This disc is actually
a recording of a live concert played
by the French organist Olivier Vernet
on the famous reconstructed Dom Bedos
organ of 1748 in the church of St Croix.
Apart from the remarkable skill required
to be able to play live concerts which
are later released as CDs, this release
is also noteworthy for its combination
of traditional fare Classical French
repertoire and transcriptions of orchestral
and vocal music from the late 17th
and 18th centuries.
Olivier Vernet is an
astonishingly prolific recording artist.
A former student of Marie-Claire Alain
and Michel Chapuis, and now Professor
at the Conservatoire in Tours, he has
a reputation for fast, and, it must
be said, superficial interpretations.
In this release though, I found his
approach only once to be too quick;
in the central section of the Dialogue
sur les Grands Jeux from the Livre
D’Orgue of de Grigny. That apart,
the playing is filled with panache and
flair for both music and instrument.
The organ literature is well handled,
and although the organ is a generation
later than de Grigny, the key-colour
from Rameau’s 1726 temperament is very
welcome in the Veni Creator.
Further, Vernet isn’t afraid to use
the big pedal reeds in the literature,
perhaps not authentic, but, like the
famous recordings of André Isoir
in Poitiers, a surely allowable mid/late
18th view of the music of
forty or fifty years earlier. However,
it is in the transcriptions that the
instrument really comes alive. The grandeur
and specific affekts so typical in this
music are less explicitly found in the
18th century organ music
from France; which, arguably, had peaked
with de Grigny. Listen to the beautiful
inégalité and ornamentation
in Rameau’s Les Boréades,
or the considerable virtuosity in the
Rébel – one seldom hears an 18th
century French organ played like this.
And doesn’t the organ
just love this music? Now considered
one of the ultimate examples of 18th
century French organ building, the present
instrument is the result of a painstaking
reconstruction by the excellent Pascale
Quoirin in 1996. A remarkable amount
of material had survived from the original
instrument, including half the pipework,
and nine of the soundboards. One should
consider that if one wanted to reconstruct
an organ by an 18th century
builder anywhere in Europe, then Dom
Bedos, whose beautifully practical treatise
on organ building is one of the most
famous and detailed tomes ever written
on the subject, would surely be a dream
choice! The organ is now in its original
state; five manuals, 32’ Plein Jeu in
the Grand Orgue, the pedal reeds with
the Grand Ravalement to A0, the solo
reeds, (Quoirin’s new Gros Cromorne
on the Bombarde is especially impressive),
the ultimate Grands Jeux - the sound
is just breathtaking.
Despite being slightly
brutally recorded, this is hugely entertaining,
(the audience in the church obviously
loved it as well as evidence by the
two encores), and highly recommended.
Further, Ligia assure me that the disc
won’t cost more than 12 EUR. Don’t miss
it.
Chris Bragg
