Marie-Claire Alain - Jehan Alain: Complete Works for Organ 1

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Music reviews of Jehan Alain: Complete Works for Organ 1

Music Review: Finally! Jehan Alain's organ works on an organ he played
Rating: 4 Stars

Volume 1 of this series features the organ of the Basilica of St-Ferjeux in Besançon, built with two manuals by J. B. Ghys in 1899, and expanded to three manuals by Bossier in 1930, under the guidance of Jehan Alain. Alain not only played the inaugural concert on the rebuilt organ, but spent many long hours on it afterwards, composing, and performing his works for friends. After the organ's scrupulous restoration by Cicchero in 1988, Marie-Claire Alain found that indeed, many registrations in the manuscripts of his works made perfect sense and ultimately came fully alive on this organ, which enjoys a particularly fine acoustical setting. Thus she was eager to share these discoveries with listeners.

The sound engineering captures the organ and its acoustic quite well. Marie-Claire's playing reflects the latest research on this music, supplemented by her personal acquaintance with the composer and her memories of his own playing. It also has a certain "off-the-cuff" quality, sometimes with inexplicably fast tempi and occasionally questionable note-accuracy... and yet, this album is of such documentary importance that all lovers of Alain's music, and indeed, of all 20th-century French organ music, will want this disc.

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