Organ Works

This album brings together the first ever surround sound recordings of the great Harrison & Harrison organ set within the chapel of King's College, Cambridge. Performing three popular, virtuosic works for the organ by Liszt, Reubke and Mendelssohn, Stephen Cleobury, Director of Music at King's College, demonstrates the power and flexibility of this great instrument. Liszt's dark-hued, 30 minute, tri-sectional Fantasie und Fuge über den choral "Ad nos, ad salutarem undam" is based on a theme from Act 1 of Meyerbeer's grand opera Le Prophète. Julius Reubke's magnificently gothic Organ Sonata on the 94th Psalm, considered one of the pinnacles of Romantic repertoire and thought to have been inspired by Liszt's aforementioned work, is a test of an organ's versatility and the player's pedal technique. Mendelssohn's Organ Sonata No.6 in d, based on Bach's chorale Vater unser i'm Himmelreich, demonstrates Mendelssohn's consummate mastery of organ textures.