This recording celebrates an engagingly American occasion in 1984, when after the installation of a huge and splendid new Ruffatti organ in San Francisco's Louise M. Davies Symphony Hall ( ''said to be the largest concert hall organ in the world'' according to the hyperbole of the sleeve-note) the public was enticed to pack the auditorium with capacity audiences for six nights (with TV coverage in the West and a coast-to-coast broadcast relay) to hear the above artists perform the Jongen, the Poulenc concerto and the Saint-Saens Third Symphony. It must be said that the spectacle of the Telarc recording is fully worthy of the enterprise (indeed the LP is very much in the demonstration class and is so good, that the CD can only add a very marginal gain in freedom, notably to the pedals).
The Jongen is an attractively amiable work, melodically fluent with its concertante layout producing an imaginative lyrical interplay between organ and orchestra in the first movement, a passionately expansive romantic climax in the Lento misterioso and a huge closing panoply of sound for the florid Toccata finale when the organ laminates itself to the orchestral texture and enjoys a thrilling dialogue with the horns. Jongen's harmonic idiom is not adventurous (the work dates from 1926) but his writing, though eccletric in derivation, displays an individual personality and employs the chosen medium very skilfully indeed. The excellen performance has carried much of the spontaneity of the live occasion through to the recording studio, and the playing happily combines warmth with spirited verve. One can imagine how impressed the artists must have been with the engineering.
The Franck pieces make an admirable filler and are also played stylishly and sympathetically, and extremely well recorded. But it is the Jongen that is the draw here and those who enjoy the famous Saint-Saens Third Symphony should find this a suitable encore, even if it is not as melodically distinctive.'