Léon Boëllmann
Léon Boëllmann’s organ music, above all the Suite gothique and its hard-driving Toccata, sits at the centre of the late Romantic French repertoire. The writing favours clear forms, dramatic minor themes and the full colour of the instrument.
He left a modest body of work across genres: motets and songs, piano pieces, a symphony, a cello sonata and chamber music, yet the organ scores define him. Close to Franck in manner and open to Saint-Saëns’s clarity, they still sound post-romantic in their registration and rhythmic bite. The Suite gothique’s closing Toccata, moderate in difficulty but brilliant in effect, remains the piece most often heard.
Compositions by Léon Boëllmann appear on
Festival of Organ Masterpieces
Douglas Lawrence plays favourite organ repertoire on the instrument of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, spanning nearly three centuries of transcriptions and original works.
Diapason
This CD marks 150 years of the Bishop Kelly Pipe Organ at St Patrick’s, Mentone. Built by Frederick Nicholson for Prahran’s Independent Church, it is among Australia’s most significant historic instruments. Christopher Trikilis and Dr Gordon Atkinson explore its colours for two and four hands, in music by Vierne, Walther, Hesse, Bonelli and others.
Organ of the Antipodes
Organists Rhys Boak and Ryoko Mori mark the centenary of a landmark Australian instrument: the 1906 George Fincham & Son organ at Malvern Presbyterian Church.