Charles Villiers Stanford: Fantasia and Toccata Op. 57 Sigfrid Karg-Elert: Trois Impressions Op. 72 Edward Cuthbert Bairstow: Sonata in E- Louis Vierne: Pièces de fantaisie Op 53, suite ii
JAV 119 Great Organ Builders, Volume 10 — Ann Elise Smoot 1998 AGO competition winner Ann Elise Smoot plays Skinner Opus 712 with poise and elegance. She approaches Vierne’s Fantasy Pieces with a delicate touch, but plays with exquisite intensity when the music calls for it. As Paul Hale of the Organist’s Review observed, Smoot offers up "a dramatic performance of Stanford's great Fantasia & Toccata … followed by three wonderfully atmospheric Karg-Elert pieces." The smooth tones of Skinner Opus 712 (built 1929), painstakingly restored by Nicholas Thompson-Allen and Joseph Dzeda, are characteristic of the era of collegial collaboration between Ernest Skinner and G. Donald Harrison. |