Organ Spectacular

We bring to your attention the compilation "Organ Spectacular" by various composers Bonnet, Dupré, Guilmant, Lovelock, Poulenc and various performers. Enjoy beautiful music in a combination of organ and symphonic orchestra.

This recital of familiar Bach organ works performed by Ton Koopman is a very good one he mixes favorites like the Toccata & Fugue and the Passacaglia & Fugue with lesser known chorale preludes.

During his unprecedented 64 years as organist at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, Charles-Marie Widor developed a powerfully symphonic approach to music for the organ, finding new combinations of colour, sonority and texture. The ten symphonies for organ are central to his repertory for the instrument. Featured on this first volume are the Symphony No. 1 in C minor, with its homage to Bach, luminous and ceremonial and with virtuoso flourishes; and the Symphony No. 2 in D major offering a fascinating series of contrasts with some spectacular effects. Wolfgang Rübsam plays at the restored E.M. Skinner instrument at The University of Chicago, the largest pipe organ in Midwest America.

Burno Mathieu is a pupil of Marie-Claire Alain, and a splendid organist in his own right. Moreover, he chooses the ‘historic’ organ at Nancy, which still has mechanical traction, and provides a very characterful baroque palette of its own, richly displayed in the Cantiléne No.3. But the pedals are very telling, too, and the finale of No. 6 is powerfully spectacular; yet overall, inner detail is remarkably clear. The only small disappointment is the Scherzo of No. 6, where the diabolic rhythmic figure is not as ironically piquant as with Van Oosten.

This 6CD set contains 100 tracks of popular organ music from the catalogues of EMI Classics and Virgin Classics performed by some of the world’s finest organists on a wide variety of instruments from all over the UK and Continental Europe.

Sonic Splendor! Amazing organ performances give new dimensions to beloved orchestral favourites. In the 19th and early 20th century, organists of exceptional artistic skill developed organ transcriptions of orchestral music into a true art form. Each of the works on this disc is spectacular in its original form. To create The Orchestral Organ, we have chosen works of many different composers, adapted into organ transcriptions of the highest artistic order. These transcriptions are not intended for comparison with, or replacement of, the original orchestral versions. In presenting them we are offering fascinating new dimensions for these compositions, whether familiar or new to the listener. Within the pieces are a variety of tone colors and compositional details that exhibit the remarkable abilities of organist Jan Kraybill, and showcase the spectacular Julia Irene Kauffman Casavant Organ at the Kauffman Center’s Helzberg Hall in Kansas City.