The organ of the First
United Methodist Church in Cleveland,
is heard on all but one track of this
recital. It incorporates at its core
an original instrument of 1874, built
by George H. Ryder of Boston. Enlargements
of 1905 (Votteler-Hettche Company),
1922 (Votteler-Holtkamp-Sparling Company),
1943 and 1970 (both by Casavant Frères
Ltd) have evidently been carried out
with care and sensitivity, since the
resulting sound is homogenous and well
balanced.
Michael Murray, who
studied with Marcel Dupré amongst
others, had a very distinguished career,
in both America and Europe, and made
significant recordings of repertoire
which included Bach and the French tradition.
He also wrote scholarly works on Dupré
and on the French Masters of the
Organ (Yale University Press, 1998).
I believe that he has now retired from
concert performance. Rolf Smedvig is
well-known for his work with Empire
Brass and from recordings such as his
collection of trumpet concerti (by Hummel,
Haydn, Torelli, Tartini and Bellini)
made with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra
and Jahja Ling (Telarc CD-80232). Here
the two join forces for a programme
which mixes the (over)familiar with
the unexpected.
The baroque end of
the programme includes one or two less
obvious names, alongside Bach, Handel,
Purcell and the like. Jean-Joseph Mouret,
for example, was a very significant
figure in his day, with an extraordinary
career which included great successes
(and some failures) with the Académie
Royale de Musique in Paris, appointment
as a chamber singer at court, and the
artistic directorship (from 1728) of
the Concert Spirituel, but which ended
in insanity. Though he does turn up
from time to time on compilation albums
such as these, I’m not aware that any
of his more substantial works have been
recorded. This lively Rondeau is one
of his more often-recorded pieces, played
here with vivacity and fair sense of
style, although even an organist as
accomplished as Murray can’t make his
instrument sound anything but a bit
too heavy for the piece. The pieces
by Jacques-Alexandre de Saint-Luc is,
I’m sure, an arrangement from one his
lute suites (I’ve corrected Saint-Luc’s
dates as given on the CD). Both movements
work well in Smedvig’s arrangement,
and the refined colours of the organ
are well used. The Toccata by Giambattista
Martini – erstwhile teacher of both
Mozart and J.C. Bach and assembler of
one of the first really substantial
private libraries of music – is an ttractive
work in which Smedvig’s technical control
is impressive.
How many readers of
MusicWeb will want another arrangement
of Schubert’s Ave Maria or the
Mendelssohn Wedding March I’m
not sure. But should you want a trumpet
and organ version of either you can
rest assured that you will get high
quality performances on this present
CD and here the Cleveland organ has
the advantage of a healthy range of
colours (which Murray doesn’t abuse
or overuse). I am not convinced by the
arrangement of the Vaughan Williams’
Fantasia on Greensleeves. I am,
though, quietly impressed by Alan Hovhanness’
Prayer of Saint Gregory. This
is the one track recorded elsewhere
and earlier, and there is a genuinely
meditative quality to music and performance
alike. I am no kind of authority on
the music of Hovhaness, but I believe
that this Prayer was originally written
for trumpet and strings and that it
comes from the opera Etchmiadzin.
Here, as elsewhere, I would have
been grateful for some booklet notes
which actually addressed themselves
to the specific music performed, rather
than to rather unhelpful generalisations
about ‘ceremonial music’.
Not perhaps for purists,
this is nevertheless a generally engaging
recital by two very accomplished musicians.
Glyn Pursglove
for details
Rolf Smedvig (trumpet, arranger) 
