Having greatly enjoyed Schmidt's and Solyon's collaboration in the first volume of their survey of Widor's organ and orchestra works (Widor: Organ Symphonies, Vol. 1 - Schmitt, Solyom), I'm pleased to report a similar success for the second. Widor, as one of the great architects of French Late Romanticism, was preoccupied with the rapid development of the symphonic form. As a professional organist, he continued the work of César Franck and Camille Saint-Saëns in writing suites for the solo organ which gained symphonic complexity and were thus called Organ Symphonies. However, he wrote a great deal more music for the orchestra, including symphonies and many concertos with orchestra, so he inevitably married organ and orchestra, inspired to write his first Symphony for Organ and Orchestra after hearing Saint-Saëns's Symphony No. 3 in C minor, which became to be called "The Organ Symphony". This disc contains two fine examples of both genres, and this time, the solo Organ symphony is not played on the Bamberg concert hall instrument, but the recording team went on a field trip to the Cavaillé-Coll organ at the Abbey Church of St Ouen, Rouen.

The virtual hand of Saint-Saëns is very clear in Widor's Symphony No. 3 op. 69, the first of his organ-orchestra works to be written. It has a similar two part structure, with each part being multi-movement, and the movements roughly parallel those in a traditional classical symphony, including a scherzo. Widor's material is strong, his structures quite distinctive, and the interaction between organ and orchestra involves alternation rather more than combination, which is used to produce grand, impressive effects at the high end of the dynamic range for climaxes and the colossal final bars. Otherwise, the organ itself provides colourful double choruses between fundamentals, a powerful reed chorus or solo reeds and mixture stops. There is even a gorgeous Romantic tune in the rich key of D flat played by all the violins on the G string, closely paralleling the one bestowed by Saint-Saëns in his Organ Symphony.

If anything, the recording of the Symphony no. 3 is crisper and more dynamic than in Volume 1, with an excellent, realistic balance from the sympathetic ambience of the concert hall. Stacked high harmonics from the mixture pipes produces sizzling HF which is often distorted in capture, but here the top end is clean and open to playing with higher volumes without hurting the ears. The Bambergers are clearly very engaged, with Solyon keeping the potentially very lush score under good control, and Christian Schmidt for his part pays careful attention to all of Widor's dynamic instructions for the organ.

The orchestra has notably more work to do than the organist (as in the Saint-Saëns work), and the solo part is not particularly technically difficult, so Schmidt has time to pay attention to expressiveness and colourful registrations. I particularly liked the final Vivace, a staccato "scherzo" in 6/8 time, edgy, brazen and sometimes as gruff as a Beethoven scherzo. There are, of course, the sudden surprise entries of full organ, and an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink last few pages, which we all expect from Symphonies for organ and orchestra. No wonder this piece, a huge success at its première at Geneva in 1894, forced Widor to tour with it all through Europe until the advent of the First World War.

Widor's Seventh Organ Symphony towered over all his earlier ones, with its 6 movements, a cyclic theme structure and technical challenges which were so severe that his friends told him that no ordinary organists would be able to play his work if he continued evolutionary development of the genre
in that way. So, this piece is a formidable challenge even for the great masters of our time, but I have to say that the young Christian Schmidt's performance at St Ouen had me gripped from the beginning. He showed a synergy with the great Cavaillé-Coll organ (Widor's instrument of choice), and apparently hardly noticed the difficulty, with some truly confident (and sometimes risky) playing. Long stretches of double pedalling seemed to be quite simple!

Every movement is depicted with character and flair, with some staggering displays of virtuosity, meticulous attention to the score and development of light and shade, all with appropriate registration colours based on those noted by Widor himself. The grandiose movements are never bombastic, the slower ones contemplative and graced by lovely legato lines, while the sweet Andante-Allegretto in Movement 3 is played with gently mocking humour as a peasant dance in 3/8 time, on 8' clarinets and flutes with 8' basses. Movement 4 pictured a rippling brook with a long-breathed tune floating above, using 4' and 8' gambas and flutes with 8' and 16' basses below. This stretch of water reappears transformed into a surging torrent in the final movement, bringing an exhilarating conclusion to the symphony.

This is a performance to remember. Thankfully, the engineers captured the sound of this wonderful organ and its building in a recording almost solid and focussed enough to touch, even down to the 6 second reverberation at the end. The purity of tone of this well-maintained instrument really comes across and is very impressive in itself. The sense of "being there" in 5.0 sound enhances the rapport of listener and performer, as it is meant to do.

A wonderfully refined pair of performances, self-recommending to organ lovers.

Copyright © 2012 John Miller and HRAudio.net