Koechlin: Organ Works

Schmitt, Christian

CPO 777512

Christian Schmitt, one of the most sought-after concert organists of his generation, has recorded a representative sampling of organ works by the French composer Charles Koechlin – almost all of them CD premieres! – on the new Goll organ in the Marktkirche in Hanover. Koechlin is regarded as an exceptional phenomenon among the French composers of the first half of the twentieth century. The stylistic breadth of his numerous and complex compositions is practically all-encompassing and thoroughly contradictory. Koechlin himself was not an organist but a well-versed pianist and thought broadly and orchestrally as a composer. The present organ works are to be regarded as new and exceptional within their genre and for their time. Unlike the works of his organ-playing contemporaries Widor, Messiaen, Alain, and others, Koechlin’s organ works are mostly not bound to a specific organ type. Various melodic-contrapuntal compositional techniques displaying Koechlin’s aspiration always to develop his works from melodic tension together with all his compositional-technical mastery sometimes manifest themselves. Enthralling organ compositions!

SACD

Muzyka klasyczna

CPO

11-08-2011

761203751228

Fanfare: 'Want List' (2013)