Zuzana Ferjenčíková, Van den Heuvel organ (1989), Saint-Eustache, Paris

AEOLUS AE11391 [69’22], [68’12]

★★★★

Jean Guillou’s legacy inevitably prompts polarised reactions; listeners to these new discs by Zuzana Ferjeničíková will either be awestruck or reviled depending on whether one considers Guillou a Miró-esque visionary or simply a fabulously gifted eccentric. In truth, it’s almost certainly too early to grasp with any certainty whether the ideas espoused in L’Orgue – Souvenir et Avenir or in his

compositions and interpretations will gain any traction beyond the students drawn by Guilliou’s magnetic personality, both as a person and as a musician. This makes the reviewer’s task somewhat difficult; one is bound to be dismissed if one chooses a side. Objectively, Zuzana Ferjençiková, one of the most brilliant of Guillou’s pupils, plays with her usual breath-taking virtuosity (and, in the ‘syncretic’ Liszt BACH for example, without Guillou’s more eccentric rhythmic contortions). Projected as the first in a complete Guillou cycle, this volume juxtaposes Guillou’s own symphonic poems with his expressionist transcriptions of those by Liszt. Ferjenčiková’s embracing of Guillou’s vision of Liszt in parallel with her lovely and altogether more ‘authentic’ recordings for MDG is remarkable; a pluralism perhaps uniquely of our time.