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Historic Organs in Denmark: Dom Roskilde - Bolliger

Historic Organs in Denmark: Dom Roskilde - Bolliger

Sinus  4005

Stereo/Multichannel Hybrid

Classical - Instrumental


Buxtehude, Bruhns, Weckmann, Radeck, Hintz, Lorentz, Geist, Tunder

Albert Bolliger (organ)

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Review by John Miller - December 26, 2007

I am delighted to see that Sinus, a Swiss company specialising in organ recording, chose the Romanesque and Gothic Roskilde Domkirke to make its first SACD. This vast red-brick cathedral, sited at the head of a deep inlet west of Copenhagen, has been the final burial place of Danish Royalty since the fifteenth century, and I have been privileged to hear the organ playing here several times.

The three-manual principal organ, with its elaborate façade in Danish Roccoco style, still has some of the pipework of the earlier 16th century organ, rebuilt and extended in 1655. In 1833 a drastic rebuild took place by Marcussen and Reuter, updating it to early Romantic style, but leaving the casework intact. Further changes took place in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, but in 1985 a thorough restoration was undertaken by Marcussen and Son, putting the organ back into its pre-nineteenth century format.

Recitalist Albert Bolliger is the founder of Sinus-Verlag AG, and responsible for its series of organ recordings. He specialises in Baroque organs and organ music. Modestly, he did not include his biography in the German and English booklet, but helpfully writes about the music and composers chosen for the recital. The programme theme is music written by Baroque composers who lived in the ancient Danish Kingdom or who came to work in Copenhagen. Some of the composers will not be familiar to many people, yet their music is well worth hearing. The heart of the disc is the group by Buxtehude, whose imaginative and sometimes quirky style could never be mistaken for Johann Sebastian Bach's. There are three of his improvisatory Preludes interspersed with two shorter chorale preludes, an Aria and the splendid Magnificat noni toni, which would indeed be suitable for a Royal occasion or an important liturgical event.

Bolliger chooses his registrations carefully to show off this fine organ, even introducing the cymbal and birdsong stops in the Buxtehude Prelude in A minor, a delightful touch. Soft flutes, pungent gedachts and soothing diapsons are used for the contemplative pieces, while the full 16' pedal complement of Principal and Trombone make thunderous underpinnings for the louder and more majestic pieces. He uses little or no spontaneous ornamentation, which some will applaud, but for may taste his style is a little on the serious side. I would love to have heard a touch more rhythmic freedom, wit and sparkle in the dance movements, which Ton Koopman does so well. Otherwise, he is an agile and intelligent player, both on manuals and pedals. I did hear one or two slightly smudged runs in passing from one keyboard to another, but this might be down to a difficult key action.

The 5.1 PCM recording is simply splendid. Listen to just a few seconds of Track 1, the imposing Prelude in E minor by Nicholaus Bruhns, and you will hear that the engineers have found the sweet spots for their microphones. The deep bass pedal passages, slashed with massive chords topped by spitting mixtures is just how this organ sounds in situ. There is ample room for the sound to expand and excite the building, as heard in MC particularly, but the long reverberation time does not blur the details. The tonal qualities of each solo stop are superbly reproduced, while there is a minimum of action noise. From time to time, one can hear a stop or coupler being pulled, spatially fixed with pinpoint accuracy, which adds to the feeling of 'being there'.

Sinus' booklet is a model, with full colour photographs, organ specification helpfully colour coded according to keyboard and pedal departments, and registrations listed for each piece. This disc is fully up to the standard of the rest of their fine organ series. I hope there will be more SACDs from Sinus. Recommended!

Copyright © 2007 John Miller and HRAudio.net

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