1} Historic Organs of Switzerland
2} Historic Organs of Spain
3} Historic Organs of Italy
4} Historic Organs of France
5} Historic Organs of England
6} Famous Organs of Holland and North Germany

Pipe organ music enthusiasts and collectors rejoice. I was pleasantly surprised, actually stupefied, when I found out that these one of a kind, historical, landmark recordings produced about fifty-five years ago between 1967 to 1973 were being released as a CD box-set. In this day and age of digitization, apps, smart phones, downloading and disposable streaming services, to witness a valuable (for some people) chronicle from a past era reissued with care and attention to detail is quite reassuring. All CDs have been remastered from the original analog tapes using 24 bit / 192 kHz technology. All the discs, which look like miniature vinyl albums, are housed in their original LP jackets including the original covers and liner notes. The 42-page booklet is a treasure trove of notes and facts about the music and the instruments.

Back in the 1960s, when stereo recordings were still in their infancy, two organists were sparring for top position on the classical record charts. American concert organist Virgil Fox on RCA Records (now BMG), and British-born American concert organist Edward Power Biggs (1906-1977), commonly known as E. Power Biggs, on Columbia Masterworks (now Sony Classical). These two labels eventually merged to become Sony/BMG. Fox made it onto the pop charts by performing Bach Toccatas and Fugues at Fillmore West, a rock concert venue. His style was flashy, including smoke and psychedelic lighting effects. On the other hand, Biggs was more in line with European organists seeking authenticity.

As far as the music is concerned, this set spans a timeline from as far back as 1150 to the present, from composers like the ever prolific Anonymous to Jan Koetsier who died in 2006. I would have liked to list all of the pieces available in this set, but you would have had to read through pages of them. Let's just say that the composers include Perotin, Tallis, Sweelinck, Bach, Couperin, Cabanilles, Frescobaldi, Zipoli, Balbastre, Purcell, Handel, Buxtehude, to name but a few. And listing all of the various pipe organs on display would also have been quite a chore. They range from a 1435, single manual instrument in Sion, Switzerland, to a 1730 Silbermann organ in the Ebersmunster commune in France, give or take a few years. You hear the Trompettes en Chamade on the Spanish organs, the reedy tones of the French organs, and the woody tones from the flute stops of the English instruments.

If you are in fact a pipe organ music enthusiast, I would urge you to consider purchasing this highly important archival set. If only to preserve a bit of musical history in your heart and mind. Not to get political here, but if the left-leaning societal activists get their way, these historic, irreplaceable instruments may very well get dismantled because of the possibility that they were built by slave owners, and played upon by white, long-haired, dead composers.