The brief booklet notes are only in French, but they're not really necessary to the appreciation of this offbeat but superb recording of organ music. The Tonus Peregrinus or wandering tone that gives the disc its title and organist
Michel Chapuis his task is a scrap of chant, a sort of shifting reciting tone associated with various texts down through the ages, including the Magnificat. The listener may recognize it; if not, it is played in a straightforward setting on the first track on the disc. The program is billed as a set of improvisations, but they are of two different kinds. The first 14 tracks are in the nature of compulsory exercises in Olympic figure skating: they may contain elements of improvisation (
Chapuis seems especially interested in little fillips that exploit the unusual sonorities of the Japanese organ used), but they are largely planned out, and each one executes a particular technical detail -- a texture such as fugue or the exploration of the sound produced by the use of a certain stop. The real fun begins with track 15, entitled Dans le style moderne et libre (In a Modern and Free Style). "Modern" here indicates a chromatic vocabulary of the early twentieth century, and notes describing something of the traditions on which
Chapuis drew would have been helpful. Nevertheless, the nontechnical listener can simply luxuriate in the power of
Chapuis' improvisation, which uses the organ's entire dynamic and timbral range in a grand fantasy on the chant's basic intervallic content, building from a densely serene opening to a climax of shattering power -- and finally receding back into the shadows. The sound is magnificent; although not specifically designated as an audiophile recording, the album makes one wonder how organ music could possibly be recorded any better. The eighth minute of the Improvisation libre will bring the house down, literally, if not treated with care, and it seems likely that
Chapuis can do the same thing in live performance -- this release certainly makes one want to find out where he's playing next.