Search - Catharine Crozier; organ :: Catharine Crozier Plays Aeolian-Skinner Opus 1309

Legacy of Catharine Crozier

LM Services | Jenkintown PA | 05/14/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This is the most glorious recording of this womans artistry that exists. It contains all of the hallmarks of Harold Gleason's approach to playing the organ, and is recorded on an instrument that he designed.

The playing is flawless and musical on the highest level. A must have for the serious collector."

Catharine Crozier-Gleason plays AE-S Op 1309 (1959)

Peter J. Macander | Wichita, Kansas | 06/09/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Ms. Crozier was at the peak of her artistic career when she made these recordings at the time of the inauguration of this, perhaps the largest of

the Joseph Silver Whiteford series of AEolian-Skinner organs, for which she and her late husband, Harold Gleason, had been the consultants.



What comes forth most powerfully in the Bach Trio Sonata V in C, is Ms. Crozier's perfect, true 'organ legato' technique. Her playing is flawless. Unfortunately, largely for technical reasons, the Dupre Prelude and Fugue in G minor, played with lightning-like speed, is less effectively reproduced. The clarity and tonal quality with which these 1959 recordings were originally obtained and, remarkably, how well they have been reproduced on this CD forty years later, is quite amazing.



This recording allows one to hear the Auditorium organ in its original Whiteford style voicing and scaling. Joseph S. Whiteford was known for his thinly scaled, tapered flues and small-scaled shrieky, overpenetrating mixtures. Since this recording, the organ has been revoiced by AE-S's former and last head flue voicer, John H. Hendriksen, and its sound is now richer, and better balanced since the 1990s.



Still, this recording, a synthetic treasury of two great American musical icons, Catharine Crozier and AE-S Opus 1309, as they sounded together in 1959, makes it an addition of great artistic and historic value to the library of any serious lover of the pipe organ and its music.



Peter J. Macander, M.D., Ph.D."

Remarkable

Matt | St. Louis, Missouri United States | 07/18/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The physics of sound recorded here are unlike any organ you may have heard either in this hemisphere or Europe. The sympathetic resonance of the auditorium space with Opus 1309 in 1959 was an unparalled masterpiece. On this recording, the organ literally speaks like none other. Toss aside all notions of what an Aeolian Skinner may sound like today. This will shake up what you think is the traditional or classic American pipe organ sound. This organ stood for at least a decade at the apex, the pinnacle, of musical sound. The Muses become alive and relevant as you listen and experience this CD. Note: some of the sample tracks for listening here are mislabeled."