Legends
Caroline Léonardelli; Matthew Larkin
Centaur Records CEN1110
Now here’s something you don’t come across every day: an album of music for harp and organ. Harpist Caroline Léonardelli joins organist Matthew Larkin in a singular recital of celestial sounds from the post-Romantic era. The music of Marcel Grandjany, doyen of the French harp school in North America, opens the disc in an understated fashion with his solemn and dignified Aria in Classic Style. Russia is represented by the second movement from Glière’s Harp Concerto, a livelier work with some lovely registrations provided in the arrangement by Matthew Larkin. A heavyweight from Vienna incongruously appears in the form of the Adagietto from Mahler’s Fifth Symphony. I’m sorry to say the balance of the instruments here is frankly a travesty. The overstated harp part, copied verbatim from the orchestral version in an unimaginative transcription by Joachim Dorfmüller, is not, and was never meant to be, a concerto! (Mahlerians might care to seek out David Biggs’ mind-blowing performance of the complete symphony on the Gloucester Cathedral organ.) Two extended works follow by the equally obscure composers Rudolf Zingel and Alfred Holy, both entitled Légende. Athematic and teeming with arpeggios, they are well-nigh stylistically indistinguishable from each other. The Concerto for Harp by the American Leo Sowerby struck me as the most effective and imaginative work of the lot, providing numerous opportunities to demonstrate the registral varieties of the organ of Christ Church Cathedral in Ottawa.
Mahler aside, the recording values are generally excellent and the artists are both at the top of their game. The packaging however is infuriating, replete with confusing layouts, virtually illegible English translations and no track timings. To add insult to injury, the identity of the very well-maintained organ is nowhere apparent until one removes the disc from its spindle. Here’s hoping Centaur gives the estimable Mr. Larkin his due in the future with a disc of solo organ music.
