This is a collection
of mostly recent compositions by two
active American church musician/composers.
Carson's pieces are based on hymn tunes
by Alfred V Fedak, while the last pair
of pieces on the disc are duets. The
music is mostly harmonically static
and unremarkable. In genre it ranges
from little more than American 'bubble-gum'
commercial service music, ('Variations
on Faith Journey’, 'Meditation and Dance
on Weisse Flaggen' - British readers
will equally understand the genre to
which I'm referring) to Gay's more harmonically
interesting but listless A Host of
Angels. The latter is a short suite
of five pieces with titles such as Angel
Dust, Guardian Angels and Angels
Praising God.
The organ is a crashingly
dull 1956 Austin in a dead acoustic.
Perhaps some of the pieces - Gay's Variations
on a Hymn Tune of Tallis and Carson's
music in general come to mind - could
have sounded rather more effective on
a quality instrument in a good space.
Both player/composers revel endlessly
in the colourless celestes, though all
playing on the disc is perfectly competent.
The inlay card consists
of a brief biography of both composers
and even briefer thumbnail descriptions
of each piece. Probably the raison d'etre
for the disc was partially to sell scores,
Zimbel - of which Sandra Gay is president
- also publish a number of the works.
Chris Bragg
Sandra Gay and Carson Cooman, organ