Canadian Organ Music
Rachel Mahon (organ of Coventry Cathedral)
Awards:
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Gramophone Magazine, March 2020, Editor's Choice
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Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2020
No disc of Canadian organ music would be complete without Healey Willan’s Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue…Mahon gives a sweeping performance that culminates in a tumultuous fugue…Piquant...
Canadian Organ Music
Rachel Mahon (organ of Coventry Cathedral)
Purchase product
Awards:
-
Gramophone Magazine, March 2020, Editor's Choice
-
Presto Recordings of the Year, Finalist 2020
No disc of Canadian organ music would be complete without Healey Willan’s Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue…Mahon gives a sweeping performance that culminates in a tumultuous fugue…Piquant...
About
Underpinning 21st-century virtuosity with a moving story of continent-crossings both musical and personal, Rachel Mahon’s debut recital album surveys a century of organ music from Mahon’s native Canada, presenting it on a British instrument which is itself a testimony to the generosity of Canadian music-lovers in the difficult years of post-war reconstruction.
In 1952 Healey Willan, an organist and composer born in England in 1880 but resident in Canada since 1913, presented the Provost of Coventry Cathedral with a cheque from the Royal Canadian College of Organists, representing a sizeable donation from the College’s members and the Canadian public towards the cost of an organ for the new cathedral, which opened in 1962. Having made the opposite move to Willan, from Canada to the UK, Mahon is now Assistant Director of Music at the cathedral.
Contents and tracklist
- Rachel Mahon (organ)
- Rachel Mahon (organ)
- Rachel Mahon (organ)
- Rachel Mahon (organ)
Spotlight on this release
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Awards and reviews
-
Gramophone MagazineMarch 2020Editor's Choice
-
Presto Recordings of the YearFinalist 2020
April 2020
No disc of Canadian organ music would be complete without Healey Willan’s Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue…Mahon gives a sweeping performance that culminates in a tumultuous fugue…Piquant harmonies in the Symphony No. 1 by Rachel Laurin are handled with light virtuosity before the work ends with a blazing toccata.
March 2020
Mahon plays with presence and muscularity to match her fireproof virtuosity, and her time as organ scholar at St Paul’s Cathedral seems to have given her an intuitive sense of how to use large acoustics to dramatic ends. The repertoire well suits the Coventry organ, and the recorded sound is both exciting and atmospheric. Tremendous stuff.
March 2020
It is difficult to imagine a more impressive location for these four substantial organ works by Canadian composers of the past 100 years...Here is as stirring a performance as you could wish for, greatly enhanced by an outstanding recording from Delphian that encompasses the vast dynamic and pitch range of the Coventry organ superbly...Rachel Mahon has done Canadian organ music proud in this outstanding recording.
