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Fanfare

This is Volume Six in Divine Art’s series of Carson Cooman organ music releases, of which I previously reviewed Volumes One and Five in 38:1 and 41:2; the label has also issued three discs of his orchestral and chamber music, of which I dissected the first in 37:3. This new issue, named for the piece The Cloak and the Stars, consists mostly of works dedicated to the German organist-com¬poser Andreas Willscher, a disc of whose music I discuss elsewhere in this issue. The dedicatees of the other pieces are the German-Sorbian composer-organist Felix Brauer (Entrata, Festiva, Ciaconna angelica), Beate Leibe (Gebet), the Italian organist Luca Massaglia and his fiancée (not “fiancé” as in the booklet notes) on their engagement (Sketch No. 3), and the German organist-com¬poser Walter Zielke (Variations on a Theme of Andreas Willscher).

As is Cooman’s wont, all the works here are of fairly brief duration, with individual tracks (16 total) ranging from 2:46 to 7:19 in length, though in this case there are three multi-movement works, with the longest (the Variations) lasting 19:14 total. Being primarily devoted to various devotional subjects—St. Francis of Assisi, St. Andrew the apostle (the namesake of Andreas Willscher), and sim¬ply prayer (Gebet)—most of the music on this disc is quiet, tonal, and consonant, striking much the same mood without much variety. The exceptions are the start of the opening track (which I continue to find rather jarring when it first comes on—I think putting that piece somewhere later in the disc would have been a better move), the Entrata festiva, the Toccata second movement of the Diptych, the Sketch No. 3, and the first and fourth movements of the closing San Andreas Suite. The finale of the last-named, with its churning, Widor-like figurations, is my favorite cut on the album and makes for a fine closing. Consequently, while all of the music is solidly crafted, this is not a disc that always repays listening to in a single sitting unless one is in a particular mood, and is best sampled in smaller doses. As always, Erik Simmons is a first-rate champion on Cooman’s behalf, and here he has a lovely instrument in the Cavaillé-Coll organ of the Abbey of Saint-Etienne in Caen, France, accessed remotely through Hauptwerk software. The booklet states that these are live performances; if an audience was present, it is totally inaudible. In sum, fans of Cooman’s music will definitely wish to add this to their burgeoning collections; recommended accordingly.