Customer Reviews

Abbey Spectacular! Organ Favourites from St. Ouen, Rouen

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I bought this on CD because I wanted to rip it myself with the low-end, 10 Hz filter turned off. But whichever way you buy this recording BUY IT NOW.

This is truly a SPECTACULAR (!) recording in every sense. The 1890 Cavaillé-Coll organ at St. Ouen, Rouen, Normandy, declared by Widor to be a Michelangelo-type masterpiece, cannot possibly sound better than it does on this 2008 recording. The gravitas of the 32' Contre-Bombarde is simply stunning. (You need to experiment with your volume on the Lemmens Fanfare first because the Boëllmann enters at full organ.) Except for the rapid tempo of the Mulet Carillon Sortie, Brook's playing is faultless from beginning to the Guilmant Finale finale. (I prefer the Andreas Meisner tempo for the Carillon Sortie on the St. Ouen organ that can be found on YouTube. Meisner's CD of Mulet is much harder to find.)

A companion recording to this one is Mr. Brooks's Eugène Gigout: The Complete Organ Works, Vol. 2 on the St. Ouen organ which is as beautifully recorded and played as this one. In fact, on my iPhone copy of Abbey Spectacular! I deleted the third movement of the Boëllmann -- a bit too soft for the subway -- and placed the Gigout Grande Choeur dialogué, one of my favorite pieces since childhood, from Vol. 2, after the Gigout Toccata. (As a reference, I place the Lemmens Fanfare first in the playlist order, for the reason stated above.)

If you like French organ music played by a Cavaillé-Coll scholar on an organ it was written for, buy this disc!

Short and sweet: The performances by Gerard Brooks of the works by Boellmann, Bonnet, Lemmens, et al are superb. The recorded sound is stunning. Question: Why, Amazon, do you ONLY offer mp3 downloads and not the physical disc?