This album got its start when
London Choral Society
director
Michael Waldron
heard about an obscure French-made organ at the Notre Dame de France church in London and decided to investigate it. The organ, with links to the famed French builder
Aristide Cavaillé-Coll
, is featured on this album, and it is gorgeous, a masterful reduction of the French organ sound to chamber dimensions. However, that is just the beginning of the riches to be heard on this
Orchid Classics
release, which made classical best-seller charts in the summer of 2024. There is the unique sound that
Waldron
has created and continued to develop with his choristers, creamy yet imbued with a strong sense of the text. Then there is the fine program
offers, crossfading between the dense chromaticism of
Jean Langlais
and the limpid tunes of classics from
Gounod
and
Fauré
. The latter are well-known anywhere, but much of the music here is more common in France and England than elsewhere, and many listeners are going to find it a real treat. The academic bias toward modernism has privileged the music of
Messiaen
over that of
Langlais
(whom
admired), and this release reestablishes the balance to a degree. Lastly, for now, although there is much more, is the engineering work at Notre Dame de France, led by producer
Adrian Peacock
; it creates a warm, intimate, meditative space in which everything in the music is clear. An exceptional release. ~ James Manheim