Croes / Barrocotout - Sonate Egaree - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Leif Segerstam - Chamber Music [COMPACT DISCS] date 09/17/1996

Two great organists on two famous organs - and then Bach! Leo van Doeselaar and Erin Wiersinga approach the Saxon master in an interesting and original way, and the fact that the two titular organists at their Martinikerk in Groningen have at their disposal one of the most important baroque organs from the workshop of the jubilarian Arp Schnitgers makes this new publication a current as well as exciting experience. Arrangements are on the program. And arrangements of arrangements, because Bach himself was not afraid to adapt his own works and those of his colleagues for his own purposes. The famous prelude to the Partita in E major for solo violin thus turned into a festive cantata overture- including timpani and trumpets. This baroque splendor of sound almost calls for implementation on the Great Organ of the Martinikerk, which houses Schnitger's only surviving, powerful 32' principal register in the mighty pedal towers. Four handed, both titularists present the monumental opening chorus of the cantata InchEin feste Burg ist unser Gott,Inch whose strict contrapuntal structure is most advantageously accentuated in Sybolt de Jong's arrangement. Gustav Leonhardt's harpsichord version of the famous Ciaccona for solo violin, which Doeselaar extends on the one-manual baroque choir organ, is a perfect example of this. Vivaldi's lively Concerto in B minor for four violins reshaped Bach for four harpsichords. Wiersinga plays Guy Bovet's organ version of this unusual transcription- and thus shows not least the outstanding quality of an instrument whose beginnings date back to the middle of the 15th century.

On this new recording, an exceptional duo of musicians from the Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Hélène Collerette (1st violin) and Anne Le Bozec perform a program of three sonatas. The three works - spanning barely forty-three years, Florent Schmitt's op. 68 (1918-19), Albert Roussel's op. 28 (1924-25) and an early work of André Prévost form 1960-61, conceived when this Ontario-born composer of old Quebec descent was attending classes in Paris with Olivier Messiaen and Henri Dutilleux - epitomize a vibrant period for French chamber music and it's sphere of influence. Rhythmic energy galvanizes this Franco-Canadian programme from start to finish, innervating passages of expressive intimacy with the same intensity as wilder pages bristling with vigor.