The English Cathedral Series - Volume 20: Exeter Cathedral
Timothy Parsons (organ)
rec. 2018, Exeter Cathedral, England
REGENT REGCD523 [64:49]
Whenever an instalment from Regent’s excellent long-running English Cathedral Series plops on to my desk, my first instinct is to look back to the great EMI Great Cathedral Organ series and see how they compare. Not in quality, I hasten to add – one of things that has marked the decades since the EMI LPs were first issues, is a phenomenal rise in the quality of recordings (would it have mattered so much in the past that the recording sessions were affected by, as this latest one was, “The Beast from the East”?) and recorded performances; we now take accuracy as the norm, whereas it was once a happy coincidence if and when it occurred, and stylistic consciousness, once dismissed as a passing fad, is now standard. An interesting feature of the Regent set is, unlike the EMI recordings, the performances are not automatically handed over to the nominal cathedral organist of the day, and so, while for the 1965 EMI recording Lionel Dakers, Organist and Master of the Choristers at Exeter between 1957 and 1972, broke off from his main job of training the choir and preparing the daily music schedule, to record on an organ he only played relatively occasionally, half-a-century later, the task of committing the Exeter organ to disc falls to the current Assistant Organist of the Cathedral, whose job involves playing it every day. Timothy Parsons had held that post for just over a year when these recordings were made.
The big change to the Exeter Cathedral organ since the EMI recording is a major rebuild, undertaken in 2013, which does not seem to have altered the sound in any significant way; this is still recognisably the same Loosemore/Willis/Harrison & Harrison Dakers played all those years ago. On a personal level, I have to confess it has never been one of my favourite instruments, but that does not mean to deny its many very special qualities which come across powerfully in Gary Cole’s perceptive recording of it for Regent. As is customary with this series, we get plenty of information on the organ, as well as the player and the music, and there are some fine photographs of, what is for my money, the organ’s finest attribute, its glorious centre-screen case, first erected by John Loosemore in 1665.
I suspect Parson had an eye to Dakers’ recording when he chose his programme for, like Dakers, he gives us a Mendelssohn Sonata (in this case the third rather than the sixth) and a work by a former organist at Exeter, Samuel Sebastian Wesley (in this case a Larghetto as opposed to the rather more locally-flavoured Holsworthy Church Bells). Other than that, Parsons’ programme clearly includes pieces which he enjoys playing (I suspect the Vierne and Duruflé fall into that category), pieces with a local flavour (Matthew Locke was an Exeter native who carved his initials on to stonework by the organ in 1638, while the eponymous Reverend Mustard in Nico Muhly’s piece was installed as Canon Precentor of Exeter Cathedral in 2018), as well as something personal (the Andante Sostenuto for TJYP was composed especially for Timothy J Y Parsons by his former organ teacher Mark Blatchly).
Parsons is obviously a superb player, with a cut-glass technique and a clarity of fingerwork which injects many of the quicker passages here with great energy and certainly plays a considerable part in elevating his account of Messiaen’s Joie et clarté to something quite special. His opening movement of the Mendelssohn has stature and verve, a refreshing change from the somewhat staid performances we so often get of it on record, while he reveals considerable sensitivity in the three gentle chorale preludes from Brahms’s Op.122 set. Perhaps the Duruflé is more concerned with the virtuoso possibilities of the writing than the more intense emotional message behind it, but this is very much a young man’s approach to this repertory, full of vigour, optimism and supreme self-confidence.
Marc Rochester
Contents
Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847): Organ Sonata No.3 in C minor, Op.65 No.3 [ 9:29]
Matthew Locke (1621-1677): Voluntary in A minor [ 1:46]
Samuel Sebastian Wesley (1810-1876): Larghetto in F sharp minor [6:18]
Louis Vierne (19870-1937): carillon de Westminster, Op.54 No.6 [7:04]
Mark Blatchly (b.1960): Andante Sostenuto for TJYP [3:08]
Edward Elgar (1857-1934): Imperial March, Op.32 [ 4:59]
Nico Muhly (b.1981): The Rev Mustard his Installation Prelude [3:33]
Johannes Brahms (1833-1897): Chorale Preludes, Op.122 –
No.8 - Es ist ein Ros’ entsprungen [2:53]
No.7 - O Gott, du frommer Gott [5:18]
No.4 - Herzlich tut mich erfreuen [2:37]
Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992): Joie et clarté des corps glorieux [6:37]
Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986): Prélude et Fugue sur le nom d’Alain, Op.7 [12:09]
