Search - Charles-Marie Widor, Ben van Oosten :: Widor: Complete Organ Works Vol. 1

Mountains of Sonority

Avid Reader | Franklin, Tn | 07/29/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Many performers specialize in a certain genre - Rubinstein felt at home with Chopin, Horowitz with the Russian/Romantic school and van Oosten's main body of work has centered around the French Romantic period for the organ. In a classic example of serendipity, the development of the instrument itself parallels the rise of composers writing for it. This group of men appears from nowhere seemingly and completely redefining our definition of pipe organ music with their new writing for the newly developed Symphonic French organ.
One sees a glimmer of this in Reubke, the German organist but it is Widor who first created the architecture in which the new development could be given a definitive structure. These first two "Symphonies" represent the first stage in his development and though they pale in contrast to the later works they also establish a template with which the others followed.

The sound is very lush, the settings ultra-Romantic (the organ almost sings in parts) and the dynamics near perfection. By the way, the complete Symphonies were first issued as an LP that I purchased a thousand years ago. There is still something almost magical about an LP and that white background noise"