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“With no fewer than 11 of the beasts in this programme you'd be forgiven for feeling toccata'd out by the end
of this exhilarating double disc set. But Gillian Weir knows her repertoire and Birmingham's stupendous Klais organ inside out.
There's Bach in D minor, and Buxtehude in F, but that's the 'Dorian' in the case of the former,
and for the latter, the less well-known Bux WV156.
Courting the less familiar is de rigeur.
She proposes nothing less than a 400-year survey stretching from 17th-century Italy (Rossi at his most harmonically off-the-wall)
to 20th-century Russia, via a Vienna which flexes its fingers to the very different dance beats of Heiller's
circus-bear-inspired Tanz-Toccata, and his pupil Peter
Planyavsky's Toccata alla rumba.
There's also a pealing delight by that Scottish-French Germanophile Georg Muffat. And not without some
toccata panache is the one exception - William McVicker's ingenious set of variations on 'Tea for two',
an enigmatic tribute to friends pictured within.
Here, as everywhere, Weir is on top form, teasing thrilling sounds from the Klais;
and she is as effortlessly commanding in the quicksilver caprice and pugnacious élan of the Buxtehude as in the Reger Op. 59
which follows - its Toccata firmly hitched to Buxtehude's star,
and the gradually accelerating Fugue utterly inevitable where others often sound uncomfortable or unconvincing. Masterly!”
Priory Records PRCD 867
Recorded on the beautiful Klais Organ at Symphony Hall in Birmingham,
this spectacular two-disc recording is packed with toccatas of every style!
Reviews
Paul Riley, BBC Music Magazine, February 2007
Track Listing
| Disc | Track | Music | Composer |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Toccata and Fugue in D minor (BWV 538) "Dorian" | J.S.Bach (1685-1750) |
| 2 | Toccata in F (BuxWV 156) | Dietrich Buxtehude (1637-1707) | |
| 3 | Toccata and Fugue in D minor/major (Op.59, nos 5 & 6) | Max Reger (1873 - 1916) | |
| 4 | Tanz-Toccata | Anton Heiller (1923-1979) | |
| 5 | Toccata Duodecima | Georg Muffat (1653 - 1704) | |
6  | Toccata | Sergei Slonimsky (b. 1932) | |
| 7 | Toccata | Georgi Mushel (1909-1987) | |
| 2 | 1 | Toccata Settima | Michelangelo Rossi (1602-1656) |
| 2 | Toccata, Fugue et Hymne sur 'Ave Maris Stella' | Flor Peeters (1903-1986) | |
| 3 | Six variationen über una tema di Vincent Youmans | William McVicker | |
| 4 | Toccata alla rumba | Peter Planyavsky (b. 1947) | |
| 5 | Toccata de la Libération | Léonce de Saint-Martin (1886-1954) |