Description
Our pyrotechnic world tour of organs continues apace. Fresh from Volume 10 recorded in Canada, Christopher Herrick now heads south to unleash the power of the Lay Family Concert Organ in Dallas, Texas. One of the largest mechanical concert organs ever built, this 4,535-pipe monster dominates the stage of the Eugene McDermott Concert Hall and proves the perfect vehicle for a wide-ranging programme of unabashed new-world swagger.
Alongside such iconic works as Copland’s Preamble (composed to mark the UN adoption of the Declaration of Human Rights) and the French Americana of Langlais and Widor we have a selection of jazz-infused works which allow both player and instrument to develop a whole new aspect of the organ repertoire. The programme concludes with Joseph Jongen’s epic Sonata eroïca, a veritable landmark in twentieth-century organ-writing and one which leads us out in a thunderous blaze of heroic bravura.