What we have here is
a disc of popular parts of The Ring
played on the organ or, to be more
precise, two organs by one organist.
Starting at the beginning and finishing
at the end, we are fast-forwarded via
the entry of the gods into Valhalla,
the ride of the Valkyries, forest murmurs
and Siegfried’s funeral march. Apart
from in the two Rheingold excerpts,
which are played attaca, there
is no attempt to avoid bleeding of chunks.
The subtitle "symphonic suite for
organ" which appears as a heading
in the booklet can be safely ignored.
Performer Hans Albrecht
is accredited with the transcription
on the title pages of the booklet but
the waters are muddied by his answers
to the question – did you use previous
organ transcriptions? These have been
made by Karg-Elert, Thalben-Ball and
Langmann, material which apparently
"supplied the basis for this recording".
So it is unclear who transcribed what
although it is probably a patchwork
by several hands. Not that it sounds
anything other than Wagnerian – the
music is little bowdlerised, and very
well played and recorded. I have only
heard the disc in standard CD format
but the engineering by Martin Fischer
is undoubtedly impressive.
The concept of playing
music from The Ring on the organ
will be very much a matter of taste.
Despite being happy to give transcriptions
a hearing and often being pleasantly
surprised by the results, I didn’t really
warm to this disc and found the results
variable. Most impressive are the excerpts
from Götterdämmerung with
the funeral march coming across well
in this format and the very end seeming
powerfully redemptive. At the other
end of the scale, the Valkyries seem
to be riding in lorries and the forest
might be a small copse in a big city
park. Nor does the organ seem to have
the facility for Thor’s hammer. Organs
do, of course, have voices but perhaps
I just missed the human voice too much
and I also found myself longing to hear
strings.
A few words about the
instruments used. The large organ in
St. Nikolai, Kiel was built in 1965
by Detlef Kleuker and has been recently
renovated. The choir organ was built
by Cavaillé-Coll and Mutin, and
originally installed in Tourcoing in
northern France in 1921. It was renovated
and moved to Kiel in 2003-4. They are
wonderful sounding instruments and the
large organ certainly has the power
to convey Wagner’s bigger moments.
Gripes about the documentation
have been alluded to above but, in other
respects, this is satisfactory. Those
who want detailed information about
the organs will be content and there
are also colour pictures.
If the idea behind
the disc appeals, this will probably
give pleasure but if you share my view
that this music gives no room for compromise,
get your favourite full set out, set
aside four evenings and experience something
far greater.
Patrick C Waller
for
details
Hansjörg Albrecht 
OEHMS
CLASSICS OC 612 Hybrid SACD [63:59]
