Saint-saëns: Organ Music Vol 3

Andrew-John Smith (organ)Hyperion CDA 67922 ***

In the first two discs of his Saint-Saëns survey, Andrew- John Smith deals with the composer's best-known organ works, the ones most likely to feature in recitals, But he's managed to come up with a real surprise for his third disc. It's the 23-minute Fantaisie pour orgue-Aeolian (1906), a piece which Saint-Saëns declared "unplayable by the fingers and feet". He wrote it for performance by a mechanical contraption, an automaton that operated keys and pedals on instruments made by the Aeolian company, so that human limitations were irrelevant. Here it's been translated, so to speak, for the gorgeous palette of the Cavaillé-Coll instrument of La Madeleine in Paris, with the bell effects delivered separately, by Adrian Bending, on a set of orchestral bells. Like the other pieces included, it's anything but radical – indulgent, yes, but mostly at the sweet end of the scale. url.ie/4qdb