Durufle
Complete Organ Music
Friedhelm Flamme
CPO SACD
$16.99 USD

This is a knock-your-socks-off performance and recording!  If the final
Toccata of the Suite doesn't blow you away, you must be out of your sweet
spot.  I came to know this music through the Hyperion recording with
John Scott playing the St. Paul's Cathedral Organ.  Mr. Flamme playing
the Muhleisen Organ on this CPO recording beats the former in every way.
The bass is "tummy wobbling" as the critics like to say in Gramphone,
and the treble registers are extremely clear and powerful.  The Muhleisen
instrument is so much more colorful than the St. Paul's: at every turn
the ear is treated with amazing orchestra-like sonorities--sometimes
half-lit gossamer tremoli, at other times window-shaking brass.  I can't
believe how much more substantial and compelling Durufle's music sounds
in Flamme's hands.

Just listen to the opening of the Suite, Op. 5: A sustained note hangs
over ominous utterances from down below, then come those fragments of
chorale melodies, soft ones interspersed with great outbursts--very
dramatic.  Compared with the monochromatic Hyperion version, Flamme's
urgent and unsettling performance of this Prelude is unforgettable.
It is in the final Toccata that the SACD surround truly shines.  Every
strand of the densely arpeggiated treble breaths comfortably in its
own space, while the bass melodies bellow away with complete clarity.
I used to own this piece on a Delos CD as well, and while it was less
muddy than the Hyperion, this CPO SACD is the most clarifying of all.

The program is arranged so that the ear doesn't fatigue; intimate pieces
follow the big extrovert ones.  Every piece is fascinating in its own
right and each is performed with an amazing virtuosity matched by some
extremely imaginative orchestrations.  The price is very reasonable to
boot!  A must have.

John Smyth
Sacramento, CA