edge of places no one else does. I have heard some of these pieces before, but hearing the entire body all together is overwhelming. It takes something which was already big and makes it bigger. These performances are more than worth your time to listen.

The young organist Pétur Sakari (aged just 21) has gathered five giants of the organ repertoire for his debut disc on BIS, performing on the famous organ of Saint-Étienne-du-Mont in Paris. The five composers are all interconnected – Charles Tournemire and Louis Vierne studied together (under Franck), Maurice Duruflé studied under Tournemire and was Vierne’s assistant at Notre Dame, and Marcel Dupré counted Vierne (and Widor) among his teachers and himself taught Olivier Messiaen.

The grand Arp Schnitger organ in St. Jacobi (Church of St James) in Hamburg is remarkable in several respects. This instrument with four manuals boasts of the largest extant inventory of original pipes from thensixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the Trompete 16’ in the great organ is the very oldest of its kind. Harald Vogel, the Nestor of the Northern German organ tradition and the recent recipient of the Buxtehude Prize of the Hansa City of Lübeck, presents this magnificently restored organ in conjunction with an unusual Hamburg “family reunion”.

Jimmy Smith - Sit On It + Unfinished Business (2012) {Soul Brother Records CDSBPJ44 rec 1976, 1978}
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© 1976-78, 2012 Soul Brother Records / Passion Music | CD SBPJ 44
Jazz / Hard Bop / Soul Jazz / Hammond B-3 Organ

Great late 70s work from Jimmy Smith – two albums back to back on a single CD! One of our favorite later albums from organist Jimmy Smith – and a set that cooks heavily in a wicked blend of jazz, funk, and soul! The style's a bit like the groove that Johnny Hammond hit during his Gears period – arranged by Eugene McDaniels and Alan Silvestri, with an approach that's somewhere between Larry Mizell and Skip Scarborough – tight grooves, bits of vocals, yet plenty of room for Smith's keyboard solos to take off over the top! Players include Herbie Hancock on piano, Alan Silvestri on guitar, and Lenny White on drums – but the main star is Jimmy – who's grooving massively over the top of the album, with soaring solos that are some of his best work from the late 70s.