Felix Hell - Felix Hell Plays the Rieger-Kloss Organ (2005)

One can only get away with this one time, so here we go: Felix Hell is one hell of a name for a church organist. This isn't just any old ordinary church organist; as of the 2006 release date of the MSR Classics disc Felix Hell Plays the Rieger-Kloss Organ, Felix Hell is entering his twentieth summer, and yet this is already his seventh CD -- the others were released mostly in his native Germany. For some reason the classical labels have not cleaned this mere boy up and put him before the public as a teen idol; perhaps it is that his choice of instrument might remind kids of what it is like to be in church. Felix Hell Plays the Rieger-Kloss Organ is the first recording made on a brand new pipe organ installed in the Independent Presbyterian Church located in Savannah, Georgia, home to a congregation that has been meeting since 1755. It nearly sounds as though this would be an outstanding organ to catch in person, but the indistinct and muddy recording, lacking in high end and power, fails to capture it. All of the music here will be well known to the average consumer of organ literature, and Hell plays it quite well in a technical sense, especially the fast stuff. However, Hell's readings are also rather four-square rhythmically, and some of his trills, though carefully timed, are fluttery rather than fluid. Nonetheless, Virgil Fox wasn't built in a day, and there is nothing that Hell hasn't yet mastered that cannot be overcome with experience, and as he is booked solid for the next two years, it appears he'll be getting plenty of that. If one is an organ fancier, MSR Classics' Felix Hell Plays the Rieger-Kloss Organ is not going to blow your mind or your stereo, as say Jane Parker-Smith's Romantic and Virtuoso Works for Organ on Avie decidedly can. Nevertheless, give the kid a chance; he might be coming to your town.