My reviews of recent records of David Hill at Westminster Cathedral have offered slightly muted praise and I have felt rather mean about this. In one case there was direct competition with Nicolas Kynaston playing the same instrument, but not the same music, and in another case I felt the balance could have been better. Well, here we have a record which may truly be called splendid. Hill's playing of the Liszt Ad nos is not quite so incisive as Preston's at Westminster Abbey on DG (415 139-1GH, 7/85), but then his vision of it is different. The brooding melancholy and savagery of Preston's performance have no place here—instead the Cathedral organ is made to convey a bright optimism and its brilliant colours are manipulated with imagination. The dynamic range of the recording is wide, so the listener must be warned to expect thunderous climaxes if the troughs of sound are to be clearly discerned.
Healey William's Introduction, Passacaglia and Fugue has many of the demonstrative qualities of Liszt's Ad nos and is in its own right a very considerable work, written by this London-born Canadian organist in 1916. Though it isn't punctuated by gibbering Hungarian rages, it holds the attention with a wide range of expressive devices, affording tremendous scope for the organ to unleash its assorted furies and charm with its smaller boxes of delights. Liszt's Adagio and Willan's Postlude in D are highly enjoyable bonuses. This is a record of real character.'