Search - Cesar Franck, Joris Verdin, Jos van Immerseel :: César Franck: Intégrale de l'oeuvre d'harmonium - Joris Verdin

Reissue of ASIN: B0000A1HU7...

Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 09/13/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

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Reissue of ASIN: B0000A1HU7.



Joris Verdin performs Franck's late works on various harmoniums d'art: 1862 Debain; 1865 Alexandre; 1875 Debain; and 1891 Mustel.



Rare art.

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Delightful and heart warming music for a cold winter's night

Mr. Geoffrey Lehmann | 12/03/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These two CDs total perhaps a bit less than 2 hours of music and are apparently all of Franck's works composed specifically for the harmonium. The harmonium is a miniature version of a pipe organ, and looks a bit like an upright piano except that it has several stops and produces its sound as the result of wind blowing through pipes from a bellows activated by pedals. While the harmonium was sometimes used in small churches, it was also played in 19th century drawing rooms.



Franck is of course one of the great and original 19th century composers. I became interested in these harmonium pieces in particular because Franck was an organist by profession, and I concluded that if he had composed a substantial body of music for an instrument that was a smaller version of the large pipe organs from which he earned his living, these pieces were likely to express his most intimate and personal thoughts, to be right at the heart of his achievement.



All my expectations were fulfilled. All of the pieces here are small scale works, intimate, full of charm and feeling, with the longest piece being a prelude fugue and variation for harmonium and piano (the piano here being an 1850 fortepiano played by Jos van Immerseel) lasting slightly less than 9 minutes. The other pieces are all performed by Joris Verdin on a variety of 19th century harmoniums.



Virtuosity is not possible on the homely harmonium. It is the tortoise of the musical world. You cannot conceal lack of feeling by clever artifice. These wonderful and original little pieces represent the quintessence of Franck."