Jan Lehtola - Klemetti: Works for Organ - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Jan van de Laar - Organ Works [COMPACT DISCS] date 05/09/2006

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. Stylistically, his music unites the French cathedral tradition of composers like Langlais, Dupré and Guillou with the concern with counterpoint and logic heard in Reger and later German figures. Like Messiaen, Ruoff often finds stimulus in religious sources; unlike him, it is biblical narrative that inspires many of Ruoff's works, and he uses the unparalleled resources of the modern symphonic organ in his response to some of the most dramatic scenes in the Old Testament, writing music of freewheeling energy and uncompromising power.

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.