Jan Lehtola - Complete Works for Organ 1 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

The organ works of Axel Ruoff, born in Stuttgart in 1957, constitute one of the most important contributions to the literature for the instrument by any composer since Messiaen, with Ruoff often using it's unparalleled resources to write music of extraordinary power and dramatic flair. This fourth volume in Jan Lehtola's complete recording presents three large-scale compositions a set of chorale variations, a sardonic suite and a monumental organ symphony, all displaying the wild sweep of Ruoff's imagination. Album Tracks 1. Introduction, Variations and Fugue on the Chorale 'Das Volk, Das Noch Im Finstern Wandelt' (2005) 2. Suite Grotesque (2019) 3. Symphony No. 1 (2013)

Oskar Merikanto (1868-1924) made an enormous contribution to music-making in Finland, and to organ music in particular, as teacher, virtuoso performer and authority on performance practice, reforming the approach to the organ in both church and concert-hall. It was thought that all of his organ music was known and recorded, but recent discoveries have added a number of previously unknown works to his catalogue a striking concert fantasia, an early funeral march, some pedal studies, a vast series of chorale preludes - some of them beautifully crafted miniatures, others only aphoristic ideas - and an organ transcription of a piano piece by Mendelssohn. Album Tracks 1. Fantasia Chromatica, Om038 (1917?) 2. Trauermarsch, Om279 (1888) 3. Konzert-Etüden, Om119 (1908) 4. 100 Chorale Preludes Selection of 45 5. Prelude and Fugue in E minor, Op. 35 No. 1 (1837)

As composer, musicologist and critic, Erkki Salmenhaara (1941-2002) was one of the major figures in Finnish musical life in the second half of the twentieth century. His music for organ charts his stylistic evolution, from a modernism influenced by his teacher, György Ligeti, to triadic harmonies spiced with dissonance. Even so, all these works manifest his fondness for the ability of the organ to generate massive and powerful blocks of sound, giving this music a monumental character in keeping with the grand spaces of the buildings in which it is usually heard. Album Tracks 1. Toccata~I. Pesante 2. Toccata~II. Moderato 3. Toccata~III. Misterioso - Grave 4. Intrada 5. Prelude - Interlude - Postlude~I. Prelude 6. Prelude - Interlude - Postlude~II. Interlude 7. Prelude - Interlude - Postlude~III. Postlude 8. Canzona 9. Ricercata 10. Introduction and Toccata~I. Introduction - 11. Introduction and Toccata~II. Toccata