Koss Totem Mani-2 User Manual download pdf (Page 73)

Feedback

Software

paying for it, a detail that subsequently

took on a certain importance). The

reason I hadn’t heard them: Dorian had

reinvented public relations, apparently

using North Korea as a model, and when

was the last time you received a CD from

Pyongyang?

But with the back catalog in distri-

bution once again we opened up some

samples, and we were glad we did. These

recordings are done with the usual

Professor Johnson ﬂair, and they are

encoded in HDCD, the high deﬁnition

process he helped develop.

Felix Hell is billed as an “organ sensa-

tion,” and he is all of that. This young

German-born prodigy moved to the US

at the age of 14…to study at Juilliard! He

was 17 when he recorded this collection

in Lincoln, Nebraska. By then he had

given some 250 concerts worldwide,

which makes one wonder when he gets

time for studies.

On the other hand, perhaps he knows

all he needs to know for the moment, at

least if I go by the music on this album,

all from the 19

Century. It opens with

Felix Alexandre Guilmant’s Sonata No. 1

in D Minor, which bears the subtitle

Symphonie. This is not truly an organ

symphony, however, and much of it is

more introspective than the powerhouse

organ works that have long been used as

hi-ﬁ showpieces. Only in the third and

ﬁnal movement does Hell open up with

the organ’s considerable muscle. He is,

however, very much at ease with the

complex softer passages, a reﬂection of

a maturity beyond his years.

Joseph Rheinberger, represented here

by his Abendfriede (“evening peace”) was

also a child prodigy, who entered the

Munich Royal Conservatory when he

was 11. No ﬁreworks here, as the name

suggests. The ﬁnale of the Symphony

No. 1 of Louis Vierne, long the organist

of Notre-Dame de Paris, has lots more

ﬁre, and I have heard it many times,

though it has always left me cool.

It was when Felix Hell gets into Liszt

that I really perked up. The Prelude and

Fugue on B-A-C-H is perhaps Liszt’s

most forward-looking music, all but

leaving behind the tone-based composi-

tions that had always dominated Western

music. The title is a pun on the name of

Johann Sebastian Bach (note that this is a

prelude and fugue), but is also a reference

to the German names of the notes B-ﬂat,

A, C and B. There is no key signature

stated, because Liszt used as much as he

could of the black and white notes of the

keyboard. The overall tone and structure

are closer to the 20

Century than to the

. A number of organists play it with

great ﬂamboyance because…well, this

is Liszt, after all. It beneﬁts from more

respect for its structure, which is why I

prefer it played by Fernando Germani

than by E. Power Biggs, say (I’ve been

lucky enough to hear both live). Hell is

closer to Germani, and he never either

reaches for an easy effect or gets lost in

the complexity of the music.

The CD ends with a longer Liszt

piece, the Fantasy and Fugue on “Ad Nos

ad Salutarem Undam, inspired by Mey-

erbeer’s opera Le prophète. This is rather

austere music, as you might suppose from

the fact that the opera was about John of

Leyden, a 16

Century religious fanatic.

However there are some dense variations

on one of Meyerbeer’s themes, which

is what drew Liszt to this (now) almost

forgotten opera in the ﬁrst place.

Keith O. Johnson has placed his

microphones some distance from the

organ in order to capture not only the

sound of the pipes but also of the rever-

berant interior or the First-Plymouth

Congregational Church. Despite the

distance the focus is excellent, and as the

music progresses you get a good mental

picture of the place. Recording levels are

fairly low, with plenty of room for the

pleins jeux passages.

The organ is a large one, and Felix

Hell and the composers he plays take full

advantage of the larger pipes. I found

myself wondering what would be left of

this music on a system without extreme

bass response. On the Omega system it

is awesome to listen to.

Argento: Casa Guidi

Von Stade & Minnesota Orch.

Reference Recordings RR-100CD

Lessard: The title of the album, which

is also that of the ﬁrst work on it, refers

to the residence of celebrated poets

Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning,

who exiled themselves to Florence fol-

ULTRA HIGH FIDELITY Magazine 71

1 2 ... 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 ... 83 84

Comments to this Manuals

No comments

Koss Totem Mani-2 User Manual Page 73

Comments to this Manuals