Organ

The enormously prolific Marie Joseph Erb (1858–1944) has somehow escaped the attention of posterity, although the quality of his music is on a par with contemporary organist-composers whose works are far better known. Erb’s long life – he heard Berlioz conduct in 1863 and was still composing in 1944 – was focused on Strasbourg, where he was active as pianist, organist and professor, though he had studied in Paris, with Faure, Gigout, Saint-Saëns and Widor, and later with Liszt in Weimar. This first album devoted to his organ music in almost 30 years sandwiches four lyrical chamber works between two towering sonatas.

In 2023 Brilliant Classics released a 9CD box of the complete keyboard music by William Byrd, marking the tercentenary of the composer’s death. The set was welcomed as a monumental achievement, and a worthy sequel to Davitt Moroney’s pioneering achievement on Hyperion: ‘Those who enjoyed Belder’s forthright and imaginatively ornamented Byrd performances in his complete Fitzwilliam Virginal Book survey will know what to expect,’ wrote Jed Distler in Classics Today. ‘He favors less agogic manipulation and more conservative rhythmic continuity compared to Hyperion’s Davitt Moroney. However, a palpable sense of controlled freedom informs Belder’s subtle placement of cadences and phrase endings and his flexibly articulated ornaments.’

When, in 1931, Messiaen applied for his post as organist at La Trinité, he wrote to the curate to reassure him that he knew that ‘one must not disturb the piety of the faithful with wildly anarchic chords’. It is not known whether that curate was at La Trinité 20 years later, but it is hard to think of a more appropriate characterisation of the effect of Livre d’orgue than ‘wildly anarchic’, while Alexander Goehr has recalled how Messiaen’s organ-playing during the mid-1950s sounded like electronics. Michael Bonaventure’s playing may not have that effect, but he does get Messiaen’s music to lift off the page, even in the most rigorous pages of the Livre d’orgue. The organ of St Giles, Edinburgh, generally has the power and range of colour needed, with the fierce chords at the opening of ‘Les mains de l’abîme’ fizzing with tension. Slightly more power from the pedals would be welcome, notably in the dazzling central section of the fifth of the Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité. Generally, though, this is a delight for the ears.

Born within a couple of years of each other, Gottfried Silbermann and Johann Sebastian Bach were acquainted, and we know that Silbermann in 1736 invited the composer to inaugurate the new organ that he had built in Dresden’s Frauenkirche. That instrument was destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in 1945, but some thirty of Silbermann’s organs are still extant. From robust pedal stops providing a sturdy bass fundament to silvery flute stops, his instruments were famous for their distinctive&&& sound and contemporary sources often made use of a play on the name of their maker as they praised their ‘Silberklang’.

Built by Arp Schnitger and his sons in 1721, the organ featured in this recording resides in the St. Michael Church in Sqolle, the Netherlands. Over the last few decades the organ has been restored to its full glory. The pieces chosen for this release come from the Husumer Orgelbuch (Husum Organ Book). This book is a collection of works for organ by North German masters. A notable Italian organist, scholar, and teacher, Manuel Tomadin won the Grand Prix of the Schnitger Organ Competition in 2011. He wrote all of the liner notes included in this releases booklet, which includes extensive information on the organ.

Masaaki Suzuki was an organist before he was a conductor, and his recordings of Bach's organ works have made a delightful coda to his magisterial survey of Bach cantatas with his Bach Collegium Japan. This selection, the second in a series appearing on the BIS label, gives a good idea of the gems available. You get a good mix of pieces, including a pair of Bach's Vivaldi transcriptions. Fans of Suzuki's cantata series will be pleased to note the similarities in his style between his conducting and his organ playing: there's a certain precise yet deliberate and lush quality common to both. And he has a real co-star here: the organ of the Kobe Shoin Women's University Chapel, built in 1983 by French maker Marc Garnier. The realizations of Bach's transcriptions of Vivaldi concertos fare especially well here, with a panoply of subtle colors in the organ. Sample the first movement of the Concerto in D minor, BWV 596, with its mellow yet transcendently mysterious tones in the string ripieni. BIS backs Suzuki up with marvelously clear engineering in the small Japanese chapel, and all in all, this is a Bach organ recording that stands out from the crowd. Highly recommended.

The beauty of this CD is that it combines two very important factors: Vivaldi and the pipe organ, and creates a most listenable and relaxing musical mood. Vivaldi concertos are usually in three parts each: Allegro, Adagio, Allegro (or close to that), that is, fast, slow, fast, and were composed for a small chamber ensemble. Vivaldi himself was primarily a violinist, and wrote what you hear on this CD for ensemble, not for pipe organ. They transcribe very well to pipe organ.

The late-Renaissance keyboard music of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck is virtuosic to a high degree, reflecting both his exceptional skills as an improviser and the secular role organ music was assigned in Reformed Amsterdam. Without a liturgical function to constrain his imagination or shape his music – Calvinist services had no place for it – Sweelinck was free to provide fanciful showpieces for his daily recitals in the Oude Kerk. Examples of his improvisational style can be found in the quasi-fugal Hexachord Fantasia, the witty Echo Fantasia, and the flamboyant Toccatas, of which three are included here. Yet Sweelinck's music is also rigorously logical and full of ingenious contrapuntal devices. These are readily found in his fantasias, but are prominently featured in his numerous sets of variations. His elaborate settings of the chorales Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr and Erbarm dich mein, o Herre Gott, and his variations on popular melodies, such as the famous Mein junges Leben hat ein End, display his invention and thorough manipulation of his subjects in all registers. Perhaps better known as a harpsichordist, Robert Woolley is also a fine organist. Woolley has selected representative works from each of Sweelinck's favored genres and given them exceptional performances on the Van Hagerbeer organ of the Pieterskerk, Leiden.

Thoroughly trained by his father Johann Sebastian, Wilhelm Friedemann Bach became renowned as a virtuoso harpsichordist and organist. His surviving organ music includes the seven choral preludes and ten fugues on this disc, which range from relatively simple settings to elaborate displays of counterpoint. Born in Rio de Janeiro and based in the USA, Julia Brown, who has made several acclaimed recordings of keyboard music by Buxtehude and Scheidemann for Naxos, has been praised as ‘a first-class artist and superb technician … an exceptionally sensitive stylist’.