Organ Music

***** Five Stars (Pick of the Month) BBC Music Magazine (Dec 2003)

Let us not be too pious! - even in the presence of music so full of religious reference - the notes for the present issue refer to the composer, born near Amsterdam and later known as the 'Orpheus of Amsterdam', as a "clubbable man" and make the observation that organ recitals were used to keep people out of inns and taverns! They could have worse consequences: the English composer Peter Philips came to hear Sweelinck play and, as a Catholic, found himself under arrest. Such is the background of this varied and somewhat neglected music. It ranges from large-scale fantasies to small dance forms, often with a sense of verve in the composer's inventiveness of harmonies and form. His legendary ability to fashion variations by improvising at the keyboard are evident in the examples here, based both on secular and sacred melodies - even on plainchant - which are as full of life and character as the Dutch street-scene paintings of the period.

An important set of discs full of surprises and delights, all, as ever, expertly played by Christopher Herrick.