Durufle: Complete Organ Music / Henry Fairs

Even though Maurice Durufl's output was small for a composer of his stature and influence, it was due to his extreme perfectionism that he merely produced eight original works for organ. Not counti... more

Even though Maurice Durufl's output was small for a composer of his stature and influence, it was due to his extreme perfectionism that he merely produced eight original works for organ. Not counting his virtuosic transcriptions of improvisations by his teachers, Louis Vierne and Charles Tournemire, all of Durufl's organ music easily fits on one CD, as this 2007 Naxos release demonstrates. Best known of all his compositions is the Prlude et Fugue sur le nom d'Alain, Op. 7, which Durufl wrote in 1942 in memory of his friend and fellow composer, Jehan Alain, who was killed early in World War II and whose celebrated Litanies are quoted in this piece. Less famous but of equal importance and depth, and quite similar in style and feeling, the Prlude, Adagio et Choral vari sur le thme du "Veni Creator," Op. 4, and the Suite, Op. 5, are the other major organ works in Durufl's catalog, supplemented by several short miniatures which are charming but of less significance. Of these, the poignant Mditations, Op. posth., was composed in 1964 but only published in 2002, and has been recorded just twice previously; organist Henry Fairs' recording, along with Friedhelm Flamme's album on CPO, is one of only two truly complete recordings of Durufl's organ oeuvre. Fairs, a British recitalist familiar with organs across Europe, plays the Cavaill-Coll grand organ at the Church of Notre Dame d'Auteuil in Paris, which offers a similar registration to instruments the composer played, and provides ... less