“Musique Héroïque” – BREWER: March Héroïque; DUBOIS: Marche Héroïque de Jeanne d’Arc; DUPRE: Poéme Héroïque; STANFORD: Sonata Eroica; TELEMANN: 2 movements from Musique Héroïque; JONGEN: Sonata Eroïca – Eric Plutz, organ (Dupré) – Pro Organo

by | Mar 5, 2007 | SACD & Other Hi-Res Reviews | 0 comments

“Musique Héroïque” – BREWER: March Héroïque; DUBOIS: Marche Héroïque de Jeanne d’Arc; DUPRE: Poéme Héroïque; STANFORD: Sonata Eroica; TELEMANN: 2 movements from Musique Héroïque; JONGEN: Sonata Eroïca – Eric Plutz, organ/Washington Symphonic Brass (Dupré)/Phil Snedecor, trumpet & Alistair MacRae, cello (Telemann) – Pro Organo multichannel SACD 7203, 74:31 ***** [Distr. by Albany]:

Seeing those horizontally-oriented trumpet pipes jutting out on the back of the note booklet with this new SACD promised a rousing audiophile pipe organ experience from the disc. And it delivered.  This is the Aeolian-Skinner/Mander Organ in the huge Princeton University Chapel, played by the official Princeton organist, and joined on three of the selections by guest trumpet players.

What a fine theme idea for a pipe organ album! Heroic music for pipe organ turns out to be a rather frequently-visited genre, and has inspired composers for a couple centuries now – mostly French or Belgian. Usually the works are not liturgical in nature, and are tied in with wartime or honor heroic individuals, and also for dedications of new organs to show off what they can do with all the stops out, so to speak. Three of these works are connected with World War I.  I was expecting to find my favorite Franck organ work, his Piéce Héroïque, on the disc but didn’t – perhaps Dubois’ march for Joan of Arc was selected instead in an effort to avoid duplication. (Dubois succeeded Franck as organist at the Church of St.-Clotilde.)

I recall Dupre’s Heroic Poem from a direct disc of the 70s which I still have somewhere. It’s stirring and could only be by a French composer.  The hi-res surround combined with the voluminous acoustics of the Princeton Chapel produce quite an experience. It will exercise your subwoofer(s) too. The second movement of Stanford’s Sonata Eroica throws in a snippet of La  Marseillaise – part of a tribute to the French defense against the German assault at the battle of Verdun. Telemann’s two brief movements use more serene musical means to depict heroism, and with their use of trumpet and cello offer a welcome contrast to the more bombastic works.

 – John Sunier

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