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Gillian Weir - A Celebration
Dame Gillian Weir (organ)
rec. 1964 to 1998. Various locations. ADD/DDD. ELOQUENCE 4841435 [22 CDs] [BW]

I don’t normally volunteer for large box sets of CDs – it’s hard to know where to put them – but I have made a willing exception in this case, as I did with the Hyperion boxes of The Golden Age (The Sixteen, CDS44401 – review; 10 CDs or downloads, £15 from hyperion-records.co.uk) and their two Purcell box sets from The King’s Consort (CDS44141 – review, 11 CDs, £35/£37 download/CDs from hyperion-records.co.uk and CDS44031 – review, 8 CDs, download only: £35 from hyperion-records.co.uk).

Gillian Weir’s organ recordings are in the same very special category as those Hyperion sets: my colleague Chris Brag is quoted in the booklet describing her contribution as ‘almost incalculable’. My usual metier these days is to review downloads and streamed recordings, but only 12 of these 22 CDs are available in that format. These were mostly originally recorded and released on LP on the Decca subsidiary label Argo; the remaining ten CDs come from BBC recordings, and these are available only in the physical set. In any case, with the 12 downloads selling for around £9 each in lossless sound, the cumulative cost would be more than the £81 or so of the complete set – reduced by one dealer to £64.50 as I write – and you would still be without the ten BBC recordings and the booklet for the set. (I wonder what wishful thinker is advertising his used set as I write for £139.82.) Let me repeat that only the first twelve of these CDs are available to download; having said so in reviewing CD7 separately, a reader took me to task on the Message Board for not having said so.

I must apologise for my tardiness in completing this review; for some time now, we have been recruiting new reviewers to work from downloads and streamed music, together with some older hands who have also been contributing material from these sources. Monitoring the ‘team’, editing their reviews and converting them to html, though very satisfying, has greatly reduced my own output. On the plus side, there has been a review – sometimes two – from these colleagues, new and old, on the MusicWeb pages nearly every day for almost three months. In order not to delay even longer long, I edited some of this review away from home on a Chromebook; apologies, therefore, if there are even more typos than usual.

Even before I received the set, I had selected one recording from this collection, as making a very strong case for an unjustly neglected composer: François Roberday Fugues et Caprices, CD7 of the set – review.

Lovers of organ music have hit the jackpot with this collection, released to celebrate Dame Gillian’s eightieth birthday. Eloquence had already reissued many of the recordings she made for Decca’s sister label Argo, but very few are now available on single CDs. Their replacements in the box set reproduce the original Argo LP covers, while the BBC-derived recordings have been given covers in a similar style. The exception, CD12, reproduces the snazzy cover of the 1977 Prelude LP on which part of the material first appeared – it even includes the Prelude catalogue number in the top right corner, though the contents have been augmented for the reissue.

Five separate CDs entitled The King of Instruments were released some time ago by Eloquence as 4601862, 4601872, 4601882, 4601892 and 4601902. Chris Bragg thought these recordings, made between 1974 and 1980 on the organs of St Laurens, Rotterdam; Clare College Cambridge; Royal Festival Hall, London; Hexham Abbey; St Leonhardskirche, Basel and St Maximin Thionville ‘a portrait of a hugely influential artist at a certain period in her career’. They are no longer separately available on CD, but CB’s comments apply to the equivalent parts of the new set – review.

Reviewing French Virtuoso Organ Music on 4818742: recorded in 1976 on the Hradetzky Organ, Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, John France thought it ‘great to have this exciting, technically demanding and imaginative recording in my library once again’ – review.  It’s still available separately on CD and download as well as in the new box set.

Olivier Messiaen Organ Works on 4818742 recorded at the Royal Festival Hall Organ, London, and first released on CD in 2014, is still available on a 2-CD set, but is reported out of stock by some dealers. In any case, the arrangement in the new set is more cost-effective; the two short-ish discs have been rejigged to cover one of 72 minutes and the first 20 minutes of the next.

These recordings remind us what a fantastic range Gillian Weir’s repertoire covered, from the Renaissance to Messiaen and practically every stop in-between. All the Decca recordings were models of clarity in their time and, though ADD, they have come up very well in these transcriptions. The live recordings from the BBC, too, several of them digital, also sound very well in these re-masterings.

CD 1 [47:26] opens near the beginning of the time span of this set, with music by Nikolaus Bruhns (1665-1697) and Samuel Scheidt (1587-1654), two composers whose music fits better together, as on their first Argo release, than when Bruhns was paired with Clérambault on the earlier single Eloquence CD.

Recent recordings of music from this period may subscribe to more historically-informed practice, but Weir remains a strong advocate for these two composers, here as first released on an LP in 1980. Communicating with the listener must, surely, always take precedence over historical correctness. In any case, organ recordings date less than most: the instruments remain the same, unless they are rebuilt, and most of the organists whose recordings I have known for a long time still don’t sound dated. Helmut Walcha’s Bach is an excellent case in point: his Art of Fugue remains one of my favourite recordings. The same applies to Karl Richter’s Bach cantatas, worth hearing alongside modern favourites. (It’s interesting that Amazon list this Weir set and the Richter as having been bought together.)

John France commented on Weir’s ‘sheer sense of drama’ in Bruhns, and that’s a feature of her playing throughout these recordings; the elegant lady shown reclining on the cover of the box is only part of the picture. Bruhns' music has been somewhat in the shadow of that of Buxtehude, but he shares many of the latter’s qualities, while Scheidt was an important member of the North German group of composers who adapted Italianate style to Lutheran practice.

There’s actually not much more of Bruhns to explore: his ‘complete organ music’ takes only part of a Brilliant Classics CD with that title, which Johan van Veen thought only ‘pretty good’, with better to be had – review.  Gillian Weir certainly qualifies as ‘better’. More of Scheidt’s music survives and is worth exploring: two recordings of his organ music on MDG were praised by Johan van Veen – review – review.  Otherwise, he has a walk-on part on several recordings with the likes of Schein and Schütz; it’s high time that he came into his own. The only CD that I know dedicated to his organ music, on CPO 9991052, is now download only, and I haven’t heard any of the recordings of his music on the Fagott label.

CD2 [47:03] is devoted to the music of Jean-François Dandrieu (1682-1738), a selection of pieces from his Première Livre d’Orgue, or First Book of Organ Pieces, all related to aspects of the liturgy, which first appeared on Argo in 1980.

Several other recordings of his music have appeared since – see the reviews of two Château de Versailles offerings in Winter 2019/1 – but this album can hold its own, both singly as a download, and in the complete set. Several of these pieces were included on 4601892, but it’s good to see the complete contents of that Argo release brought together again.

Next up, CD3 [47:38], contains the music of Louis Marchand (1669-1732), excerpts from his five books of organ music on the Thionville organ, which first appeared in 1979. He may be less famous than his contemporary François Couperin (‘le grand’), but this recording reminds us that second-best to a genius can often be very good if the music is in the right hands. Preferences are, in any case, subjective; remember that the Leipzig worthies thought Bach second best. The organ is not contemporary with the music, though it contains some 18th-century pipework and was constructed with French and German music of the period in mind. Colourful and often powerful music, persuasively presented.

CD4 [48:35] brings us a selection of music by J S Bach (1685-1750) on the Marcussen Organ of the Laurenskerk, Rotterdam. It’s not the most urgent single recommendation, when there are so many very fine recordings of JSB’s organ music, but it’s good to have the whole 48½-minute programme instead of the shorter selection which featured on 4601862. It was highly praised when it appeared in 1977, and it’s still well worth hearing.

For a fuller picture of Weir’s Bach interpretations, you need to turn to her recordings for the Priory label, especially PRCD800, a 2-CD set of his ‘Leipzig’ Chorales and other works on the organ of JSB’s own Thomaskirche. Back in 2016 I recommended a single-CD selection of Bach’s organ music by Maude Gratton on the PHI label as an appetite-whetter for a complete collection of the ‘18’; it was Gilian Weir’s recording, or that of Helmut Walcha (DG Archiv E4775608, download only) that I had in mind as a follow-up.

For Bach’s keyboard music (harpsichord and organ), enthusiasts are well served by an ongoing complete survey being undertaken by Benjamin Alard for Harmonia Mundi. Volume 4 has recently been released on HMM902460/62, 3 CDs, budget price. Stuart Sillitoe described Volume 3 as part of ‘an enterprising series of the complete keyboard music’ – review.  Unfortunately, my usual preferred source for Harmonia Mundi downloads, eclassical.com, are charging an unfeasible price for the releases in this Alard series.

CDS 5 and 6 [45:41 + 81:07] bring us one of the first highlights of the set, François Couperin’s (1668- 1733) two great masterpieces for the instrument, his Organ Masses for the convents and the parishes on the organ of the Prediger Kirche, Zurich. If you don’t intend to go for the new complete box-set, these two volumes are well worth purchasing as downloads, for around £9 each in lossless sound, but no booklet.

CD 6, the Messe pour les couvents and other pieces, is especially recommendable, not least because, rounded off with music by Louis-Nicolas Clérambault (1676-1749), it runs to over 80 minutes. Though this is one of the earliest recordings in the set, first released in 1973, both performance and recording wear their years very lightly. The Gramophone reviewer spoke of the ‘natural elegance’ of the playing, and that’s been a hallmark of Dame Gillian’s style ever since.

I have to admit to having sometimes found these organ masses a trifle boring, even in the hands of such distinguished interpreters as Michael Chapuis (Messe pour les paroisses, Harmonia Mundi HMA190714). Not so from Gillian Weir, who brings to life music that I had tended to dismiss.

Her later recording of Couperin’s harpsichord Music to The Sun King on Kiwi Pacific Records can be found as a download for around £5.50. I’m not sure of the provenance, but you could hardly go wrong at the price.

Another fascinating CD, No.7 [61:12], is entirely devoted to the music of François Roberday (c.1624-c.1690), his Fugues et Caprices (1660), recorded in 1973 on the rebuilt Silbermann Organ of St Leonhardkirche, Basle. There’s only one other current recording which offers these twelve fugues and caprices, his sole surviving work, from André Isoir on the Tempéraments label (3691, with music for viols by Roberday and Louis Couperin). The music may not be the equal of his more famous pupil Lully, but Weir clearly had a real affection for it, and her performance on a fine reconstruction of a Silbermann organ makes a very strong case for it. I’ve already reviewed this separately, as a download. I singled it out as special because it makes an excellent case for an unjustly neglected composer.

CD8 [45:16] contains the Missa Mundi of Maltese composer Charles Camilleri (1931-2009), played on the organ of the Royal Festival Hall, London. Composed in 1972, it has only ever had this one recording. Sadly, the prediction when this recording was released in 1975, that it might become one of the most significant organ compositions of the twentieth century, never came to fruition, but this recording makes a good case for it. It’s mainly reflective, frequently (very) powerful, often reminiscent of Messiaen – no bad thing in my book – and haters of the avant-garde need have no fear of it. I’ve seen it described as ‘tough’ and ‘austere’ music, but if an old fogey like myself could cope with it, most readers should have no problem.

CD9 [49:04] is a very mixed bag: The Organ at Hexham Abbey, music from different periods and styles, mostly French, ranging from John Bull and Claude Daquin to Charles Widor, Louis Vierne and Jean Langlais. It was designed to show off the then new Hexham organ, built by Weir’s husband, and, engaging as the playing is, it’s hardly the most essential part of this collection. It does, however, demonstrate the versatility of the organ - able to convey a convincing renaissance sound in the Bull, yet coping equally well with the more recent French compositions.  Though it possesses, as I understand, just two manuals, albeit with a panoply of stops, it confirms the reputation of Phelps organs in this repertoire. I’ve commented elsewhere on the lack of organ specifications; I would have especially welcomed the spec for the Hexham instrument. It is, however, available, with a detailed commentary, online.

This CD also serves to remind us that there were very few gaps in Dame Gillian’s repertoire. I had always associated her, based on those Decca Argo recordings with the renaissance, baroque … and Messiaen. The two CDs of Franck’s music from BBC recordings (CDs 16 and 17) help redress the balance even further.

If the success of the earlier music on this modern organ comes as a pleasant surprise, it’s the later French repertoire that tests the capabilities of the instrument, a test which it passes with flying colours. Decca chose the Mulet and Dubois for a budget LP sampler of their organ repertoire.

CD10 [43:45] contains three pieces by Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847), with Felicity Palmer the soloist in Hör mein Bitten (Hear my prayer), effectively dispelling shades of Master Ernest Lough, and two by Zoltán Kodály, on the organs of Kingsway Hall and Guildford Cathedral, an odd pairing on the face of it, and originally released on different LPs, the Kodály from an album made with the Brighton Festival Chorus. Weir appears here as accompanist rather than soloist, but it’s none the less an important part of the collection.

Mendelssohn and Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) are odd bedfellows; these recordings were, indeed, not originally paired. The Mendelssohn (ZRG716) included music on which Weir did not feature, as did the Kodály release (SXL6878), which also contained the Hymn of Zrinyi, so their splicing together was inevitable. The Hymn can be found, with other music by Kodály and Bartók, on Eloquence 4804853. That’s now download only, duplicates Weir’s performance of Laudes organi, and is more expensive, at just under £16 in lossless sound, than when it was a 2-CD set. It also comes without a booklet, which is an appropriate moment to point out that the individual download releases on CDs 1-12 of the box set are also free from any booklet. The fact that it happens all too often is no excuse; it leaves a sour taste which is in no way attributable to Dame Gillian, whose notes in the booklet with the set and on the web – see below – are excellent. Decca are among the worst offenders in not providing booklets with their downloads.

CDs 11 and 12 [72:00 + 73:35] bring us some of the most important recordings in the set. Valuable as were Weir’s forays into the earlier French repertoire, her recordings of Olivier Messiaen (1908-1992) have always been highly regarded, alongside the likes of Jennifer Bate, Simon Preston and Olivier Latry. Recorded back in 1966 in the Royal Festival Hall, soon after Weir’s arrival in the UK and her winning the St Alban’s organ prize, and first released on LP by a small company, these performances returned to Weir’s copyright in 2014, when they were first released on CD by Eloquence.

Messiaen’s music was far less well known in 1966, but these pioneering performances, by no means displaced by Weir’s later Priory recordings of his music, fine as those are (PRCD921-926), are almost worth the price of the whole set. Otherwise, the two downloads cost around £9 each in lossless sound. If I pass over them now, it’s only to consider them alongside the other even finer jewels of the set, the BBC live recordings of Messiaen on the last five CDs in the set, which bring us the complete œuvre as it stood in 1979.

The RFH recordings of Messiaen run over onto the first part of CD12. The second half of that offers the contents of French Virtuoso Organ Music, now augmented to 73 minutes, given a cover which restores that of the original LP, made by Prelude, and offering better value than when JF reviewed it so positively – see above. The Hradetzky organ in the Royal Northern College of Music may not seem the ideal vehicle for this repertoire, but, with some judicious registration and idiomatic playing, it sounds fine. Once again, it’s a pity that there was not enough space in the booklet which accompanies the set to include the specification of each of the organs involved, and even the chosen registration, but it would have been very helpful to have had it, even for the most ham-fisted (and -footed) organist like myself.

Two works by Marcel Dupré (1886-1971) form the major interest of the French Virtuoso Organ Music. His Variations sur un Noël are a modern take on the Christmas music which formed an important aspect of the earlier French repertoire. (C.f. the Daquin on CD9.)  The performance shows how well Dupré captured the mood of this attractive piece, though the resplendent conclusion reminds us that this is a later composer’s take on that music, in the manner of Respighi’s Gli Uccelli or his Ancient Airs and Dances for the Lute.

The principal competition for this and the Symphonie No 2 which concludes CD12 comes from Thomas Trotter (Decca 4524782), whose recording, now download only, includes the Symphonie-Passion. If the Weir recording inspires you as I think it will, that would be a good follow-up – or the 2-for-1 John Scott recording from St Paul’s on Hyperion CDD22059.

There are a couple of other recordings of Jacques Charpentier (1933-2017) L’Ange à la Trompette, but I don’t recall having encountered it before. In any case, it’s an example of Dame Gillian’s willingness to explore unfamiliar repertoire, as in the case of the Roberday on CD7, albeit from a different musical era.

CD13 [61:17] The first of the BBC live recordings brings us a varied programme of music from French, British and German composers from a wide range of periods and styles, half recorded as long ago as 1963 in a digital transfer of an analogue original, and half from 1996 in fully digital sound. The ADD sound on tracks 1-3 may not be ideal, but the performances of music by Louis Vierne (1870-1937), Olivier Messiaen and William Mathias (1934-1992), made soon after winning the St Alban’s competition, were excellent auguries for what was to come. I’ve compared this sharper account of Combat de la Mort et de la Vie from Les Corps Glorieux with that of the complete work on CD20 below.

The DDD recordings from Clare College on the rest of the CD make me wish that Weir had recorded more of the music of Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707), the greatest North German composer before Bach; his Toccata in F, BuxWV156, seems to be all that she recorded – there’s another recording of it on her Birmingham recital (Priory PRCD867), and that’s it. Fortunately, there’s some fine Buxtehude from Masaaki Suzuki on BIS (BIS-1809, SACD) and three very fine complete recordings on Dacapo (Bine Bryndorf), Hyperion (Christopher Herrick) and Naxos (various organists).

CD14 [56:24] entitled The Organ Dances, does indeed include several dance-based works, including the opening Ballo by Antonio Valente (1520-1580), not a piece that you hear very often, and another example of the versatility of the repertoire on these CDs. Recorded at the Albert Hall in digital sound, the programme is so enjoyable that I was not troubled by the organ not being on its best form.

The principal interest comes from the three dance pieces by Jehan Alain (1911-1940). After his death in 1940, his sister Marie-Claire Alain became his principal interpreter, and it’s to her recordings of his music that you may wish to turn if your appetite has been whetted, as I expect will be the case, by his music here and on CD15. Only Volume 2 of what used to be two CDs remains generally available, as a mid-price download on Erato 9029519690, but you should also be able to find Volume 1 to download or stream - from Qobuz, for example. Volume 2 includes the two short Danses a Agni Yavishta; it’s a shame that these couldn’t have been included on CD14 of this Eloquence collection.

On CD15 [59:32] we have live BBC recordings in DDD sound of French, mostly from the twentieth century, on three organs. From the Birmingham Oratory there’s an excerpt from Marcel Dupré (1886-1971) Symphonie-Passion, a moreish recording to make the listener try the whole work. Then it’s Jehan Alain’s Intermezzo and Charles Tournemire (1970-1939) Choral paraphrase of the Easter hymn Victimæ paschali, transcribed by Duruflé.

From the Royal Festival Hall comes more Jehan Alain (Deux Fantaisies), recorded to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of his death. The RFH organ may not be the ideal instrument for Alain, but you would hardly know it from this recording.

Finally, from Aarhus Cathedral, we have Jean Langlais (1907-1991) Incantation pour un jour saint and Maurice Duruflé (1902-1986) Prelude on the Epiphany Introit, Leon Boëllmann (1862-1897) Versets sur ‘Adoro te’ and Jeanne Demessieux (1921-1968) Choral Preludes and Te Deum.

If you are as taken with the wonderful Demessieux setting of the Te Deum as I think you will be, there’s another recent Eloquence set to add to your collection: Jeanne Demessieux – the Decca Legacy (4841424, 8 CDs). There’s also a shorter 2-CD Decca set with the same title (4856165, 2 CDs) and separate downloads of the individual albums. No promises, but I hope to investigate some of those separate releases. Obviously, her own (1959) recording of her Te Deum, separately released as a download on 4856164 (no booklet), with music by Bach, Liszt, Mozart, Widor and others, is more authoritative, but that simply means that you should hear both versions.

CD16 [79:59] and CD17 [79:03] bring us some very welcome and well-filled recordings of César Franck (1822-1890), his complete works performed on the Cavaillé-Coll organ of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse, and brought to us from BBC tapes in digital sound. Franck is an organist’s dream come true: even his orchestral music sounds as if it was composed with the organ in mind. His Symphony has even been transcribed convincingly for organ, as recorded by Simon Johnson at St Paul’s (Hyperion CDA68046, CD, or download in 16- (£8.99) or 24-bit (£10.10) sound from hyperion-records.co.uk).

The miscellaneous French works on CD12 and CD15 are claimed in some of the publicity material as the eye-openers of the set, but I’d love to spend the whole of this review on the Franck. Space, however, allows only a few comparisons when the Messiaen deserves even closer attention. As well as the Symphony and an organ transcription of the Symphonic Interlude from Rédemption, Johnson includes Cantabile, M36, and Pièce héroïque, M37. At 9:17, Johnson is a little slower in this piece than Weir who, at 8:44, both makes it more heroic and gives it a bit of a swagger, rounded off with a resplendent conclusion. My preference would be for Weir by a small margin, not least for the sounds she elicits from the Cavaillé-Coll organ, but with Johnson not far behind, and with the 24-bit version to which I listened giving him a narrow edge sound-wise over the BBC recording, itself digitally recorded. In fact, unless you were doing a detailed Building a Library comparison, there’s very little to choose between these two recordings.

The Grande Pièce symphonique is the central work on CD16, and I suspect that it’s the one that most listeners will be interested in. Here, and throughout the two CDs, the principal competition comes from Marie-Claire Alain, whose Warner Apex twofer is irresistible at the budget price of £8 (2564614282). I’m not even going to attempt a comparison between two such very fine organists; I’ll merely add that the Apex would make an excellent supplement to the new Eloquence set. Much as I enjoyed a recent BIS release of the Trois Pièces, M35-37, and Trois Chorals, M38-40, with the Cavaillé-Coll of Saint Croix, Orléans, resplendent in SACD or hi-res download sound (including surround) – Passiontide and Easter 2021 – see also Recommended review by Dan Morgan – I’d still turn to Dame Gillian or Marie-Claire Alain for effectively the last word on these and other Franck works.

CD18 [53:52] brings the first of the BBC-sourced recordings of Olivier Messiaen – over 5½ hours of very valuable extra music to add to the earlier Argo-derived recordings, bringing us up to date with everything composed by 1979. There is, inevitably, a degree of overlap. L’Ascension, for example, features both on CD12 (two movements only) and CD18 (complete), and again on her Aarhus recording, originally for Collins, now on Priory PRCD924 (with Livre d’orgue). Les corps Céleste features on both CD11 and CD20.

Paul Shoemaker’s reservations about the Priory recording – review – concerned his unease with the coupling, Livre d’orgue, which he found a puzzling work, not the performance of L’Ascension. He also appears to be surprised that the organ version of L’Ascension seems less immediate in appeal than the orchestral version. He writes that ‘it is at first difficult to see that they are the same work at all’. Indeed, they are not: the third movement of the orchestral version consists of alleluias for the trumpet and cymbals which were heavily criticised as inappropriate for a sacred theme, so Messiaen replaced them with a more ‘appropriate’ movement depicting a soul sharing in the glory of the Ascension. Considering the differences, there’s much to be said for both versions, but I would concur with the general opinion that the third movement of the organ version is the better piece.

If you prefer the orchestral version, you may wish to try a recent recording on the Alpha label from the Zürich Tonhalle Orchestra and Paavo Järvi (Alpha 548, with Le Tombeau resplendissant and other works: Recommended – review). I missed it at the time because my press preview was in mp3 only, but, listening to it now, it certainly deserves its recommended status. There’s no problem in enjoying both that and Gillian Weir’s recordings.

I could compare recordings of the major works such as L’Ascension until this review became too long to get online. Among the many well worth considering, I’ve chosen Hans-Ola Ericsson on BIS, largely because it’s some time since I listened to his Messiaen. His recording is still available on a single CD (BIS-409, with Le Banquet céleste, Apparition de l’Église éternelle and Diptyque), but the 7-CD set offers much better value, at around £37 (BIS1770-72); paradoxically, the download costs much more, at around £67 in lossless sound and even sells on BIS’s own eclassical.com for an uncompetitive $73.70.

Reviewing Tom Winpenny’s fine Naxos recording of L’Ascension in DL News 2016/4, a fine performance which emphasises the spirituality rather than the drama of the music, I found myself marginally preferring it to the Ericsson, but that, too is well worth considering. Eloquence preface L’Ascension with Le Banquet céleste, while BIS reverse the order, but the two works go very well together. Both are more concerned with the inward and spiritual grace than with the outward and visible drama. L’Ascension offers a very different, more thoughtful perspective than those medieval stained-glass windows where the disciples stare up at a pair of disembodied feet drifting into the clouds, while the Heavenly Banquet envisaged by Messiaen is less like some grand and noisy state occasion, more like the hushed vision of the Holy Grail passing through the room in Malory’s Arthurian vision: ‘Ther was no knyght that myght speke one worde a grete whyle [a long time]; and so they loked every man on other as [as if] they had bene doome [speechless]’.

So, even when L’Ascension opens with Christ’s Majesty asking for glory from the Father, it’s a quiet request, not a rash demand, though Weir is perhaps a fraction more upfront here than other recordings. It’s some time since I listened to either Winpenny or Ericsson in this work, but my appreciation of both, and of Weir, remains strong, even having heard Järvi’s orchestral version more recently.

Ericsson’s Heavenly Banquet is a more leisurely affair than Weir’s. Heard side by side, I think the greater length is to the music’s advantage, but there’s no sense that Weir is rushing it; if there is one composer who needs to speak for ‘a grete whyle’ more than Bruckner, it would be Messiaen – they share a sense of deep spirituality in which time is irrelevant.

In L’Ascension, too, Ericsson generally takes a little longer than Weir. I’ve already commented that her first movement makes Christ sound a fraction more peremptory; His prayer as He ascends to the Father takes 10:17 from Ericsson as against 8:46 from Weir, but here, too, the difference is more apparent on paper than in actuality. Neither is vying with the priest who, as Erasmus reported, gabbled the Mass so quickly that for years no-one realised that he always said mumpsimus instead of sumpsimus. Above all, I’m delighted that we now have the whole of Weir’s L’Ascension, not just the two movements from the earlier Eloquence recording.

CD19 [60:53] brings us La Nativité du Seigneur, recorded live at the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC. Dame Gillian also recorded this on the Aarhus Cathedral organ for Collins, reissued by Priory (PRCD921, with Apparition de l’Église éternelle and le Banquet Céleste). Reviewing Richard Gowers on the King’s College organ, Cambridge, Dan Morgan referred to the Weir as ‘formidable’, one of the best of the very fine versions that Gowers was up against – review.

I’m not about to disagree with him about either the Priory recording or the King’s, which he thought ‘A remarkably perceptive and profoundly moving performance [in] superlative sound’; perhaps if I were reviewing CD19 as a separate release I might prefer one of Dan’s recommendations, but none of these BBC-derived recordings is available as a separate download, so comparison is not only odious but futile. The King’s and Priory recordings prove that you don’t have to use an organ designed to accompany the Roman rite in order to convey the music of the intensely Catholic Messiaen, but the Washington organ certainly helps make this recording a very fine interpretation of the work.

Perhaps because it was his first major cycle, composed in, 1935, I had tended to think this one of Messiaen’s least absorbing works, but Tom Winpenny on Naxos – review – review – DL News 2014/15 – helped to change my mind, and CD19 has convinced me even further, while Weir’s detailed notes on the Eloquence website elucidate the music even more.

Given the right choice of registration and a respectful, but not boring, interpretation, the Aarhus, St Alban’s and King’s organs sound just as ‘right’ as the Washington instrument or, indeed, that of La Trinité, Messian’s own organ in Paris. Once again, it’s a shame that we are not told Dame Gillian’s choice of registration, or even the stops at her disposal – at least the spec of the St Alban’s organ is included in the Naxos booklet.

The only major difference between the Eloquence recording and the Priory and Naxos is that Dame Gillian gives the music a little more time to breathe in the final Dieu parmi nous on Priory (8:31) than on Decca (7:48), as does Winpenny (9:30). Winpenny especially gives the movement full weight – literally, with all the bass of the St Alban’s organ called upon where required – but that certainly doesn’t mean that the Eloquence recording sounds skimped. All three bring the house down with a climactic conclusion. There’s no disagreement about timing in Le Verbe, the centre of the work both physically and musically.

CD20 [51:59] brings the complete Les Corps Glorieux. If the earlier (1966) recording on CD11 brings us a rather sharper interpretation of the fourth movement, Combat de la Mort et de la Vie, by 1979 the whole work had been more fully absorbed and the overall effect is more satisfying. Apart from that one section, tempos generally had sharpened, most notably in the concluding Le Mystère de la Sainte Trinité. Nevertheless, it’s good to have both accounts here. The slightly greater space given to Combat in 1979 brings the interpretation closer to Messiaen’s own recording on the Sainte Trinité organ in Paris (Warner 9029542816, budget-price download only). Fascinating as it is to have the composer’s own recording, the very slow tempo for this movement, often ignoring his own markings, and the less-than-ideal organ tuning and mono mid-1950s recording require a good degree of tolerance; I returned to CD20 gratefully after renewing acquaintance with the Warner. Much as I know that many revere the composer’s own recordings, I greatly prefer Gillian Weir to his wayward account of Les Corps Glorieux.

I’ve already said that the Washington organ is a very suitable vehicle for Weir’s Messiaen; it may be less French in tone than that of Sainte Trinité, but at least it’s in tune. Not that that is always the case on these recordings; the mighty Albert Hall beast sometimes sounds as if it’s running out of puff on CD14. Apparently, it was having some pumping problems.

CD21 [79:58] presents us with more 1979 Washington recordings, this time of Messe de la Pentecôte, Verset pour la fête de la Dédicace and Livre d’Orgue.

The original coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Whitsun) was, to judge by the account in the Acts of the Apostles, a pretty dramatic affair, with the sound of a mighty rushing wind; what better to depict that than with the greatest of all the wind instruments, as depicted in the final, post-communion, section, entitled Sortie? The title of the Pentecost Mass may be a tribute to the older form of the Organ Mass, best known from the two such works by Couperin on CDs 5 and 6, but Messiaen’s is a very different creation. Composers of Couperin’s generation may have loved bird imitations, but I think François and his contemporaries might have been mystified by how this work might fit into the liturgy (it did) and by Messiaen’s use of bird calls, especially in the Communion movement, waterdrops, plainsong, imaginative registrations, dabbling with serialization and Hindu rhythms. An interest in Eastern mysticism was in no way at odds with the composer’s deeply held Catholicism. Perhaps ‘mystified’ is the right word to use, because Messiaen reminds us that the Spirit of Pentecost is one of the great Mysteries, and that’s just how it comes over in Dame Gillian’s recording.

If the Messe de la Pentecôte was a tribute to Couperin, the Livre d’Orgue surely is meant to remind us both of the title of Bach’s Orgelbüchlein, with which it shares music for the seasons of the church year, and the eighteenth-century French composers such as Grigny and Dandrieu (CD2), who used that title for collections of their music. Like Bach, Messiaen employs many mathematical devices in this work, especially in the closing Soixante-quatre durées, and, again like Bach, it can sound intellectual and dry in the wrong hands. But these are the right hands, and the music never outstays its welcome. Once again, the composer’s signature bird calls are evident in the fourth section, evoking birdsong at Easter, while the Hindu influence is noticeable in the Trio for Trinity Sunday.

The music puzzled contemporaries when it was published in 1952, and it can still seem intractable to listeners now, with Messiaen, whose music I mostly find demanding but comprehensible, as close as he ever came to the music of his student Boulez, whose works I find incomprehensible. Paul Shoemaker, in his review of Dame Gillian’s Priory recording of this work, appears to have found himself as puzzled by it as those listeners of 60 years ago. Having enjoyed and been enlightened by Tom Winpenny’s recording – Winter 2019/2 – I find this Eloquence recording, if anything, even more to the point. You may need to listen several times to get that point. Even if you don’t get it, you’ll be treating yourself to some fantastic sounds in the process.

CD22 [77:25] is dedicated to Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité, another 1979 recording from Washington. Here again, there’s a recommended recording from Tom Winpenny, this time made in Iceland, which went straight to the top of Dan Morgan’s list – review.  Without demurring from that judgement, I chose to revisit the Ericsson recording, downloaded with booklet from eclassical.com (BIS-4646, or complete set). Dan differentiates between Ericsson on the one hand (‘precision engineered’) and Winpenny and Weir (Priory) on the other (‘richness, variety and rolling splendour’), but I could happily live with any of these – and, certainly, with the Eloquence.

The Council of Nicæa supposedly settled the nature of the Trinity, but that has not prevented puzzlement and disagreement on the subject. The Orthodox East and the Catholic and Protestant West are even at odds on such a fundamental matter as whether the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father alone or from the Father and Son, the filioque clause.  I’m far from sure that Messiaen’s music, with its many echoes of birdsong, helps explain the theology, but it does bring us some very impressive music in the process, and it receives as fine a performance as you are likely to hear.

Wide-ranging as the coverage of this Eloquence set is, it doesn’t tell the whole story. I’ve already mentioned Gillian Weir’s Priory recordings, several of them of Bach, supplementing the all too little of his music that we have on the 22 CDs, and including all the Messiaen organ music available at the time.

The booklet, mostly written by Gillian Weir herself, is comprehensive. Given the personal notes which she includes, this is an excellent read in its own right. I understand that it’s a regular complaint from performers that reviewers don’t read their notes; in this case, it was a delight to do so. Little anecdotes include the arrangement for Weir to be rushed by police car from St Mary’s Cathedral to receive the applause in the Usher Hall at the end of the Saint-Saëns ‘Organ’ Symphony on the last night of the Edinburgh Festival. There’s all too little of Saint-Saëns music in this set, but her 1990 recording of his symphony with the Ulster Orchestra and Yan-Pascal Tortelier is adequate compensation (Chandos CHAN8822, with Symphony No.2). I’m most surprised to see that we don’t appear to have reviewed it – I thought I had done so long ago. I did, however, recommend her recording of the Poulenc Organ Concerto, with Samuel Barber and Pierre Petit (Linn CKD178, now BKD178), in my September 2009 Roundup. The problems reported there with the Squeezebox – superseded technology now – were long ago resolved by using MusicBee as my main player of downloaded music.

Even with a thick booklet, however, there’s more to be found about Messiaen, man and composer, on the Eloquence website and on Dame Gillian’s own site.

I’ve already apologised for my tardiness in completing this review. Part of the problem is that I’ve enjoyed listening to these CDs too much to sit down at the computer keyboard. It’s certainly been far from onerous, and now I find that I have almost talked myself into reviewing all or some of the Demessieux set – and I’ve already set myself up to review the Decca 11-CD set reissue of Chailly’s Stravinsky recordings. Meanwhile, having spent so many words on trying to describe this Gillian Weir tribute, I've decided that words are inadequate; just go for it.

Brian Wilson

CD1 [47:36]
Nikolaus BRUHNS (1665-1697)
Præludium in G
Præludium in E minor 'Grosses’
Chorale Fantasia on ‘Nun Komm der Heiden Heiland’
Samuel SCHEIDT (1587-1654)
Passamezzo, SWV107 (Variations 1-12)
rec. Clare College, Cambridge, 1974. ADD.

CD2 [47:03)
Jean-François DANDRIEU (1682-1738)
Premier Livre de Pieces d’Orgue :
Pièces en A
Magnificat
Pièces en G
rec. Leonhardskirche, Basel; Great Organ of Saint-Maximin de Thionville, 1973-74. ADD.

CD3 [47:38]
Louis MARCHAND (1669-1732)
Premier livre d’orgue : excerpts
Troisième livre d’orgue : excerpt
Quatrième livre d’orgue
Cinquième livre d’orgue
rec. Saint-Maximin de Thionville, 1974. ADD.

CD4 [48:35]
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Toccata, Adagio & Fugue in C, BWV564
Fantasia in G, BWV572
Trio Sonata No 1 in E-flat, BWV525
Passacaglia in C minor, BWV582
rec. Laurenskerk, Rotterdam, 1974. ADD

CD5/CD6 [45:41 + 81:07]
François COUPERIN («le Grand») (1668-1733)
Messe à l’usage des Paroisses
Messe à l’usage des Couvents
Louis-Nicolas CLÉRAMBAULT (1676-1749)
Premier Livre d’Orgue : Suite du Premier Ton
Premier Livre d’Orgue : Suite du Deuxième Ton
rec. Prediger Kirche, Zürich, 1972; Leonhardskirche, Basel, 1973. ADD.

CD7 [61:12]
François ROBERDAY (1624-1680)
Fugues et Caprices pour orgue, Nos 1-12
rec. Leonhardskirche, Basel, 1973. ADD.

CD8 [45:16]
Charles CAMILLERI (1931-2009)
Missa Mundi
Rec. Royal Festival Hall, London, 1974. ADD.

CD9: The Organ at Hexham Abbey [49:04]
Charles-Marie WIDOR (1844-1937)
Organ Symphony No 6 in G minor, Op 42/2: Allegro
Louis VIERNE (1870-1937)
Impromptu
John BULL (1562-1628)
Doctor Bull’s My Selfe
Dr. Bull’s Juel
Nicolas de GRIGNY (1672-1703)
Récit de tierce en taille
Henri MULET (1878-1967)
Esquisse Byzantine : No 10 ‘Tu es petra et portae inferi non praevalebunt’
Louis-Claude DAQUIN (1694-1772)
Noël No 12 Suisse Grand jeu, et Duo
Marcel DUPRÉ (1886-1971)
La Fileuse
Jean LANGLAIS (1907-1991)
Dialogue sur les Mixtures
Thomas TOMKINS (1572-1656)
Worster brawls
Jan Pieterszoon SWEELINCK (1562-1621)
Mein junges Leben hat ein End
Théodore DUBOIS (1837-1924)
Toccata
Rec. Hexham Abbey, 1975. ADD.

CD10 [43:45]
Felix MENDELSSOHN (1809-1847)
Hör mein Bitten, Op. posth.
Veni Domine ‘Hear my prayer, O Lord’, Op 39/1
Ave Maria, Op.23/2
Zoltán KODÁLY (1882-1967)
Geneva Psalm 114
Laudes Organi
rec. Kingsway Hall, London, 1972; Guildford Cathedral, 1972. ADD.

CD11 [72:00]
Olivier MESSIAEN (1908-1992)
Le Banquet Céleste
Les Corps Glorieux
Apparition de l’Église éternelle
rec. Royal Festival Hall, London, 1966. ADD.

CD12 Virtuoso French Organ Music [73:35]
Olivier MESSIAEN
Verset pour la fête de la Dédicace
L’Ascension (organ version)
Marcel DUPRÉ (1886-1971)
Variations sur un Noël, Op 20
Camille SAINT-SAËNS (1835-1921)
Fantaisie No 1 for organ in E-flat
Louis VIERNE (1870-1937)
Pièces de fantaisie (excerpts)
Jacques CHARPENTIER (1933-2017)
L´Ange à la trompette
Marcel DUPRÉ
Deuxième Symphonie, Op 26
rec. Royal Festival Hall, London, 1966; Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester, 1976 (originally Prelude Records PRS2507). ADD

CD13 [61:17]
Louis VIERNE (1870-1937)
Pièces de fantaisie, 4th suite, Op 55/4, Naïades
Olivier MESSIAEN (1908-1992)
Combat de la Mort et de la Vie ( from Les Corps Glorieux)
William MATHIAS (1934-19920
Variations on a Hymn Tune, Op 20
Dietrich BUXTEHUDE (16370-1707)
Toccata in F, BuxWV156
Girolamo FRESCOBALDI (1583-1643)
Aria detto Balletto
Luigi ROSSI (1597-1653)
Toccata Settima
Arthur HONEGGER (1892-1955)
Fugue
Anton HEILLER (1923-1979)
In Festo Corporis Christi
BBC live recordings, rec. St Alban’s Abbey 1963; Clare College Cambridge, 1996. ADD/DDD.

CD14: The Organ Dances [56:24]
Antonio VALENTE (1520-1580)
Lo Ballo dell’Intorcia
César FRANCK (1822-1890)
Choral No 2 in B minor, M.39
Anton HEILLER (1923-1979)
Tanz-Toccata
Petr EBEN (1929-2007)
Walpurgisnacht (from Faust)
Jehan ALAIN (1911-1940)
Trois Danses, AWV119
Olivier MESSIAEN (1908-1992)
Transports de joie d’une âme
Organ of the Royal Albert Hall, London
BBC live recordings, rec.1987. DDD.

CD15 [59:32]
Marcel DUPRÉ (1886-1971)
Le Monde dans l’attente du sauveur
Jehan ALAIN (1911-1940)
Intermezzo
Charles TOURNEMIRE (1870-1939)
Choral-Improvisation sur le ‘Victimæ paschali’
Jehan ALAIN
Deux Fantaisies
Jean LANGLAIS (1907-1991)
Incantation pour un Jour Saint
Maurce DURUFLÉ (1902-1986)
Prelude sur l’Introit de l’Epiphanie Op 13
Léon BOËLLMANN (1862-1897)
Versets sur ‘Adoro Te’
Jeanne DEMESSIEUX (1921-1968)
12 Choral-Preludes on Gregorian-Chant themes, Op 8/1 and 2
Te Deum, Op 11
Organs of the Birmingham Oratory, Royal Festival Hall, London and Aarhus Domkirke, Denmark
BBC live recordings, rec. 1990 and 1998. DDD.

CD16 [79:59]
César FRANCK (1822-1890)
Choral No 1 in E, M.38
Cantabile, M36
Grande Pièce Symphonique in F-sharp minor, Op 17
Fantasy in A
Prélude, Fugue et Variation Op 18
Pièce héroïque, M37
Organ of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse.
BBC live recordings, rec. 1984. DDD.

CD17 [79:03]
César FRANCK (1822-1890)
Choral No 2 in B minor, M.39
Pastorale, Op 19
Prière, Op 20
Choral No 3 in A minor, M.40
Fantaisie in C, Op 16
Andantino in G minor
Final in B-flat, Op 21
Organ of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse.
BBC live recordings, rec. 1984. DDD.

CD18 [53:52]
Olivier MESSIAEN (1908-1992)
Le Banquet Céleste
Apparition de l’Eglise Eternelle
L’Ascension (organ version)
Organ of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC.
BBC live recordings, rec. 1979. ADD.

CD19 [60:53]
Olivier MESSIAEN
La Nativité du Seigneur
Organ of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC.
BBC live recordings, rec. 1979. ADD.

CD20 [51:59]
Olivier MESSIAEN
Les Corps Glorieux
Organ of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC.
BBC live recordings, rec. 1979. ADD.

CD21 [79:58]
Olivier MESSIAEN
Messe de la Pentecote
Verset pour la fête de la Dédicace
Livre d’Orgue
Organ of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC.
BBC live recordings, rec. 1979. ADD.

CD22 [77:25]
Olivier MESSIAEN
Méditations sur le mystère de la Sainte Trinité
Organ of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Washington, DC.
BBC live recordings, rec. 1979. ADD.