MusicWeb International One of the most grown-up review sites around 2024
60,000 reviews
... and still writing ...

Search MusicWeb Here Acte Prealable Polish CDs
 

Presto Music CD retailer
 
Founder: Len Mullenger                                    Editor in Chief:John Quinn             


CD REVIEW
RECORDING OF THE MONTH


Some items
to consider

new MWI
Current reviews

old MWI
pre-2023 reviews

paid for
advertisements

Acte Prealable Polish recordings

Forgotten Recordings
Forgotten Recordings
All Forgotten Records Reviews

TROUBADISC
Troubadisc Weinberg- TROCD01450

All Troubadisc reviews


FOGHORN Classics

Alexandra-Quartet
Brahms String Quartets

All Foghorn Reviews


All HDTT reviews


Songs to Harp from
the Old and New World


all Nimbus reviews



all tudor reviews


Follow us on Twitter


Editorial Board
MusicWeb International
Founding Editor
   
Rob Barnett
Editor in Chief
John Quinn
Contributing Editor
Ralph Moore
Webmaster
   David Barker
Postmaster
Jonathan Woolf
MusicWeb Founder
   Len Mullenger


Buy through MusicWeb from £12.49 postage paid World Wide.

Musicweb Purchase button

 

Romantic and Virtuoso Works for Organ Volume 2
Garth EDMUNSON
(1900-1971)

Toccata 'Von Himmel hoch' (1937) [4:02]
John IRELAND (1879-1962)

Elegiac Romance (1902/1958) [9:52]
Joseph KROMOLICKI (1882-1961)

Theme and Variations Op. 34 (1934) [12:54]
Oreste RAVANELLO (1871-1938)
Adorazione [9:18]
Guy ROPARTZ (1864-1955)

Introduction et Allegro Moderato (1917) [8:50]
Louis VIERNE (1870-1937)

Romance (Symphonie No. 4, Op. 32) (1914) [8:56]
Guy WEITZ (1883-1970)

Symphony No. 1 (1951) [19:13]
Jane Parker-Smith (organ)
rec. St Marien Basilika, Kevelaer, Germany, 24-27 January 2007. DDD
AVIE AV2144 [73:45]




This is an absolutely outstanding release from Avie and Jane Parker-Smith. I admire it for many reasons, perhaps the most important of which is Parker-Smith’s demonstrating so aptly that late romantic organ repertoire is so much more interesting and varied than most people think - even many professional organists, I have to say. One feels almost ashamed that so many of the compositions on the disc are so little known. Joseph Kromolicki’s highly virtuosic music for instance is fascinating; he was a Berlin-based Pole working primarily as a church musician in the first half of the 20th century. Writing very much in a lyrical late-romantic aesthetic this music is so much more engaging than Reger, I think!. The highly developed harmonic language and compositional techniques - the canon in the second variation, the ‘Aeolian Harp’ in the fourth, and the quadruple fugue in the last - keep the listener always on the edge of his, or her, seat. Listen also to Parker-Smith’s impassioned performance of the Ireland Elegiac Romance, and the lesser known and, oh so operatic, Adorazione by Italian Oreste Ravanello, appointed to the Basilica of St Marco in Venice at the age of just 17. Guy Weitz’s slightly conservative symphony, published in 1951, is based on Gregorian themes and is atmospheric and impressive. Weitz, the Belgian organist of the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Farm Street, in London, studied with Guilmant at the Schola Cantorum in Paris, and later taught his successor, the revered Nicholas Danby.

The organ is the giant Seifert in the Marien Basilika in Kevelaer, completed in 1907 and, at a whopping 135 stops the largest organ in a Roman Catholic church in Germany. It suits all the music here well, mostly because of the large number of enclosed stops, and better than normal - by German late-romantic standards - reeds, including a new set of Tubas copied from the Cavaillé-Coll organ in the Sacré Coeur in Paris. The recording helps also. It’s daringly distant, and gives an admirable and all too rare sense of the organ being ‘up there on the wall’ instead of in your face. It wouldn’t surprise me if other reviewers criticise this, but I think it’s fantastic.

The booklet contains excellent programme notes by Martin Anderson and some gorgeous photography.

This deserves full marks for innovative programming, wonderful playing, a superb recording and excellent presentation.

Chris Bragg




 


Advertising on
Musicweb


Donate and keep us afloat

 

New Releases

Naxos Classical
All Naxos reviews

Chandos recordings
All Chandos reviews

Hyperion recordings
All Hyperion reviews

Foghorn recordings
All Foghorn reviews

Troubadisc recordings
All Troubadisc reviews



all Bridge reviews


all cpo reviews

Divine Art recordings
Click to see New Releases
Get 10% off using code musicweb10
All Divine Art reviews


All Eloquence reviews

Lyrita recordings
All Lyrita Reviews

 

Wyastone New Releases
Obtain 10% discount

Subscribe to our free weekly review listing

 

 

Return to Review Index

Untitled Document


Reviews from previous months
Join the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the discs reviewed. details
We welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to which you refer.