Vincent Boucher's 2006 release of Charles Tournemire's mystical Resurrection Cycle is sure to bring much critical praise for this young Canadian organist, who has commenced recording the composer's complete works for Atma Classique with this exciting album. Performed on the splendid Casavant organ in the Church of the Holy Guardian Angels in Lachine, Québec, Tournemire's ecstatic, mysterious, and sometimes flamboyant meditations on the themes of Holy Week and Easter are among his most accessible and appealing works for the organ and sound extraordinarily focused and coherent in
Boucher's assured performances. The selections date mostly from the late 1920s and '30s, Tournemire's productive last decade, and fully demonstrate his intense and highly influential style, which later had such a profound effect on his younger admirers, Jehan Alain,
Maurice Duruflé,
Jean Langlais, and
Olivier Messiaen. Two Offices for Easter Sunday are included, along with the Suite évocatrice, Op. 74, several short postludes for Easter, and the premiere recording of a brief Lento movement; but the best-known work here is the powerful Choral-improvisation on Victimae Paschali Laudes, which was transcribed by
Duruflé from Tournemire's 1930 recording on 78 rpm for Polydor; this, along with four other transcribed improvisations, remains one of his most played works. Atma's recording is exceptionally clear and noise-free, and the acoustics of the church are delightfully reverberant.