John Butt - Elgar: Complete Works for Organ (2002)

Although Elgar wrote relatively little organ music, the instrument played a key role in his formative years and toward the end of his life. The G Major Sonata from 1895 represents Elgar's first large-scale effort with symphonic form, while Ivor Atkins's arrangement of the Severn Suite for brass (sanctioned by Elgar in 1933, the year before his death) amounts to a veritable Second Sonata. All the clarity, rhythmic firmness, and registration smarts John Butt brought to his superb Harmonia Mundi Bach recital are present in his Elgar traversals. Notice, for instance, the gentle urgency with which he propels the bass lines in the First Sonata's brisk outer movements, the Second Sonata's crisply delineated Toccata, and the lyrical dignity he brings to the Vesper Voluntaries. True, Carlo Curley's more extroverted and color-coded reading of the First Sonata on Argo outflashes Butt's relatively straightlaced demeanor. This release, however, will attract Elgarians and organ buffs alike seeking intelligent musicianship and virtuosity that draws attention to the music first. The organist also provides his own apt, informative notes. --Jed Distler