The many large organs installed in Northern European churches during the Baroque period were expensive assets for the communities who supported their churches. In order to maximise their investment, congregations not only heard the organ at regular services and occasional recitals by visiting organists, but the organs were used in ensemble concerts. Many churches had their own chests of instruments such as cornetts and trombones, and the organs themselves had stops with imitations of wind and even string instruments. These ensembles did not of course use the full organ sound, which would have overwhelmed any other players, but the delightful interplay of the solo stops.

The organs of the Grote Laurenskirk in Alkmaar, Holland are a very fine pair. A Van Covelen instrument from 1511 is Holland's oldest extant playable pipe organ, and is in fine fettle. It has mean tone tuning with pure thirds. Ears used to equal temperament tuning might notice a few notes which appear slightly out of tune, but the organ has great character and personality from its solo stops. The other organ is an Arp Schnitger of 1646, containing pipes from an older organ (1545). Organs by Schnitger and Silbermann are regarded as the Rolls Royce instruments of the Northern European Baroque. Organ specialists will be interested to note that both organs were supplied with wind by a separate foot-pedal device, rather than the usual modern method of electric pumps. Connoisseurs of organ sound refer to this as 'breathing sound' and maintain that it significantly improves the tonal qualities of the instruments.

Falling into three sections, the first and last of which involve the Schnitger organ and the middle section the Van Covelan instrument, the programme intersperses organ solos from Pieter van Dijk with duets featuring the fine baroque violin playing of Annegret Siedel. The famous (inevitable?) Bach D minor toccata and Fugue BWV565 opens proceedings, and a fiery opening it is. Pieter van Dijk is the organist at the Grote Laurenskirk and thus knows the organ intimately. His registrations for the this piece exploit the full range of colour and drama that the Schnitger can produce; it is a thrilling ride and comparable to the excellent version by Ton Koopman on a DVD-A, although on the present disc the sonics (see below) are even more impressive. Pieter van Dijk also concludes the concert with a similarly fizzing interpretation, this time of the G minor Praeludium by Buxtehude (BuxWV 148). Other organ solos include Johann Adam Reincken's Choralfantasie 'Was kann uns kommen an für Not', which exploits the wide range of delicious solo stops on the Schnitger, and Heinrich Scheideman's Praeambulum in F and Paduana Lachrymae on the Van Covelan with its lovely vocal tones.

A number of scholars have remarked on the possibility that the D minor Toccata and Fugue (which is now generally agreed to be by JS Bach after many years of dispute) was likely to have originated in a violin piece, from its style, textures and structure which are very different to other organ Toccatas by Bach. Jaap Schroeder produced a version for solo violin, which is played here by Annegret Siedel, thus giving us the unique opportunity to compare the two versions. She plays it with great aplomb, making the most of the athleticism afforded by the Baroque violin with its gut strings, lower bridge (allowing spread chords to be sounded together) and the lighter, more agile Baroque bow. The result is most convincing, reminding one of Bach's great Partitas for solo violin.

Annegret Siedel duets stylishly with the organs on her other tracks; the liquid sound of the solo stops and the sweet tones of the violin complement one another perfectly. Listeners will probably be surprised to find two arrangements of John Dowland's signature song melody 'Lachymae Pavan' in this context, but it was also extremely popular on the Continent as well as in Elizabethan England.

Sonically, this disc is superb. It is not clear from the insert or the CD case (which bear the DSD logo) if this is full DSD or PCM mastered with DSD. No matter - it is simply one of the most spectacular organ recordings I have heard. The engineers have placed the microphones quite close to the organ cases, so that the image is wide and the inner parts of each work are heard to great effect, without the blurring of ambience often captured on other recordings. Yet there is no distraction by picking up tracker noise from the organ mechanisms. The pedal registers are particularly powerful, displaying the dark, rich textures of the Schnitger in particular. The big pipes roar impressively with many overtones, rather than just sounding sounding like large vacuum cleaners. The close sound, however, still has plenty of bloom from the church reverberance. Going further, with the Van Covelan, the sections of this organ appear each to be spread around the front and surround speakers, giving a wonderful feeling of being inside the organ.

Several of the violin duets have the violinist in the left rear speaker, as if she were in a gallery above the church body, while Annegret Siedel takes centre front stage for her version of the Bach Toccata. The violin is recorded fairly closely, allowing us to hear some slightly unusual breathing sounds at the strenuous start to the Toccata, and a certain amount of floor-board creaking as she moves about. No matter, these are just part of the immediacy of the occasion.

The SACD is well-documented in German and English. The booklet carries full specifications for each organ, and the registrations used for each piece.

What we do carry away from this most interesting exercise is that the matching of mouse and elephant can work; a great organ and a slender baroque violin can duet most charmingly as equals, and they must have given pleasure to generations of church-goers. Don't miss this recording, especially if you have full range speakers as your surrounds, and enjoy some of the spatial effects that full surround can give.

Copyright © 2008 John Miller and HRAudio.net

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