Search - Cesar Franck, Marcel Dupre, David Schrader (organ) :: Franck: Organ Works - Prelude, Fugue & Variation Op. 18; Fantasy in A; Cantabile; Pièce Héroique; Final Op. 21 / Dupre: Variations on a Noel Op. 20 - David Schrader playing the Jaeckel Organ at the Pilgrim Congregational Church in Duluth, Minnesota

For his third organ recording on Cedille Records, keyboard artist David Schrader explores the chromatic development of French organ music in a program that characteristically sets out to engage listeners' intellects. The intelligently programmed, vivid-sounding recording of music by César Franck and Marcel Dupré is performed by Schrader on the Jaeckel Organ at the Pilgrim Congregational Church, Duluth, Minnesota. Completed in 1988, the organ is modeled on the 19th-century French organs of Cavaillé-Coll. Schrader's approach to the Franck Prelude, Fugue & Variation is poignant and lilting, in stark contrast to the fast, mechanical tempos heard on other recordings. Schrader also marches to an unconventional beat with the lovely Cantabile, which Cedille producer Jim Ginsburg says is usually performed too sluggishly. On Dupré's playful "Variations on a Noël", Schrader makes the most of the music's almost carnival calliope aspects, taking the listener on a vertiginous, dreamlike carousel ride, concluding with the tortuous toccata -- all performed on a completely mechanical, "suspended" key action instrument. Such an instrument "allows for greater nuance in interpretation and far greater muscular and aerobic exercise," Schrader writes in the liner notes.