Vierne, L: Pièces de fantaisie, 1st suite, Op. 51

Organum Norvegica is a series of records that presents selected organs in Norway. The instruments come from different centuries and have in various ways features of different styles from certain organ cultures and eras. On this recording we present the organ of Skien church. The oldest parts of the organ are from 1894, the same year the church was consecrated. The organ company Olsen & Jørgensen built the first instrument of the church. In 1954 the Jørgensen organ factory made a substantial enlargement, providing the organ with 70 voices. The organ is still one of the largest in Norway.

Terje Winge was born in 1950, and has studied with Ludvig Nielsen in Trondheim, Arild Sandvold in Oslo, Prof. Dr. Jiri Reinberger in Prague and Gaston Litaize in Paris. He made his debut in Oslo in 1970 and has since developed an international career with repertoire ranging from baroque to contemporary music. In addition to his performing career Winge is a sought after pedagogue at the Norwegian Academy of Music.

Louis Vierne was Marcel Dupré’s teacher in improvisation, and the two men admired and respected each other for a long time. However, for the last 15 years of Vierne’s life, they were regarded as rivals, all because of a disagreement over which of them could call himself “The Organist of Notre-Dame”. Vierne wrote the Première Suite towards the end of 1926 and premiered the piece himself on a substantial American tour the following year. He had a strong partiality to chromaticism and dissonances, and the suite contains many typical movement forms from the symphonic organ style. Dupré wrote his Three Preludes and Fugues in 1912, and they are characterised by the fact that he himself already at this time was a technically brilliant organ player. The Preludium and fuge in G Minor became one of Dupré’s most popular organ pieces. In the Second Symphony of 1929 the tonal language is completely different. The tonality is still present, though weakened by the alterations and dissonances in the harmonic progresses.

Louis Vierne (1870-1937) is regarded as one of the greatest late romantic composers of organ music. Kay Johannsen makes full use of all the sound and technical possibilities of the new Kern organ in the Frauenkirche Dresden. Recorded in fabulous SACD sound.

9 discs for 5.5

“Ben van Oosten’s performances cannot be too highly praised. He is deeply committed, has a wonderful ear for sonority and detail.. And every performance creates the thrill and spontaneity of live musicmaking, while the recording of all three organs is magnificent.” Penguin Guide