Tobias Frank: English Romantics and Transcriptions

Measured against the extent of musical life at the end of the 19th century, the leading English organists of the time were heralded in a manner comparable to, if perhaps not quite the Beatles, then David Garrett for example. When Edward Henry Lemare, organist at St Margaret’s Church, situated directly next to Westminster Abbey, at the turn of the century wanted to make his way to his own concert in his home church, the London police at times had to pave the way for the master: through the crowds which occupied the (large) square around the church in the hope that they would be able to get hold of a ticket for the concert by chance after all.

The young German organist Tobias Frank has recorded a radiant, effect-rich and lovingly performed CD with music of this era at the opulently furnished English orchestral-romantic organ of Ely Cathedral (Harrison & Harrison 1908, boasting 80 registers on four manuals plus pedals). On the one hand, the disc contains original compositions of the high and late romantic periods, such as Herbert Howells’ Third Rhapsody - composed in a night of air raiding during the First World War, the outstanding “Extemporisations” of Percy Whitlock – victim of an early death, or a March by ‘father’ William Lloyd Webber, and, on the other, it presents a selection of exquisite transcriptions. Of Lemare’s works not only his once world-famous Improvisation op. 91 on English national songs is recorded here, but also a particularly moving setting of Humperdinck’s “Hansel and Gretel” overture, as well as a transparent organ arrangement of the overture from Mendelssohn’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” transcribed by Samuel Prowse Warren.

Tobias Frank

The Listener (11.06.2013, Rainer Aschemeier):

"Ein erstes 'wow' entlockt einem der - wie immer bei 'Rondeau Production' - erstklassige Sound der Aufnahme. Doch ist es auch die irrwitzig virtuose Bearbeitung der 'Sommernachtstraum'-Ouvertüre von Mendelssohn, die hier von Beginn an fasziniert. Tobias Frank eröffnet die CD also mit einer veritablen Demonstration seiner stupenden Spieltechnik."