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Reading other recent threads I must admit to feeling not a little jealous of all the recordings some of you seem to have. I'd be curious to know just how many you have (excluding any you've made yourselves) and, if you can decide, which one is your favourite.

 

I've never been much of a collector myself so my own collection is pretty pitiful: Hurford's complete Bach, Bate's (virtually) complete Messiaen, a half-complete set of Rogg's Bach LPs, 19 other CDs, 15 LPs and 3 tapes.

 

I don't really have a favourite, but the two I am perhaps more likely to put on than any others is:

 

1) a non-commercially available one I picked up in the tourist information centre in Fouesnant, Brittany, of Olivier Vernet playing the parish church's modern, Baroque-style IIIP instrument (short compass Récit) by local builder Pierre Saby. Nice, unfussy playing and a super organ; and

 

2) Robert Clark's 2-CD set Bach at Naumburg.

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Reading other recent threads I must admit to feeling not a little jealous of all the recordings some of you seem to have. I'd be curious to know just how many you have (excluding any you've made yourselves) and, if you can decide, which one is your favourite.

 

I've never been much of a collector myself so my own collection is pretty pitiful: Hurford's complete Bach, Bate's (virtually) complete Messiaen, a half-complete set of Rogg's Bach LPs, 19 other CDs, 15 LPs and 3 tapes.

 

I don't really have a favourite, but the two I am perhaps more likely to put on than any others is:

 

1)  a non-commercially available one I picked up in the tourist information centre in Fouesnant, Brittany, of Olivier Vernet playing the parish church's modern, Baroque-style IIIP instrument (short compass Récit) by local builder Pierre Saby. Nice, unfussy playing and a super organ; and

 

2) Robert Clark's 2-CD set Bach at Naumburg.

 

I have stopped counting but over 500 LPs , 33 EPs, a couple of dozen cassettes, and a few CDs :lol: . If my wife knew how much I had spent I suspect I would not be long for this world. However, I gave up smoking 10 years ago, I never gamble and don't drink (well not very much)! I tell her that my complete set of the original great cathedral organ series LPs have value as collector's items !

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LP's: 3,300

CD's: about 1,000

 

My wife says two rooms only to accomodate

such things is a little overdone.

I collect this kind of things since 30 years.

 

Some of my preffered I brought back from Britain,

somewhere in the western part of England.

But I still do not have any satisfactory Howells

recording.

 

Best wishes,

Pierre

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Reading other recent threads I must admit to feeling not a little jealous of all the recordings some of you seem to have. I'd be curious to know just how many you have (excluding any you've made yourselves) and, if you can decide, which one is your favourite.

 

 

Hi

 

Not as many as I would like! About 20 LP's, 80 CD's and a handful of commercial cassettes - plus many private recordings. The sheer cost is an issue - especially the cost of full-price releases.

 

As to favourites - that depends on the mood!

 

Every Blessing

 

Tony

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Not all organ; Opera, symphonic works, the complete Bach's Cantatas, Choral

works as well.

Wagner is another favorite, with several recordings of each work.

Organ about 60% of the total.

And oh yes I must have two or three Pink floyd's plus some Beatles etc,

total about 10.

Pierre

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100+ CDs (including 2 complete Bach & Buxtehude), around 40 LPs (which I never listen to these days).

 

Favourite two? Simon Preston's Reubke/Liszt (Deutsche Gramophon, Westminster Abbey 1985), closely followed by Olivier Latry's Vierne Symphonies 2 & 3 (BNL, Notre-Dame 1998).

 

I haven't asked if the neighbours agree with me............... :o

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Favourite two? Simon Preston's Reubke/Liszt (Deutsche Gramophon, Westminster Abbey 1985),

 

mmm - I agree with that. Very inspired playing, but sadly now deleted. Copies change hands on ebay for £50+

 

 

Latry's complete Durufle from St Etienne du Mont is one of my favourites. I'm also rather attached to an LP boxed set of Cochereau playing Vierne symphonies from Notre Dame.

 

JJK

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"Simon Preston's Reubke/Liszt (Deutsche Gramophon, Westminster Abbey 1985)"

 

(Quote)

 

This is one of my favorites too, one of the very first I like

to make listen first by people who do not know any

british organ.

It is quite entertaining to see their heads when the Tuba

chimes in!

Pierre

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"Simon Preston's Reubke/Liszt (Deutsche Gramophon, Westminster Abbey 1985)"

 

(Quote)

 

This is one of my favorites too, one of the very first I like

to make listen first by people who do not know any

british organ.

It is quite entertaining to see their heads when the Tuba

chimes in!

Pierre

 

I'm sure it is entertaining! Back to Howells, what do you mean by "... I still do not have any satisfactory Howells recording."? Is this because you don't like the instruments it's played on, or the way it's played? I've mentioned before (elsewhere on this forum) the 1990 Christopher Dearnley recording of the Psalm-Preludes and Rhapsodies. Hyperion are still issuing this, although now it's on 2 CDs with some choral music as well.

 

Graham

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If I'm not mistaken, these are now available on CD. Have a look at http://www.solstice-music.com/caddie/catal..._nbres_ppage=5& for further details.

 

Graham

 

Thanks - those are the ones. Tempting to upgrade to CD - however there is something rather nice about the booklet with the LP boxed set, and the cover picture showing those chamades!

 

JJK

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From Howells I have mainly LP's, and some pieces on CDs .

All these recordings share the same problems: screaming,

neo-classic Mixtures being the worst one.

Then the use of "french" or "german" kind of reeds

(KRRRR-KRRRR...)

To find any Howells recording on the continent would be

like finding a Duvel beer in the Sahara, so I could not

buy any new one since I do not travel any more.

 

But I think it may be possible today's registration habits

are not that different from what was customary in the

70's and 80's...

 

Best wishes,

Pierre

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I have some sympathy with Pierre's problem about finding a decent recording of Howells organ music. Quite a bit has been recorded but there are actually very few collections on CD devoted to this repertoire. To my knowledge this consists of:

 

Rhapsodies and Psalm Preludes (Dearnley/St Paul's/Hyperion)

Rhapsodies and Psalm Preludes (Cleobury/King's/Priory)

Rhapsodies (Bowers-Broadbent/Coventry/Priory)

Sonata and 6 Pieces (Barber/Hereford/Priory)

Various short works (Partington/Winchester/Priory)

Various short works (Kenyon/Charterhouse School/Herald)

 

King's and Hereford are wonderful in the quieter music, but the tutti on both are spoilt by bright mixtures and Coventry isn't really suitable, nor in my opinion is St Paul's where the acoustic is just too big. Winchester makes a worthwhile effort, and the big guns are used most sparingly by Adrian Partington. I do not have the CD made on the Harrison at Charterhouse, so cannot comment.

 

This isn't really music suitable for a powerful Willis. I would love to hear Howells at somewhere like Chichester or Bristol or another instrument not that far removed from the old Gloucester organ for which much of Howells output must have been written in mind.

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I do not have the CD made on the Harrison at Charterhouse, so cannot comment.
It's one of the few CDs I do have. Personally I find the instrument somewhat leaden, unexciting and too smooth by half. But what seems leaden, uninspiring and smooth to me may well be gloriously warm and Romantic for others. You pays your money and you takes your choice. But the music is pretty trivial too, being mainly posthumous trifles that Howells may well have preferred to remain in decent oblivion.
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As far as I know, romantic organs demands

to be registred with great care.

They were not designed to sound "cloggy"!

There is a whole knowledge there that is nearly lost.

 

Now if we deal with Tromba, Tuba, leathered Diapasons

in an H&H organ, this is certainly even more true...

 

-What do we know about Arthur Harrison's registration ideas?

 

-What do we know about Howells ways of registration?

Of his teaching in that matter?

 

Best wishes,

Pierre

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Reading other recent threads I must admit to feeling not a little jealous of all the recordings some of you seem to have. I'd be curious to know just how many you have (excluding any you've made yourselves) and, if you can decide, which one is your favourite.

 

I've never been much of a collector myself so my own collection is pretty pitiful: Hurford's complete Bach, Bate's (virtually) complete Messiaen, a half-complete set of Rogg's Bach LPs, 19 other CDs, 15 LPs and 3 tapes.

 

I don't really have a favourite, but the two I am perhaps more likely to put on than any others is:

 

1)  a non-commercially available one I picked up in the tourist information centre in Fouesnant, Brittany, of Olivier Vernet playing the parish church's modern, Baroque-style IIIP instrument (short compass Récit) by local builder Pierre Saby. Nice, unfussy playing and a super organ; and

 

2) Robert Clark's 2-CD set Bach at Naumburg.

 

======================

 

 

I just browsed among my CD and LP collection; the latter rather more extensive than the former, with the best now transfered to CD-R format.

 

In spite of maybe 100+ LP's of purely organ music, only a select few have really stood the test of time and still interest me to-day. Without browsing through all of them, and off the top of my head, I would include the following as in the "fantastic" performance category:-

 

1) Francis Jackson playing the Healey Willan "Introduction, Passacaglia & Fugue" from York Minster which I mentioned recently. (So perfectly crafted) I would also include his own "Diversion for Mixtures" which is a really fine piece of modern organ-music which few ever seem to perform.

 

2) Roger Fisher performing the Reubke Sonata at Chester...Vista? (This is Reubke as it deserves to be played, full of malice and fire)

 

3) Jane Parker-Smith...Blackburn - Vista - French-Romantic organ music. (Oh so exciting and elegantly virtuosic)

 

4) Bach organ favourites - E.Power Biggs - Harvard Flentrop....such perfect control of the music, played on a lovely organ.

 

5) Germani at Selby Abbey....Reger "Hallelujah! Gott zu loben" and Cesar Franck. Wrong organ and a fair bit of distortion....but...the right performer.

 

 

Of my less extensive CD recordings, I would single out the following:-

 

1) "Spectacular Romantics" played by Jos van der Kooy - St. Bavo, Haarlem.

This is an object lesson in playing the sort of music which SHOULD be impossible on an organ such as this. The performance is just wonderful.

 

2) Perhaps an unusual choice, but Walter Schuster playing Reger and improvising on the organ of Passau Cathedral, Bavaria. It's more a hi-fi thing really, because the speakers almost destroy the house (when the neighbours are out).....it's a HUGE sound.

 

3) Gerre Hancock on the Gothic label, showing the world how to improvise and play the Reger BACH.....St Thomas', New York. Fabulous playing and a terrific recording.

 

4) Marsha Heather-Long at St.John-the-Divine, playing Dupre, Karg-Elert etc (Gothic label again) This is very fine playing, but I just love the moment that the State Trumpet strides in late (as usual) and makes an entrance in the Dupre "Noel"

 

5) Simon Gledhill playing the Castro Wurlitzer...elegant, refined, perfectly controlled and ever-so-British.

 

My other recordings are incredibly eclectic; ranging as they do from Stan Kenton and Harry Stoneham, to the Oscar Peterson Trio, Choral Music, Mozart, Dvorak, Smetana, Baroque music, PDQ Bach and even 80's pop-music, in addition to quite a lot of theatre-organ recordings largely from America.

 

I'm just a music-junkie I suppose!

 

MM

 

4)

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MJF,

 

There are many records I did not listen to since some years...

And remember, such collections you do not build in five years!

 

Best wishes,

Pierre

 

I think we're saying the same thing in different ways.

 

My own collection (see post above) isn't nearly as big as Pierre's yet it's still been collected over quite a number of years. And, Like Pierre, there are some CDs to which I haven't listened in ages. I simply don't have the time. I suspect that many of us with large-ish collections will be in the same position.

 

Sometimes I've bought CDs for just a few of the tracks, and there are some that I have bought - even among those bought quite a while ago now - that I haven't yet heard from beginning to end. I have occasionally found a piece on a CD by accident (eg. setting the wrong track number), having bought it for other pieces, and thought to myself, "Well that's really quite good - why didn't I bother with it before?". And this after having bought the CD a year or more previously.

 

I should set really myself a particular time each week for listening - just like practice. But then there's work, family etc. Oh well.

 

Rgds,

MJF

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======================

I just browsed among my CD and LP collection; the latter rather more extensive than the former, with the best now transfered to CD-R format.

 

In spite of maybe 100+ LP's of purely organ music, only a select few have really stood the test of time and still interest me to-day. Without browsing through all of them, and off the top of my head, I would include the following as in the "fantastic" performance category:-

 

2)  Roger Fisher performing the Reubke Sonata at Chester...Vista? (This is Reubke as it deserves to be played, full of malice and fire)

I was wondering whether MM had heard Roger Fisher's recent recording of the Reubke again at Chester on Amphion recorded only a couple of years ago? I'd had the CD for a while without actually listening to it until a couple of weeks ago when I put the Reubke on. This is real no holds barred playing, quite exhilirating and nothing like so many other performances which tend to be over refined and considered. Roger Fisher just puts his foot down and goes hell for leather, particularly in the fugue at the end. My only disappointment was when he slams on the brakes for the last few chords instead of hurtling into the abyss at full steam.

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