Search - Anonymous, Antonio de Cabezon, Antonio Carreira :: Early Iberian Organ Music

This bargain would be recommendable even at top price.

John Austin | Kangaroo Ground, Australia | 03/08/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Some of the organ CDs in the Naxos catalogue have not been recommendable, even at super budget price. This is one however, that would be recommendable even at top market price. Robert Parkins is a distinguished organist, harpsichord player and academic at Duke University. I have heard several of his recordings and read golden reviews of others. Here he performs on the 1976 Flentrop organ in the chapel at Duke University. As he writes in his notes, most of us associate Portugese and Spanish organ music with strident trumpet sounds issuing from the array of horizontal pipes contilevered from the facade of the main organ case. Parkins points out that this feature did not arrive until well towards the end of the great age of early Iberian organ music c1500-c1700. The anonymous Entrada, Track 1, is from the latter years of this period, and actually calls for a registration featuring the brilliant horizontal trumpets. It also features some of the echo devices composers incorporated into organ works of this period. All are splendidly realised on this mellifluous organ and very well recorded.The bane of a collector's life, of course, when faced with a recital like this, is duplication. If you are attracted to this "genre", and collect examples on CD, you frequently find you're buying yet more versions of the same items. Somehow, perhaps because of Parkins' alert research and scholarship, the program here is not made up of over-represented items. I have a large collection of recordings of this "genre" and all but two of the items Parkins provides are new to me. I could recommend several tracks, but the whole collection provides fascinating listening. A novelty is the last track, an anonymous piece that simulates the drone of a bagpipe."

An excellent survey

Nobody | in particular | 01/17/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This CD provides a broad introduction to early organ music, including material by Antonio de Cabezon and his contemporaries. Since the best organ compositions prior to the baroque era were written in Spain and Portugal, the CD provides a broad window into the world of Renaissance keyboard music.Parkins provides a careful, competent treatment of the material. I am not enough of a scholar of music to comment upon the authenticity of the performance, but it is musical and a joy to hear. The ambiance of the chapel adds some sweetness and depth to the recording. The sound is clean and free of artifacts.The overall quality of the CD is high despite being on the value-priced Naxos label. The recently constructed organ at Duke University, and the university's organist, may not have the cachet of the fancy period instruments and European players. The music, however, is just as powerful."