C. Saint-saens - Saintsaenspreludes Et Fuguesfantasies [CD]

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Despite his modern fame, much of Saint-Saens\u2019s music was under-appreciated in his lifetime, and many of his organ works remain little known. His adherence to Classical principles\u2014enshrined in the works of his idols Bach, Mozart, Schubert and Mendelssohn\u2014and his antipathy towards what he perceived as the louche modernism of the Romantic movement hardly endeared him to congregations or clergy, long gorged on the fripperies offered by contemporary organists and somewhat resistant to being \u2018told what was good for them\u2019.\r
But as a performer his prodigious talent could not be ignored and by 1858, aged just twenty-three, he found himself at the console of Aristide Cavaille-Coll\u2019s brand-new organ at La Madeleine in Paris\u2014four manuals, 48 stops and an unprecendented symphonic wall of sound lay at his disposal. (He also found the instrument, occupying the entire West wall of this enormous edifice, spacious enough to accommodate a constant stream of stars from the international musical firmament, including Liszt, Sarasate, Clara Schumann and Anton Rubinstein.) He was to hold the post for some twenty years.\r
The earliest works in Andrew-John Smith\u2019s programme were composed during Saint-Saens\u2019s tenure at La Madeleine and it is a rare delight to be able to hear them performed on the organ the composer knew and so loved (and using only the registrations available to him at the time). For later compositions Smith employs some of the subsequent additions to Cavaille-Coll\u2019s original conception; the effects are thrilling and reflect contemporary reports of Saint-Saens\u2019s own performance practice\u2014much of it unusual then and now\u2014as his travels took him around France playing Cavaille-Coll\u2019s ever-more gargantuan organistic creations.\r
The English organist and conductor Andrew-John Smith was educated as an organ scholar at New College, Oxford and the Sweelinck Conservatorium, Amsterdam. Described by Choir & Organ magazine as \u2018a rare pleasure in Britain\u2019 he performs regularly in Europe and has recorded and broadcast as soloist and accompanist both for the BBC and abroad. A Fellow of the Royal College of Organists, he has been a finalist for the Grand Prix de Chartres, and a prize-winner at the Royal College of Organists\u2019 \u2018Performer of the Year\u2019 and the St Albans\u2019 International Organ Festival. This is his first recording for Hyperion.

Preludes and Fugues (3) for Organ, Op. 99: Prelude no 3 in E flat major

Preludes and Fugues (3) for Organ, Op. 99: Fugue no 3 in E flat major

Fantasy for Organ in D flat major, Op. 101

Preludes and Fugues (3) for Organ, Op. 99: Prelude no 1 in B major

Preludes and Fugues (3) for Organ, Op. 99: Fugue no 1 in B major

Cypr\xc3\xa8s et Lauriers, Op. 156: Cypr\xc3\xa8s

Fantasy for Organ no 3, Op. 157

Marche religieuse for Organ, Op. 107

Preludes and Fugues (3) for Organ, Op. 99: Prelude no 2 in E major

Preludes and Fugues (3) for Organ, Op. 99: no 2 in E major - Fugue

B\xc3\xa9n\xc3\xa9diction nuptiale for Organ in F major, Op. 9

Fantasy for Organ in E flat major