John Smyth:

>My orchestra opened its season with Samuel Barber's "Toccata Festiva,"
>for organ and orchestra.  Wow.  And I thought I had heard everything.
>It's @17 minutes, very virtuoso and it has some deliciously wicked chord
>progressions.  (Moments of poetry too, of course--it's Barber.)
>
>Highly recommended.

Second that!  The classic recording is E. Power Biggs and (I dimly recall)
Ormandy leading the Philadelphia.  For some reason, it's a killer piece
that hasn't caught on.  People *will* insist on the dreary Saint-Saens
Symphony No. 3 (dons asbestos windbreaker).  In fact, I'm not sure that
recording's been released on CD. I can find only a Cedille release *not*
by those forces.

Steve Schwartz