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Review by Jonalogic March 12, 2011 (3 of 4 found this review helpful)
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I wouldn't normally be bothered to write a review that just echoes what other folk have said. But I'll make an exception for this one. Quite simply, it's probably the best sounding organ SACD - or CD or vinyl - that I have heard. And in a collection approaching 7,000 recordings (and maybe 100 or so organ?), that means something.
Mattias Wager is a sympathetic and unmannered player, using a fabulous-sounding modern Gronland instrument in the fine acoustic of Hedvig Eleonora Church, Stockholm; he covers not just the standard organ warhorses, but also some more off-the-beaten-track Pierne and Karg-Elert repertoire.
Opus 3 recordings have a fine track record in the analogue era; taking their minimalist approach to miking and post-processing into the DSD era, they here achieve results that are just spectacular in their transparency and invisibility. The engineering vanishes effortlessly and Zen-like, just leaving you to listen to - and into - the music.
I don't like to draw attention to any one aspect of the sound, but I know that certain listeners often latch on to the bass of organ recordings. And why not? Well, they won't be disappointed either- it's spectacular, natural, and floorboard-shaking.
The last disc I reviewed was the LSO Live recording of Belshazzar's Feast. I would like to invite Classic Sound's engineers to listen to minimalist recordings like this, until they realise how their own over-miked and over-processed approach to recording can kill the music.
This is how to do it. Even if you care not one whit to how many mikes are used*, this one amply deserves a listen.
* OK, it's actually two- one custom stereo front, and one AKG stereo surround....
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