Last year marked the 50th anniversary of the deaths of Vierne and Widor, pupil and long-lived master. In that half-century after 1937, the work of Olivier Messiaen, a more modern and original voice in organ music, deflected interest from that of his immediate precursors who were also his senior contemporaries. If the popular Vierne and Widor movements were never absent from the organ scene, the playing of the complete organ symphonies was rare. Admittedly, Widor's first eight were suites of unrelated movements rather than integrated wholes; truer organ symphonies were left to his disciple Vierne, who adopted cyclic ideas in his Second, the one reviewed and praised by Debussy. Vierne's First, however, based on the model of the earlier Widor symphonies, comprises six unrelated movements, originally published separately. Amongst organists, its Final has almost vied in popularity with the famous Widor Toccata. Compact Disc now allows its magnificent sequence of movements to be judged as a whole.
All three new versions of the First Symphony have admirable points and are valid interpretations. The Chorzempa and the Houbart offer authentic organ tone and acoustic ambience. So does the previously reviewed version by Ben van Oosten on Dabringhaus und Grimm/Harmonia Mundi, recorded where, one might say, it all began, in Lyons on the organ in the church where Widor succeeded his father as organist, and where, well before his years at Saint-Sulpice in Paris, he was conditioned by the timbres and ensembles which inspired the post-Franck French organ school. Chorzempa plays on the famous Cavaille-Coll in Toulouse, and Houbart at La Madeleine, on an instrument now as well suited to this music as ever it was in the days of Saint-Saens and Faure. Ears already adjusted to organ music and appreciative of cathedral-like acoustics should be happy with either Chorzempa or Houbart, for the playing is as magnificent as the organ sound in either version, both players, like van Oosten, completely respecting Vierne's marked registration. But more converts to organ music may well be made by the sheer clarity of the home product, that by Colin Walsh at St Alban's. His playing at Royal Festival Hall recitals in London having already proved his flair for Franck and for French organ music in general, his Vierne First Symphony is similarly persuasive. I would question only his increased speed in the Prelude at the arrival of the toccata-like figuration in demisemiquavers on page 6, and his intrusive use of a cornet or tierce rank in the Fugue, where plein jeux are clearly and understandably specified; and again in the scherzo movement, the Allegro Vivace, where Vierne calls for limpid flue timbres Apart from this curious rescoring, Walsh's playing is idiomatically secure and wonderfully expressive as well as being as clear as the printed notes.
Chorzempa's version of the symphony is perhaps the most atmospheric, and also offers four of the six Pieces de fantaisie making up Op. 54. The ''Dedicace'' and ''Etoile du soir'', far less often heard than the ''Impromptu'' and ''Carillon de Westminster'', are spell-bindingly beautiful. Houbart's three contrasted fill-ups from Op. 53 further strengthen my belief that Vierne's four suites of Pieces de fantaisie, each containing six pieces, qualify for complete performances as much as the six-movement First Symphony.
The value of the Walsh disc is also enhanced by the coupling, a superb account of Durufle's Suite. So here a master and pupil (it was always Vierne's hope that Durufle would succeed him at Notre-Dame) provide a total 68 minutes of important French organ music excellently played and recorded. Walsh's account of the symphony is the most leisurely by about five minutes, while Houbart's is four minutes shorter than Chorzempa's.
Jennifer Bate's Vierne anthology of ten separate concert numbers draws on the Pieces de fantaisie for three of the best known, and seven of the earlier Pieces en style libre, including the most popular as well as such gems as the ''Pastorale'' ''Divertissement'' and ''Arabesque''. Playing and organ colouring are unexceptionable, but I would have wished for a closer recording of the quieter pieces, the impressionistic effect of a vast building enhancing the louder pieces far better. Indeed, the miniatures of Op. 31 often suggest the small concert-room rather than the large and resonant church, even though the more beautiful organ colours are more likely to be found there, as at Beauvais. Despite the choice here of an unvaried distance rather than selective intimacy in the recording, this is a welcome collection and a happy reminder of Vierne's musical versatility within the bounds of his highly personal chromatic idiom.'