Grands Offertoires, Fantaisies, Cantiques & Pieces libres (Édition 5.1)

Album review

The two organs heard on this recording, instruments by the great French builder Aristide Cavaillé-Coll of the kind that inspired the efforts of the composers of the French organ school in the late nineteenth century, may be the stars of the show. But they are ably served by French organist Daniel Roth, by the engineers of the Aeolus label, and by the comparatively little heard composer of the music, Alexandre Pierre François Boëly (1785-1858). Indeed, the chance to sample his works may be the main draw for general listeners wondering how the monuments of late Romantic French organ music developed. Music for organ, even more than that for choir, tends to draw on its own past rather than on its wider musical surroundings stylistically, and the mostly short pieces of service music presented here contain a mixture of ideas covering 100 years of music. The figure of Bach looms large in all of it, but so do the harmonically clear sounds of the Classical period, even in Boëly's rather squarish fugues. The Petit offertoire, Op. 41, No. 7, appears to be based on a theme from Mozart's Symphony No. 39. Some of his music, like some of Bach's, appears to be abstract, written for an unspecified keyboard instrument. Saint-Saëns was a composer who pointed to Boëly's influence, and one can hear the link in the delicacy of the Cantiques -- hymns -- and in the overall conservative craftsmanship of Boëly's music. This recording may be aimed at organ players and enthusiasts (note that the booklet quotes a vicar -- a vicar! -- who dismissed Boëly from a job as saying that his music was "too grave, too religious, and not entertaining enough"), but it is not without interest for general listeners.

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