Organ Treasures
Mattias Wager
Opus 3 CD22031
Rejskind: When real high fidelity was first picking up steam, audiophiles were collecting organ recordings, and it's easy to see why. No other instrument can produce a higher note, nor as low a note. Nor can any rival the sheer dynamic range of a pipe organ, which can leap instantly from near inaudibility to a mighty roar. What better way to demonstrate the capabilities than by playing pieces that ordinary record players would turn into indecipherable mush?
     I was one of those collectors, I admit, and I had my favorite demo pieces, ones that could shake both the house and the senses. There is the Bach Toccata and Fugue in D Minor, naturally, and César Franck's bombastic but thrilling Pièce Héroique, and especially Charles-Marie Widor's Toccata from his Symphony No. 5 (no one ever seems to play the rest). So I was happy to find that all three of these treasures can be found on this hybrid SACD.
     And this is no little country organ. Wager plays the organ of the Hedvig Eleonara church in Stockholm, which includes a 32' Bourdon and another 32' Bombarde, as well as a variety of 16' pipes. There is a powerful torrent of sound when he opens up on the finale of the Widor, and it is not accompanied by the harshness that some recording media (and systems too, of course) can add to it.
     This is a 4.1 channel surround recording, not using the centre channel but making plenty of use of the "point-one" subwoofer channel. As on most SACD recordings, there is also a CD layer, processed with Sony's Super Bit Mapping.
     Apart from my (and perhaps your) old favorites, there is other music here. There are three other Bach pieces, including Jesus, Joy of Man's Desiring and an organ version of the orchestral Air on the G String. There are Charles Ive's Variations on America, making considerable use of My Country 'tis of Thee (aka God Save the Queen). There is a charming waltz by Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877-1933), and there are three pieces from the Opus 29 of Gabriel Pierné. Come to think of it, those were often mainstays of organ demo recordings, and for good reason.
     I can recommend this recording...if, of course, you are lucky enough to have a system that can handle it.