This is an absolutely
outstanding release from Avie and Jane
Parker-Smith. I admire it for many reasons,
perhaps the most important of which
is Parker-Smith’s demonstrating so aptly
that late romantic organ repertoire
is so much more interesting and varied
than most people think - even many professional
organists, I have to say. One feels
almost ashamed that so many of the compositions
on the disc are so little known. Joseph
Kromolicki’s highly virtuosic music
for instance is fascinating; he was
a Berlin-based Pole working primarily
as a church musician in the first half
of the 20th century. Writing
very much in a lyrical late-romantic
aesthetic this music is so much more
engaging than Reger, I think!. The highly
developed harmonic language and compositional
techniques - the canon in the second
variation, the ‘Aeolian Harp’ in the
fourth, and the quadruple fugue in the
last - keep the listener always on the
edge of his, or her, seat. Listen also
to Parker-Smith’s impassioned performance
of the Ireland Elegiac Romance,
and the lesser known and, oh so operatic,
Adorazione by Italian Oreste
Ravanello, appointed to the Basilica
of St Marco in Venice at the age of
just 17. Guy Weitz’s slightly conservative
symphony, published in 1951, is based
on Gregorian themes and is atmospheric
and impressive. Weitz, the Belgian organist
of the Church of the Immaculate Conception,
Farm Street, in London, studied with
Guilmant at the Schola Cantorum in Paris,
and later taught his successor, the
revered Nicholas Danby.
The organ is the giant
Seifert in the Marien Basilika in Kevelaer,
completed in 1907 and, at a whopping
135 stops the largest organ in a Roman
Catholic church in Germany. It suits
all the music here well, mostly because
of the large number of enclosed stops,
and better than normal - by German late-romantic
standards - reeds, including a new set
of Tubas copied from the Cavaillé-Coll
organ in the Sacré Coeur in Paris.
The recording helps also. It’s daringly
distant, and gives an admirable and
all too rare sense of the organ being
‘up there on the wall’ instead of in
your face. It wouldn’t surprise me if
other reviewers criticise this, but
I think it’s fantastic.
The booklet contains
excellent programme notes by Martin
Anderson and some gorgeous photography.
This deserves full
marks for innovative programming, wonderful
playing, a superb recording and excellent
presentation.
Chris Bragg
Jane Parker-Smith (organ) 
