Grotto is the label
of Fr. Eduard Perrone, the incumbent
of St Raymond Roman Catholic Church,
Detroit. Fr. Perrone is a hands-on practical
musician with a burning mission to present
the works of Paul Paray. Paray of course,
made a great impact as conductor of
the Detroit Symphony in the 1950s and
1960s. More of the Paray recordings
later.
There are two non-Paray
discs in the Grotto list. This is one
- with an unequivocally German accent
- while the other has the Detroit Chamber
Trio in violin sonatas by Vierne and
Bonnal and the piano trio by Henri Dallier.
You might have heard
of Braunfels. His opera Die
Vögel was recorded as part
of Decca's Entartetemusik series in
the 1990s. There are two other operas,
a major symphonic mass, a Te Deum, a
Resurrection Oratorio, orchestral pieces
plus music for chamber ensemble and
solo piano. He rose to high office in
the Köln conservatory but was fired
in 1933 due to his part Jewish ancestry
and his politics which rejected the
Nazi creed.
The Braunfels concerto
is a massive work which could easily
carry the mantle of Organ Symphony had
the composer felt that way inclined.
The first movement is turbulently passionate;
at times surgingly aspiring in its writing
for strings which is reminiscent of
the rough-waved seas of Finzi's writing
in the clarinet concerto and Dies
Natalis. This largely relentless
cannonade of energy also recalls the
more muscular moments from Vaughan Williams'
Concerto Grosso. With ears still
ringing the listener will surely greet
the restful and starry serenity of the
Chorale - a glistening prayerful benediction.
Once again there are some unnervingly
Finzian moments here and an emotionally
balanced cortege (5.55) with some breathtaking
arpeggiated introductions. A trumpet
cantilena unwinds without a care over
the superbly paced strings and organ.
In this movement the solo instrument
certainly does not jostle everyone else
aside - it is there as a meek sustaining
voice. Then in a startling gesture the
choir join at 11:24 with an ethereally
stratospheric setting of Gegrußet
Jungfraue (Hail O Virgin)
over trembling violins. At this point
the writing resembles some of the more
blissful hymnal pages in Franz Schmidt's
Book of the Seven Seals.
The third movement
is an Interludium in a vein similar
to the Adagio though less exalted.
Then comes an angular Fuge which,
initially academic, becomes more emotionally
engaging. Parts of this reminded me
of Schmidt's Hussar Song Variations
from about the same era. Until the
recording sessions the concerto had
lain unperformed since 1933.
Schuster handles the
far from demonstrative demands of the
solo part with great aplomb and with
a suitably deferential approach to the
organ's primus inter pares role
with the orchestra. The stirring eloquence
of the piece rises to new heights as
the trumpet curvets on high at 6.32
and the movement is crowned by the return
of the choir singing Zion hört
den Wächter singen (Zion
hears the watchman sing). The brass
provide an affirmative celebratory bell-swung
signature as the piece ends.
The Braunfels Organ
Concerto was premiered in February 1928
with Furtwängler conducting the
Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Gunter
Ramin the dedicatee as soloist.
Anton Heiller's
Organ Concerto is more spiky - tart
with dissonance rather than dogmatically
serial. It might best be compared with
Weill's Second Symphony (recently and
wonderfully recorded by Naxos with Marin
Alsop review).
Here the organ plays a much more adversarial
and brilliant part than in the romantic
consonance of the Braunfels. The trudging
steadiness of the Lento is shot through
with a shadow of disquiet. The purposeful
and gripping Risoluto ends the
piece in an explosion of thunder.
The Heiller is scored
for double winds, english horn, contrabassoon,
timpani and strings. It was premiered
in Haarlem in 1963 by the Netherlands
Philharmonic with the composer at the
organ and Henri Arends conducting. Heiller
was very much a Vienna man and lived
there all his life; not that this was
an obstacle to various world tours as
an organist.
Bauman died
in 1999 at the age of 82 having been
a pupil of Distler and Blacher. His
1964 Organ Concerto is less spiky than
Heiller's and on the evidence of the
Presto movement is most artfully
scored using a theme that sounds like
a mirrored image of the Dies Irae
chant..
The liner notes are
good and have been contributed by Thomas
Schuster the organist.
I owe it to the unfailing
generosity of Jacques Kleyn that I discovered
the Grotto Productions catalogue and
this disc in particular.
This is a refreshingly
original anthology of organ concertos
that breaks free from the predictable.
Rob Barnett
Thomas Schuster (organ) 
