Gerd Schaller - Bruckner 8 for organ - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Bruckner's Fifth is eminently suited to an arrangement for performance on the organ above all because of it's musical texture. In no other Bruckner symphony, for example, does counterpoint play such an important part. I am thinking in particular of the great fugue in the final movement. It really does seem as if many passages of this magnificent work were composed as if with the organ in mind, even though the Fifth is not a piece for organ at all, being in the first place a symphonic work. And yet it lends itself admirably to the extraction of a compositional substrate with no loss of essential content. That cannot be said of all Bruckner's symphonies. Of all his symphonies, in my opinion, the Fifth, Eighth and Ninth are most amenable to an arrangement for organ. Building on the compositional core, it is the orchestral treatment above all that plays a key role. If this is lacking, an arrangement of the work can deprive the work of it's grandeur. That is again at risk if one attempts to copy the orchestra or to transpose certain orchestral effects one-to-one onto the organ. Such an approach is generally unsatisfactory, because organ writing is governed by different rules than those applying to orchestral scoring. It would be fatal to make the organ rival the orchestra. My aim from the start was to avoid imitating the orchestra and to create a work specifically for organ in the manner of an organ symphony. Gerd Schaller

Bruckner 5 for OrganInchBruckner is most enthusiastic about the instruments built by Cavaillé-Coll.This enthusiasm is something I share without reservation. The impressively monumental sound, the vast colour spectrum and diversity of the stops and, what is more, the simply unlimited qualities of sound that distinguish the Cavaillé-Coll organs - all this enthralled Anton Bruckner then, and it is these same characteristics that fascinate me now. When you play on such an instrument, you revive the sound world of the 19th century.InchGerd Schaller

Chris Brokaw - Gambler's Ecstasy [COMPACT DISCS] Jewel Case Packaging date 11/05/2012