Petur Sakari – Franck: Chorals et Pieces pour Grand Orgue (2021) MCH SACD ISO + DSF DSD64 + Hi-Res FLAC

Any recording pairing the organ music of César Franck with an instrument by Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, the composer and organ builder who jointly reinvigorated the French organ school in the 19th century, ought to be welcome. This new release is, though it doesn’t quite live up to its promising start, in which the young Finnish organist Pétur Sakari lays out the thematic material of Franck’s ‘Fantaisie’ with a sense of both the music’s pensive quality and its sweep. He manages to make this first of the composer’s Trois Pièces, written at the same time (1878) as the organ of the Sainte-Croix Cathedral in Orléans was being built, sound at once improvisatory and rigorously structured. Yet the glories of the other two pieces, the straightforward ‘Cantabile’ and restless ‘Pièce héroïque’, are never fully revealed, perhaps because of the slightly distanced recording of this magnificent Orléans instrument.

Still in his twenties, Pétur Sakari studied in his native Finland and in Paris and made his recording début at the age of 18. On his previous disc for BIS, he performed works by five French composers, receiving international acclaim with top marks in Diapason as well as on the Klassik-Heute website. For the present disc, Pétur has chosen to focus on César Franck, performing the composer’s Three Pieces and Three Chorales ‘pour grand orgue’ on an instrument perfectly suited to the repertoire. Completed in 1880, the great organ in the Sainte-Croix cathedral of Orléans is a major – and well-preserved – example of the art of Aristide Cavaillé-Coll, the same maker who had previously built Franck’s beloved organ in Sainte-Clotilde in Paris. (‘My new organ? It’s an orchestra!’ was Franck’s verdict.) Together the two gave the French organ tradition a new impetus with Franck laying the groundwork for a French symphonic organ style while Cavaillé-Coll constructed hundreds of organs capable of producing a sound that was full, homogeneous and modern.

The Trois Pièces, which closes with the famous Pièce héroïque, were written for a Cavaillé-Coll instrument built for the 1878 World Fair in Paris. Twelve years later, and only weeks before his untimely death, Franck completed the Trois Chorals. The idea of writing organ chorales was inspired by Bach, but Franck composed them ‘with quite a different plan’: instead of traditional hymns they use an original, freely composed melody which is gradually revealed ‘with great imagination’, as Franck himself put it in a letter to his publisher. Both the Pieces and especially the Chorales have become central works in the repertoire of concert organists.

Tracklist:

01. Trois Pièces pour grand orgue, FWV 35: Fantaisie. Andantino
02. Trois Pièces pour grand orgue, FWV 36: Cantabile. Non troppo lento
03. Trois Pièces pour grand orgue, FWV 37: Pièce héroïque. Allegro maestoso
04. Trois Chorals pour grand orgue, FWV 38: Chorale No. 1 in E major. Moderato
05. Trois Chorals pour grand orgue, FWV 39: Chorale No. 2 in B minor. Maestoso
06. Trois Chorals pour grand orgue, FWV 40: Chorale No. 3 in A minor. Quasi allegro

Personnel:
Pétur Sakari – the 1880 Cavaillé-Coll Organ of the Cathédrale Sainte-Croix, Orléans
Produced, Engineered, Mixed & Edited by Lukas Kowalski (Emil Berliner Studios)

SACD ISO

https://xubster.com/6my4kz19hqe9/PeturSakariFranck.Ch0ralsetPiecesp0urGrand0rgue2021SACDIS0.part1.rar.html
https://xubster.com/lahm00ycuzed/PeturSakariFranck.Ch0ralsetPiecesp0urGrand0rgue2021SACDIS0.part2.rar.html

DSF

https://xubster.com/wvf1gpf497w9/PeturSakariFranck.Ch0ralsetPicesp0urGrand0rgue2021DSD64Stere0.part1.rar.html
https://xubster.com/tsnrtmit3rma/PeturSakariFranck.Ch0ralsetPicesp0urGrand0rgue2021DSD64Stere0.part2.rar.html

Hi-Res FLAC

https://xubster.com/o6duu9yiy5uh/PeturSakariFranck.Ch0ralsetPicesp0urGrand0rgue2021FLACStere02496.rar.html