Floating Islands

The Swiss composer Guy Bovet has created a chamber version of Camille Saint-Saëns' popular 'Organ Symphony', which increases the significance of the organ part to a true 'Symphony concertante' for organ and orchestra. The result is convincing and the Capriccio Baroque Orchestra presents the work for the first time on historical instruments from the time it was composed. Of writing this piece, Saint-Saëns wrote: "I gave everything to it I was able to give. What I have here accomplished, I will never achieve again." It seems he wrote the work as a sort of history of his own career- it features virtuosic piano passages, Romantic orchestral writing, and, of course, the sound of the cathedral-sized pipe organ.