Freak Out

This is in equal parts brilliant and a bit bonkers. Bolcom’s Black Host is not for the faint-hearted. — BBC Music Magazine, December 2021, 3 out of 5 stars

Release Date: 24th Sep 2021
Catalogue No: REGCD540
Label: Regent

In stock

Usually despatched within 1 working day

Bolcom: Free Fantasia on 'O Zion, Haste' and 'How Firm a Foundation' (from Gospel Preludes - Book Four)

Tom Bell (organ)

MacMillan: Le tombeau de Georges Rouault

Tom Bell (organ)

Paulus: A Refined Reflection (from Baronian Suite)

Tom Bell (organ)

Furse: Moot Points

Tom Bell (organ)

Swayne: Riff-Raff for organ, Op. 34

Tom Bell (organ)

Foster, Derek: Variations on a theme by Anthony Green

Tom Bell (organ)

Davies, Peter Maxwell: Veni Creator Spiritus for organ

Tom Bell (organ)

Bolcom: Black Host

Tom Bell (organ)

About
Reviews
Explore

About

This is a very loud CD (mostly), and not for the faint-hearted!

An extraordinary collection of extraordinarily virtuoso British and American works for organ from the late twentieth and twenty-first centuries, played by one of the world’s foremost exponents of contemporary organ music, Tom Bell.

The recording takes its title ‘Freak out’ from one of the performance instructions in William Bolcom’s unique work for organ, percussion (including kit), and electronic tape ‘Black Host’. This instruction, together with others, including ‘Go Ape’, and ‘Detonate’, are words not usually found in the world of organ music!

In addition to this ground-breaking extravaganza and another, more ‘traditional’ organ Fantasia by Bolcom, the programme includes major works by James MacMillan, Giles Swayne, and Peter Maxwell Davies - all well-established in the contemporary repertoire. There are first recordings of (quiet) works by British composers, John Furse and Derek Foster, and the late, American composer, Stephen Paulus.

Recorded in the vast acoustic of the Royal Hospital School Chapel, Holbrook, from the first note to the last this is a musical and aural experience to excite, delight, and challenge.

Reviews

December 2021

This is in equal parts brilliant and a bit bonkers. Bolcom’s Black Host is not for the faint-hearted.

Freak Out

CD

Contents

Download queue