A Worldwide Organ Tour
John Scott Whiteley (organ)
rec. 1989-2019, various locations
PRIORY PRCD1236 [75:03]
It is a little disingenuous of Priory to bill this as “A Worldwide Organ Tour”, since the locations are dotted around the English county of Yorkshire, with a couple of visits to the USA, and one each to Denmark and Germany thrown in. The music, too, is mostly French with some Belgian and British pieces added to the mix. A better title might have been A Tribute to John Scott Whiteley, for this is a collection of archive recordings Whiteley made for Priory in Denmark’s Haderslev Cathedral (1989), St Anastasia in Philadelphia and St Jude’s in Detroit (1990), and recordings made of his live recitals in York Minster (recorded by David Rogers in 2000 and David Edwards in 2013), Bradford Cathedral (2012), Hull City Hall (2016), Leeds Town Hall (2019), and Salem Minster in Germany (2007). The pieces by Humphrey Clucas, Robin Walker and James MacMillan were composed especially for him, while his own Scherzetto and Fugue on the name Francis Jackson makes a timely appearance marking the death in January at the age of 104 of Francis Jackson, a former organist at York Minster where Whiteley served for many years as Assistant.
The performances, like the recordings, vary widely both in performance and aural quality, but the disc begins with an absolute stunner; a scintillating account of Messiaen’s Transports de Joie from Haderslev. The organ sounding truly earth-shaking, Whiteley’s performance truly inspired, and the recording truly outstanding. Humphrey Clucas’s Fantasy on Urbs beata, one of the pieces recorded at a live recital on the York Minster organ, carries on where Messiaen left off, and throws in some hints of Whiteley’s beloved Jongen to avoid too much post-Messiaenic rhetoric. The jaunty little Marche des Rois Mages by Théodore Dubois gives us a taste both of Whiteley’s impish sense of humour and the more cinematic sounds of the Hull City Hall Compton. Whiteley’s own affectionate tribute to Francis Jackson also shows the influence of Jongen, but even stronger are the aromas of Dupré and Duruflé; as well they might be, since the piece was inspired by Jackson’s own playing of these composers’ music. More than that, though, it exhibits the 1901 Schwarz organ of Salem Minster to good effect. Whiteley does not say whether the piece was written with this instrument in mind, but it certainly fits it like a glove and the recording does it full justice.
Strangely, Whiteley’s performance of Jongen’s epic Sonata Eroica recorded in Detroit, disappoints. It lacks both grandness and stature, sometimes feels a little hasty, and the harsh, stringy sound of the 1989 Pilzecker organ of St Jude’s Detroit is not best suited. However, there are plenty of fine recordings of that piece around (including an earlier one on Priory from Whiteley himself at York Minster). Robin Walker, a former chorister at York Minster, wrote his Meditation: Deep in the Woods as, according to Whiteley, “an experiment with mind transfer”. Make of that what you will, but it is a curious mix of haunting, atmospheric sounds with touches of something a little lighter which moves up rather lumpily to a climax before dropping back down to nothing. In a way, Walker seems to have been trying to do what Louis Vierne did far more successfully with his Pièces de Fantaisie, and it is from the fourth suite of those pieces that the highly picturesque Gargouilles et chimères comes, which Whitely recorded on the 1977 Walker organ of Bradford Cathedral. Not as well-known as the Walker organ at Blackburn Cathedral, just across the Pennines, and housed in a far less opulent acoustic, the instrument nevertheless captures the grotesque, often other-worldly character of the music, and Whiteley’s is a very fine performance of it indeed. Equally well suited to the music is the 1988 Bruce Schutz organ of the Church of St Anastasia in Philadelphia on which Whiteley recorded one of Tournemire’s L’Orgue Mystique suites. Again this is a fine performance which delves right into the soul of this often elusive, plainchant-infused music. The disc closes with the Toccata which James MacMillan wrote for Whiteley to perform at the Three Choirs Festival in Gloucester during 2019.
Marc Rochester
Contents
Olivier MESSIAEN (1908-1992): L’Ascension; Transports de joie (1933) (Recorded Haderslev Cathedral, 1989) [4:56]
Humphrey CLUCAS (b. 1941): Fantasy on Urbs beata (2000) (Recorded live, York Minster, 2000) [8:01]
Théodore DUBOIS (1837-1924): Marche des Rois Mages (1886) (Recorded live, Hull City Hall, 2016) [4:49]
John Scott WHITELEY (b. 1950): Scherzetto and fugue on the name FRANCIS JACKSON (2007) (Recorded live, Salem Minster, Germany 2007) [7:02]
Joseph JONGEN (1873-1953): Sonata Eroica, Op 94 (1930) (Recorded Church of St. Jude, Detroit, 1990) [16:21]
Robin WALKER (b. 1953): Meditation: Deep in the Woods (2012) (Recorded live, York Minster, 2012) [5:33]
Louis VIERNE (1870-1937): Pièces de Fantaisie, Suite 4, Op 55 No 5 - Gargouilles et chimeres (1927) Recorded live, Bradford Cathedral, 2012) [6:27]
Charles TOURNEMIRE (1870-1939): L’Orgue Mystique, Op 57 No 42 - La Nativité de la Vièrge (1927-1932) (Recorded, Church of St. Anastasia, Philadelphia, 1990) [13:02]
James MACMILLAN (b. 1959): Toccata (2019) (Recorded live, Leeds Town Hall, 2019) [8:52]
