Hans Fagius - Maurice Duruflé: Veni Creator - The Complete Organ Music (2002)

Listeners to his Requiem will recognise Duruflé's conservative and intensely personal musical language as heard in his organ music. The influence of Debussy, Dukas, Ravel, Tournemire and Vierne is evident, and like these composers Duruflé provides detailed performance indications.
Hans Fagius, a former student of Duruflé's, scrupulously observes all the scores' markings, and this is one reason why he's now the top recommendation for this repertoire. His performances have a flexible, seamless flow, and the playing has a slight understated quality which gives more clarity and impact than Eric Lebrun's flamboyant accounts. Fagius's interpretations are close in spirit to the recordings by the composer and his wife Marie-Madeleine Duruflé- Chevalier, and it's a shame that their authoritative performances are marred by poor sound quality. By contrast, BIS's recording of the 89- stop four-manual organ in Århus Cathedral is superbly realistic. The choice of this instrument was inspired; it has all the appropriate colours and it's set in a warm, generous acoustic. Another bonus is the inclusion of the sensuous and recently discovered Meditation. Although the recordings by Lebrun and the Duruflés are very good, they must now stand aside and let this BIS disc take the place of honour, for this is a truly distinguished release of one of the finest corpus of organ music you'll ever hear.