Here is something of interest for three different groups. First the tourist trade: Jennifer Bate gives us an evocative aural tour around some of England's finest houses, with the booklet plugging both English Heritage and The National Trust in whose care are some of these buildings. Then, for those fascinated in historic organs, here are six examples of the English organ builders' art in unusually good order and sounding as bright and clear as on the day they were built (except, perhaps, for a croaking Stopped Diapason on the 1764 Snetzler in Haslemere). For the musically-minded there is a selection of Voluntaries from John Reading (an exact contemporary of Bach and one of Stanley's teachers) to Samuel Wesley, providing an admirable picture of eighteenth-century English organ music: and with five further discs planned in this series that picture is going to be pretty comprehensive.
Although instruments and music are contemporaneous don't be fooled into thinking that this automatically produces 'authentic' performances. Few, if any, of these pieces would have been written for house organs and while, in some cases, the specifications may look similar to those built specifically for larger chapels or churches, if nothing else the intimate acoustics of the rooms in which they are housed (and which are perfectly captured in this splendidly real recording) transforms their sound and character utterly.
Nevertheless with Jennifer Bate's vital, masterly and authoritative playing these pieces come to life with total conviction. A delightful disc enhanced by impressive documentation on instruments and music.'