Stanford: The Complete Organ Works Volume 2

   in Choir & Organ (May, 2015)
Daniel Cook’s traversal of Stanford’s organ music continues on the IV/98 Willis/Harrison & Harrison organ of Durham Cathedral. It’s an expressive instrument for a programme with the variegated Third Sonata, Britannica, in pride of place, Cook negotiating the turbulence of its opening, its meditative, prayer-like second movement and resounding sonata-rondo finale with emotional elegance. The broken-backed op.103 Fantasia & Fugue in D minor and uneven Six Preludes and Postludes (op.101) are no less persuasively championed. If Cook’s articulate advocacy can’t disguise the lack of consistent invention also evidenced in the Te Deum Laudamus and the Prelude on ‘Jesu dulcis memoria’, his playing is never less than intelligent and involved in …