Anthony Halliday plays Saint-Saëns, Beethoven, Duruflé, Bach

Few Australian musicians match Anthony Halliday’s versatile splendour. This latest of his all-too-few organ CDs emphasises his gifts in transcribing orchestral works, recorded on the organ of St Francis’ Church, Melbourne.

Anthony Halliday organ

Camille Saint-Saëns composer
Johann Sebastian Bach composer
Maurice Duruflé composer
Ludwig van Beethoven composer

From Bach’s time through to the middle of the 20th century, transcriptions of orchestral works were common. More recently they lost favour, with organists treating them as beneath the instrument’s dignity. That puritanism has finally died unlamented, as performers rediscover ingenious adaptations of symphonic – or operatic – music in organ terms. No one now alive makes such adaptations better than Halliday.

Reviews

Those who some months back, in Melbourne’s Town Hall, heard Halliday’s burn-the-floor solo arrangement of the Saint-Saëns Organ Symphony’s finale might well wonder if this CD can do it justice. Fear not: it does. From the ferocious C major opening to the dazzling flourishes at the end, Halliday is, in effect, his own orchestra. He reveals a colouristic range that far too many non-French organists seem incapable of achieving or, worse still, of wanting. For this we can partly credit the instrument at his disposal (made by Québec’s Casavant firm). Even so, lesser artists could take the same machine and render it aurally indistinguishable from a $100 burp-box. Halliday is at once virtuoso and probing musician.

Equally effective in its quiet way is his version of the Emperor Concerto’s middle movement. Beethoven himself, who admitted the role of chorales in his inspiration for this music, would have approved. Also included is a tiny Beethoven minuet – originally not for organ but for Spieluhr (musical clock) – which suggests Haydn rather than the Emperor’s creator. Halliday gives it a delightful variety of tone.

It should go without saying that he has mastered Bach’s stupendous C minor Passacaglia and Fugue, taking a daringly slow tempo for the former, and avoiding the faintest hint of anticlimax in the latter. The Maurice Duruflé Suite (1933) suits Halliday’s timbral strengths, and above all in the Suite’s Toccata – often heard in isolation – he transports listeners from the Yarra to the Seine. Excellent engineering and well-written notes complete a pretty wonderful package.

— R J Stove

Artists

Camille Saint-Saëns

Camille Saint-Saëns wrote music of classical clarity and Romantic colour: the Organ Symphony’s blazing finale, the glittering Introduction and Rondo Capriccioso, the late Clarinet Sonata, and the song Clair de lune that still draws listeners into moonlight and memory.

Johann Sebastian Bach

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685–1750) was a German composer and organist of the late Baroque. His sacred and secular music for choir, orchestra, organ and solo instruments remains among the foundations of the Western concert and church repertory.

Maurice Duruflé

Maurice Duruflé (1902–1986) was a French organist and composer. His small output of organ and choral music is prized for its craftsmanship and its deep roots in plainsong.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827) was a German composer and pianist whose music stands at the centre of the Western classical tradition, bridging the Classical and Romantic eras.

Anthony Halliday

Anthony Halliday is an Australian concert pianist, organist and composer. A Churchill Fellow and Commonwealth Winner of the ABC Concerto Competition, he is noted for virtuoso organ transcriptions and wide-ranging recital programmes.

Tracks

Symphony No. 3 in C minor, Op. 78 ‘Organ’ Finale Camille Saint-Saëns
Passacaglia and Fugue in C minor, BWV 582 Johann Sebastian Bach

Suite, Op. 5 Maurice Duruflé

Prelude
Sicilienne
Toccata
Minuet in C for a musical clock Ludwig van Beethoven
Piano Concerto in E-flat, Op. 73 ‘Emperor’ Adagio un poco mosso Ludwig van Beethoven

Performers

Anthony Halliday

Where to listen

Anthony Halliday plays Saint-Saëns, Beethoven, Duruflé, Bach is available as a CD. It can be purchased online through Buywell Music or the Australian Music Centre which both offer online ordering.