LOIC MALLIE: Jeux (Six organ improvisations on themes of Claude Debussy) – Hortus 932, 71:50 [Distr. by Allegro] ***:
This is one of the strangest classical CDs I’ve auditioned in some time. Organist-improvisor Mallie did an earlier album of organ improvisations on themes of Wagner, titled Retour de Bayreuth. (This recording dates from 2003, so I’ve put it in the reissues section.)
The note booklet seems to be thoroughly confused. It prints a number of short Debussy musical themes but not all are heard on the CD. There are also many more than six tracks involved here. How the printed themes of Stravinsky, Dukas and Franck fit in here is not made clear at all. It is difficult to recognize some of the Debussy themes in the organ improvisations. I did catch some from La Mer and the Children’s Corner Suite. Of course Debussy never wrote anything for the pipe organ, by the way.
Mallie studied with Messiaen, and some of his improvisations strongly show that connection. The Prelude, Fugue et Final works fairly well. The instrument is the Victor Gonzales organ of the church of St.-Vaast de Bailleul (Nord). It sounds a bit small for this music. I’m still scratching my head on this one.
—John Sunier
Rodziński Conducts the NBC Symphony Orchestra, 1938 Vol. 4 – Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Strauss… – Pristine Audio
From Pristine – Volume 4, of their revival of the NBC Symphony concerts led by Artur Rodzinski.
