The mantle of Sir George Thalben-Ball sits easily enough on the shoulders of his successor at Birmingham, Thomas Trotter. The recent resurgence of interest in organ arrangements has thrown up some fine recordings and some good tries. This one, however, is way above any of that—it is a blazing triumph. Glenn Gould could play Die Meistersinger Overture on the piano and make you think that's what it was written for. In the same way, Trotter offers it as a piece of splendid organ music. It's so with everything in this programme—not so much a question of finding organ equivalents to orchestral sounds, but of rethinking radically to turn the score into organ music. ''The war march of the priests'' is much more exciting here than it really is (I used to think, as a boy, that these priests were vicars, and that explained the gentility of their bellicose tramp). Weber's Jubel has passed me by, but I see now that I was deprived.
One is amazed and delighted by the amount of detail that Thomas Trotter gets in, but it's more than just fun: it's also a moving programme. The only one which feels a bit coarse-grained to me is the Scherzo from A Midsummer Night's Dream, in which a reed emerges as a soloist, for all the world like a tripper with a 'Kiss Me' hat on in the midst of the Royal Ballet. I shall miss that bit out. But did you know how coolly romantic a diapason stop can be? Listen to it breasting the smooth river as ''The swan''. And the Birmingham Town Hall organ is, of course, a thrill anyway. Marvellous stuff.
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