L'orgue Magnifique

Maxine Thévenot plays the famous Skinner organ at Girard College Chapel in Philadelphia. The organ is the last great instrument built in a superb acoustical space directly under the supervision of Ernest M. Skinner to remain intact, a monument to Skinner's late tonal evolution under the challenge of by-then rival G. Donald Harrison. For this CD, recording engineer Ed Kelly, aided by Mark Willey, recreated and expanded upon the technique Kelly used to create Raven's earlier, landmark recording on the Girard College organ of The Planets by Gustav Holst as transcribed and played by Peter Sykes. The CD booklet includes an explanation by Jonathan Ambrosino of the organ's and building's creation, and an excellent essay on the music by David Gammie.


An admirer of Skinner organs, Vierne wrote to Ernest Skinner in March, 1928, following an American concert tour, "Not a day passes that I don't dream about your magnificent instruments that I played over there; their marvelous touch, their fine tone, their perfect and sensitive action haunt me... I also very often recall the visit to your factory in Boston; what I saw there sends me into rapture..."



LOUIS VIERNE (1870-1937): Symphony No. 3 in F-sharp minor, Op. 28

LOUIS VIERNE: Méditation (Trois Improvisations)

LOUIS VIERNE: Stèle pour un enfant défunt (Triptyque, Op. 58)

LOUIS VIERNE: Sur le Rhin (Pièces de fantaisie, Op. 54)

MARTIN STACEY (b. 1975): Totentanz (Hommage à Petr Eben)*

JEANNE LANDRY (b. 1922): Hesychia*

JOHN BURGE (b. 1961): Dance*

*first recording