A Brazilian playing
Scheidemann? Strange but true, and few
do it better than Rio-born former student
of Wolfgang Rubsam, Julia Brown. As
with her earlier offerings in this series,
this volume is characterised by an extremely
mature and musical feel for the style,
for different affekts, rhetoric and
a beautiful applicatur. Everything in
her playing is geared to the music.
Her sensitivity to what Mattheson described
as the 'sweetness' of Scheidemann's
music, together with the over-riding
Hanseatic monumentality, is profoundly
served.
The organ is a still
iconic early creation of John Brombaugh,
very much in the developing American
style of the time (pioneered by Brombaugh
and Charles Fisk), which borrowed heavily
from North German and Dutch models of
the late 17th century. It sounds utterly
beguiling on this recording. Perhaps
one could wish for 1/4 comma mean-tone
in the context of this music these days,
rather than the less extreme Kellner
'Bach',. However the quality of the
reeds, flutes and prestants of this
instrument is so high that one doesn't
notice. It is probably true to say that
in 1976 only Jurgen Ahrend could have
built an organ as beautiful, and even
today you could count the builders on
the fingers of one hand. Alas only one
of Brombaugh's organs, the small mean-tone
instrument in Haga church, Goteborg
has come to Europe. You can hear it
on volume 2 of this series, played by
Karin Nelson.
I have to take issue
with one or two of Brown's registrations,
for example use of the Sesquialtera
without the 2', (very dated), use of
the cornet, (a stop uncommon on North
German organs of the time), and her
over-fussy changes in the Praeambulum
in G. This aversion to staying
on one registration for any length of
time in free works badly dogs her much
less successful Buxtehude recording
on the same organ. I could also complain
about her use of the 8' Prestant as
a solo stop in Vater Unser. There
is no historical basis for it, but it
sounds marvelous, and I'm totally convinced.
Given the Naxos price
policy there is no excuse not to collect
these Scheidemann recordings, wonderful
music, in this instance compellingly
played.
Chris Bragg
Julia Brown, organ 
