Another good value disc from The Warehouse, for memory, around $5. Would you believe $67.47 at Amazon?!! Ouch! The CD cover is different, and at that price I’d expect a book, not just a booklet to go with it. Not listed at OHS.
Yes, there are plenty of good old tried-and-true numbers in this programme. I wouldn’t even begin to entertain the thought of criticising Mr Parsons, because his playing is at worst immaculate, and at best, simply wraps you up in the music and carries you along with it. I find programmes that duck and dive through musical eras, with snippets from larger works here and there, a little disconcerting unless there is a unifying theme or stated purpose. I usually, but not always, prefer to get involved in a complete piece or in a programme of at least similar composers.
For my taste, the Bach and Widor Toccatas and Albinoni Adagio could have been left out, and the twenty-four odd minutes thus saved devoted to more music by Thalben-Ball, Yon, Whitlock and Albright. And the two segments of the Suite Gothique either omitted or the work played in its entirety.
Having said that, one must admit that 75 minutes of music is pretty good value from the producers.
The Chapel of Oundle School is indeed fortunate to have such a gem of an organ, with its four 16’ stops. Its custodians would be justly proud of it. There seems to be a more intimate closeness in the chapel’s acoustics compared with the more spacious resonance of a cathedral, and this works best in the Thalben-Ball Elegy, the Yon Toccatina, the Whitlock Folk Tune and the Albright Sweet Sixteenths. The Vierne Final, the Bach Fugue à la Gigue and the Boellmann Toccata from Suite Gothique were all played as well as any I have heard, and had that indefinable “something extra”.
The CD booklet is all in English and the full specification of the organ is given along with a summary of Mr Parsons’ impressive CV. This is without doubt, one of the better lower-priced CDs.
Does it match Nicholas Kynaston at Inglostadt for the same price? Never!
Would I buy it again? Yes, because of the lesser-known works on the programme, and the Frobenius organ itself, which can be heard very clearly because nothing at all is caught up in reverberation and lost. It’s all there, from the quietest conversational flutes to the most refined bellowing of the full organ.
I’d like to put the cost of CDs into perspective, if I may. In the 1960s, we saved up 42 shillings and sixpence for a 12-inch LP vinyl record. The Reserve Bank inflation calculator says that 42s/6d in mid-1965 equals $68.04 at present.
http://www.rbnz.govt.nz/inflationcalculator/
