With the deletion of Peter Hurford's Decca disc (12/86) we have been left without a single current version of the Hindemith organ sonatas—a deplorable gap, since these are for the most part genial and approachable pieces (I remember deriving much pleasure from the Second Sonata in long-ago organ-playing days). So the appearance of Piet Kee's new disc is greatly to be welcomed, the more so since his playing is so musicianly and his registrations on the St Bavo instrument so consistently appealing. If I have any reservation at all it would be that the long echo takes some of the tang out of Hindemith's harmonies; but in this case beggars cannot be choosers, and the choice is in all other respects an attractive one.
Whether the fill-ups will be found equally attractive is another matter. I do try to approach each new encounter with Reger in an open frame of mind. But time and again all I hear is contrived surface harmonic elaboration, with little or nothing of the structural perspectives of his Baroque models or the emotive drive of his late-romantic contemporaries. Piet Kee's four chosen works seem to me further cases in point; and for all its attractive tonal resources I do wonder whether the Haarlem instrument is well adapted to the many dynamic inflexions Reger notated and presumably expected of performers.'