FRANCK & WIDOR IN TOULOUSE: 3 CHORALS FOR ORGAN; ORGAN SYMPHONY VI.

Jens Korndörfer, organist. Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Basilica of Saint-Sernin, Toulouse. Organum Classics OGM 241014 (2024).

This recording project takes familiar Romantic repertoire—Widor’s Sixth Symphony and the Three Chorals of César Franck—to a magnificent medieval church in southern France with a ravishing acoustic and an iconic 19th-century pipe organ. The music is handled with the utmost authen- ticity and authority by a leading professor of organ working at Baylor University. The extraordinarily long history of the church—its structure is thought to contain fourth-century elements—only adds to the depth of our appreciation, our sense of a deep and ongoing heritage of both musical and spiritual expression.

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From a Roman martyr to a contemporary professor with the latest digital equipment, the span is breathtaking. That the repertoire is familiar and sensitively executed allows us to hear it transparently and enjoy all the deep layers, finding in them, perhaps, something of our deeper selves.

Listen on Apple Music at https://classical.music.apple.com/us/album/1738114443