Léon Berben

Léon Berben – Matthias Weckmann: Complete organ works (2020)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 02:30:52 minutes | 2,71 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Aeolus

For the first time Matthias Weckmann’s complete organ works have now been recorded on instruments from the early 17th century and thus on truly appropriate organs. The choice of the Stellwagen organ in the Jakobikirche in Lübeck and the Scherer organ in the Stephanuskirche in Tangermünde make this recording a real highlight – of course as Super Audio CDs in stereo and surround sound…

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Léon Berben – Van Noordt: Tabulatuurboeck van Psalmen en Fantasyen (2023)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/192 kHz | Time – 02:35:42 minutes | 5,11 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Ramée

Very little is known about the life of Anthoni van Noordt. Following in the tradition of Jan Piertszoon Sweelinck, he was organist at the Nieuwe Kerk in Amsterdam from 1664. After the death of Dirck Sweelinck in 1652, the van Noordt family became Amsterdam’s most important musical family. The van Hagerbeer organ in the Pieterskerk in Leiden, a large 17th-century Dutch city organ with a wide variety of stops, is particularly well suited for the performance of van Noordt’s music. The organ still has many of the characteristics of a traditional Renaissance organ, but the earlier preference for strongly contrasting timbres has given way to greater homogeneity, generally tending towards a somewhat darker sound. Also new is the striving for solemnity and weight, expressed above all in the disposition of a 24′ in the Hauptwerk and a Trompete 16′ in the Pedal. The old variety of reed stops has disappeared, however, but there are still several higher stops such as Nasard 1½’, Sifflet 1′ and Tertiaan. Léon Berben offers us a colourful and lushly ornamented reading of van Noordt’s 1659 Tabulatuurboeck van Psalmen en Fantasyen.

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Léon Berben – Johann Sebastien Bach : Clavier-Übung III (2014)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/88,2 kHz | Time – 01:34:47 minutes | 1,51 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Digital Booklet, Front Cover | © Ramée

Clavier-Übung III is considered Johann Sebastian Bach’s most important and most complete organ work, containing some of his pieces for the instrument that are the most complex musically and the most demanding technically. Formally, it takes its inspiration from the religious music of the masters of the stile antico. But, at the same time, Bach was an innovator and here incorporated modern Baroque musical forms, such as the chorale à la française and the gallant style.

The aim of the collection was manifold: an ideal organ programme; a practical translation of Lutheran doctrine in musical terms for devotional use at church or in the home; a collection of organ music in all possible styles and idioms, old and modern; and a didactic work presenting examples of all possible forms of contrapuntal composition, going well beyond earlier treatises of musical theory.

Léon Berben gives us his interpretation, a new and fresh view of this milestone in organ music, using the exceptional sound colours of an organ contemporary with Bach and largely preserved in its original state: the Christoph Treutmann organ in Grauhof (Germany).
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Léon Berben – Jehan Titelouze: Hymnes de l’église (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24 bit/96 kHz | Time – 01:56:42 minutes | 2,26 GB | Genre: Classical
Studio Masters, Official Digital Download | Front Cover | © Aeolus

On this new album, Léon Berben takes us to France and presents us the complete Hymns by Jehan Titelouze (1563-1633), published in 1623. The historic organ in Juvigny’s Notre-Dame church was built in 1663 by Jean de Villers and Jacques Carouge. It is one of the best preserved early baroque instruments in France and a perfect instrument for this repertoire. Berben’s judicious and colourful registrations and his much-praised ornamental artistry are the result of extensive source studies and let this music, often described as “austere”, emerge in new splendour.

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