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Recordings

Here are some recordings made during concerts of mine in the Grote Kerk (main church) at Vlaardingen (Netherlands). This church has a fine organ built in 1763 by the Flemish organ builder Pieter van Peteghem. More about this organ can be found on orgelvlaardingen.nl.

This is the first movement of the “Kyrie” from the Messe a l’usage ordinaire des paroisses by François Couperin. The Gregorian melody of the Kyrie is in long tones in the pedal part.

Although the organ has a southern ‘flavour’, North-German music also sounds very convincing. Here is a Preludium by Nicolaus Bruhns.

Next, two dances from a Polish manuscript dated at 1619, called “Oliwska Tabulatura Organowa”. The first one features the “Grand Jeu” of the organ and the second one is played on flue stops. Note the beautiful sound of the flutes in the soft part of the second dance.

This is a chorale prelude by Johann Pachelbel. Pachelbel is well known because of his famous canon, and among organists he is also well known because of his chorale partita’s, but he also wrote longer chorale preludes. This one I particularly like because of its fine contrapuntal fabric. It is not a very pretending piece, but very pleasant to listen an to play.

Alexandre Pierre François Boëly was in his time (early 19th century) a conservative composer. Maybe that’s why he did not get much attention during his life. Here I play a prelude and a fuge of Boëly. Note the final chord in which I make use of the presence of the contra A (a low tone, that is not present on most other organs).

Alexandre Guilmant, a Frence composer who lived around 1900, wrote several books with pieces for church organists. This is the choral prelude Veni Creator Sprirtus.

The Dutch composer Hendrik Andriessen (first half of 20th century) wrote some fine orchestra music, but also a number of organ pieces. Among these are two volumes with “Intermezzi”. From that, here are numbers XVII and XIX. Intermezzo XVII is about augmented triads. XIX features a nice solo and some interesting pedal work. The entrance of the solo at unexpected time and pitch is remarkable.