Brilliant performances, spectacular sound, and intelligent repertoire selection add up to a winning package in this marvelous disc from Cedille. As so often happens in the strange world of classical music recordings, Barber’s marvelous and neglected Toccata Festiva also appeared recently on an excellent Linn disc featuring organist Gillian Weir (the couplings are completely different). David Schrader’s performance is swifter by a couple of minutes, and the recording focuses less on the organ and more on creating an integrated and naturally balanced sound picture (a fact that invalidates Linn’s approach not at bit). The Toccata makes a terrific disc opener, as the performance builds to an absolutely room-shaking final climax (and doesn’t its main theme sound eerily like Bartók?).
Piston’s Prelude and Allegro, an E. Power Biggs commission, begins with the organ softly accompanying a moving string threnody, with the soloist getting the chance to show off in the ensuing allegro (there’s a marvelous central episode that Schrader plays with particular delicacy and grace) along the way to a stern, minor-key conclusion. Sowerby’s Concertpiece dates from 1951, and of all the works here makes the most imaginative use of the fine Casavant Frères organ in Chicago’s Orchestra Hall–not surprising, because Sowerby was himself an organist. Although it features the requisite roof-raising climaxes, it’s the haunting, fluttering sonorities of the opening (returning in the final third of the piece) that perhaps make the strongest impression. This colorful, Romantic work ought to be played wherever there’s a good concert-hall organ to be had.
Michael Colgrass’ Snow Walker, written in 1990, has the most obviously “modern” sound of the program’s four works, but it remains completely approachable and very enjoyable. A portrait of Inuit Indian life dedicated to author Farley Mowat (of Never Cry Wolf fame), the work begins with the desolate howling of wolves and proceeds to take the listener on a journey through five brief movements that include a vivacious scherzo (“Throat Singing with Laughter”), two mysterious, linked slower movements, and a rambunctious finale that evolves into a sort of dance fantasy. It’s very entertaining, and Colgrass knows just how much weirdness a typical audience can be expected to take before it needs something recognizably consonant to hang onto.
The Grant Park Orchestra (one of Chicago’s “other” ensembles) under Carlos Kalmar plays with extraordinary confidence and panache, especially in the many exposed, technique-testing passages of the Colgrass piece. Cedille’s sonics really are the last word in naturalness, but none of that would have mattered if the ensemble didn’t have the strength to stand up to the full power of Schrader’s exceptionally fine organ playing. Well, it certainly does have what it takes, and the result is not only a terrific hi-fi demo disc, but a completely captivating musical experience of the highest quality. Bravo!
