The polyphonic dialogue of Shostakovich's Preludes and Fugues seems tailor-made for translation to the organ, with its Babel of tongues. No easy feat, as Dutch pianist, conductor and Rachmaninov scholar Elger Niels explains: "By far the most challenging aspect is finding the right timbres, or in a sense, the 'orchestration' for the organ." The instrument used here has 36 ranks of pipes, each set having its own unique tonal quality. Church organist Michiel Ras elaborates, "We searched together for the right sound, atmosphere and balance. Elger came up with some really good ideas but he is not an organist, so then I 'translated' his notions into registrations for the organ."

Niels and Ras have given birth to music that often differs strikingly in character from the original opus. The scampering scale runs of Prelude No. 2 now seem otherworldly - and less heavenly than science-fictitious. But the organ's religious associations are impossible to shake, and the pipes transmute the A major Prelude and Fugue, No. 7, into hymns of devotional optimism.

The organ heightens rather than changes the moods that other pieces have in their original garb. Its sustained tones inflate the nursery-time innocence of the opening C major Prelude into a sweetly cloying lullaby, while sprightly Preludes Nos. 8 and 11 become wry circus clown dances. Prelude No. 4 is now a quantum level more mournful, with soul-shaking bass fundamentals from the 16' sub bourdon pipes. As for the obsessively repetitious F# minor Fugue, No. 8, this seems much more oppressive in its gloomy mixture of flute, string and hybrid stops, to the point of being rather difficult to sit through.

Naturally, the blown organ is less nimble than the percussive piano, so fast music like the D major Prelude and Fugue, No. 5, loses some of its original lightness. This is more than compensated for in other departments, though; no other single instrument could match the multi-voiced organ's facility for rendering distinctly the polyphony of Shostakovich's Fugues. Nor, in Prelude No. 3, could any grand piano obey the pesante marking in Shostakovich's score with as tremendously fearsome a mass of sound as overwhelms here.

This pink-gold disc has technical tricks hidden up its sleeve to maximally deliver the organ's stratospheric highs and window-rattling lows. It is no ordinary CD, but rather a product of late 20th century genetic engineering: a standard CD layer cloned onto an underlying Super Audio compact disc (SACD) layer that contains both stereo and 5-channel surround-sound versions of the same recording. The SACD layer is invisible to one's faithful CD player, which will play the stereo CD information without complaint. However, the still-small clique of classical music lovers who have invested in the new format will reap SACD's significantly increased dynamic range, frequency response, and density of musical information (64 times the sampling rate of a standard CD, to be precise).

Most impressive this sounds, too, as I discovered when I sampled the disc in 5-channel SACD, courtesy of Donald Blouin, Manager of the downtown Montreal Sony Store. At times the engulfing, bottomless organ sound was almost too intense an experience, but I was left in no doubt that, were price of the hardware not an issue, a multi-channel SACD installation would be most welcome in my living room.

But CD is not dead yet, and this disc remains a sonic spectacle in conventional mode. Not, however, that it is a synthetic, sterile showpiece. The acoustics are intimately natural, reporting all the physiological processes of this recital: the creaking of the pedal keyboard, whooshing of air in the pipes, the pneumatic breathing of the organ pump.

The notes give full details of the musical conception, the recording process, and even the vital statistics of the organ and its settings at the start of each of the twenty-four pieces. I was pleased to see Michiel Ras' assistant, Maarten Boonstra, acknowledged for his expert drawing of the stop tabs, which select the different ranks of pipes.

Overall, this is a highly worthwhile endeavour, and I encourage the team who produced it to turn quickly to the remaining twelve Preludes and Fugues. In the meantime, this remarkable release earns an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

W. Mark Roberts
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