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Fanfare

American organist Erik Simmons has, by virtue of having recorded several hours of it, become a leading exponent and interpreter of the organ music of his friend and colleague Carson Cooman, whom readers will also recognize as a regular contributor to these pages. Since in the three or four previous discs I’ve reviewed of Cooman’s oeuvre for his own instrument, I’ve yet to find a work that was anything less than first-rate, nor deficient in any way in Simmons’s performance, it will come as no surprise to the reader that this disc also is eliciting laudatory comments from me.

The works on the present disc were recorded using the Hauptwerk digitized organ sounds system, and the sounds are drawn from two particularly fine specimens of the organ-builder’s art, the large Marcussen Hoofdorgel and the more intimate Transeptorgel, both located in the Laurenskerk in Rotterdam, Holland. For my money, a high percentage of the world’s best organs are located within the limited confines of the Netherlands. The Hauptwerk system provides an opportunity for any organist to “perform” upon any of dozens of great organs from the comfort of his own organ at home. The system makes it possible not only to duplicate very accurately the sound of each stop of a given instrument, but to recreate the acoustic environment of the cathedral in which the organ is located to produce a sound that is indistinguishable—on a recording at least—from that produced in the cathedral itself. It’s really a wonderful invention, and saves organists the time and expense of traveling all over the world to make recordings on various instruments. After all, your average organ isn’t as portable as a piccolo. So Carson Cooman has not only a very worthy exponent of his organ music but access—in effect—to any instrument on which he feels a particular work would be most effective, and doubtless the works heard here were selected with these two instruments in mind.

The opening Fantasy-Variations on Two Themes is a heroically splendid way to open the concert. A majestic opening soon yields to gentle harmonies which continue to be interspersed among the powerful portions of the piece. The work strikes me as one of the most Romantic of the many organ works by Cooman I’ve heard, and the French influence that resides in many of them is also heard here. Both the writing and playing of the work are magnificently done, with the result that this work has quickly catapulted itself to near the top of the heap in my estimation of the composer’s organ output. The two themes employed, incidentally, are drawn from a sketch of an organ work by Danish composer Carl Nielsen and the American folk-gospel hymn Angel Band. Both themes are un¬familiar to me, but a recognition of them is far from essential to an appreciation of the piece which dates from 2017. Given that its opus number is 1197, Cooman must by now have well over 1,200 compositions in his quiver. He still has a way to go before he surpasses the most prolific composer I’m aware of, the jazz and classical composer David Baker, who wrote more than 2,000 works in his 80+ years. Cooman, currently aged 36, will easily surpass this number if he lives even only another 10 years and keeps writing music at his current pace.

The Elevation (for A. W.) was written for Andreas Willscher (see below) and is replete with string stops and Messiaen-like harmonies. It exudes a tranquil, meditative atmosphere, but contains a second section using more diapasons and building up to a large climax toward the end. The second of the pair occurs later on the disc, and is dedicated to Cooman’s friend, the Italian composer Carlotta Ferrari. Neither James Altena nor I could find anything worthwhile in her music in our reviews of it, but if nothing else, she inspired this lovely delicate work by her talented friend. The Triptych in honorem Gustav Willscher celebrates the life and work of the Austrian poet, writer, composer, and per¬former on several instruments. This moving tri-partite tribute is dedicated to his grandson Andreas Willscher, himself a composer and organist. In the outer movements, Cooman quotes themes by the elder Willscher, and the simplicity of the work gives it a disarming appeal.

The Petit Carillon is a rare bird indeed in that it belies my statement about Cooman’s organ music above. It’s a dud as far as I’m concerned, and seems completely pointless to me. I guess a composer who writes 1,200+ works is surely to be allowed one misfire. On the other hand, the following Conductus is a gem featuring the krummhom and flute stops.

The major work on the concert is the Organ Symphony No. 2 of 2017. Unusual in its form, it comprises 12 movements ranging from less than two minutes to almost six. A powerful Fanfare opens the work and then the pedals take over the work’s thematic material for a time. The composer states in his notes that in this work he has sought to build a larger structure out of various emotional states, and I believe he has accomplished his purpose admirably. Despite the pronounced differences in character from one movement to the next, Cooman achieves unity through harmonic and motivic means. One of its most interesting movements is the fourth, entitled “Ostinato,” in which an unceasingly repeated arpeggiated augmented triad in the right hand is undergirded by shifting harmonies and melodic lines in the left hand and pedals. I’ve never heard anything quite like this in an organ work. Another movement, “Estampie,” takes its cue from Mussorgsky’s “II vecchio Castello” from Pictures, in that it has a sustained pedal point (in this case, on the note A) throughout the entire piece. The pedal point idea is repeated in the “Dance” movement, a lively movement over the pedal in broken octave Es, one of my favorite movements in the symphony.

All-in-all, this recital is eminently of interest to fans of Cooman, Simmons, or organ music in general, and is warmly recommended by this admirer of all three.