For his newly released CD, the organist Pieter van Dijk used the Gheude organ of the Old Church of Pla de Santa Maria (Tarragona, Catalunya) from 1876, which originally comes from the chapel of the Klein-Seminarie in Basse-Wavre (Walloon Brabant). It is the limited size of this romantic organ that has forced the concert giver to an unusual, but captivating programming of lesser-known organ music
… for smaller organs. The program starts with the repertoire of the French composers Vierne, Langlais, Franck and Tournemire that is obvious for this organ. Surprising, however, is the combination with the two-part fugue, Wq 119/2 by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and the andante by Bach's Portuguese contemporary J. de Sousa Carvalho. German Romanticism is represented by two chorale preludes by Brahms, which Brahms wrote after the death of Clara Schumann, and two fugues by Mendelssohn. The 20th century is represented by the Passacaglia piccola from Badings and the Raga from Rrrr ... from Kagel. In short, a varied CD that shows that a small organ can demonstrate in a coherent way diverse facets of music from the past and present. (HJ) _more
