Organ CDs with really deep bass

As far as 64 foot stops go, there are some organs that have them; I think the Washington Cathedral may have one, and perhaps the Wannamaker Organ in Philadelphia. There's supposedly a 64 foot stop and 8hz note used on the M&K Power and Glory LP, although that may be a resultant from two 32 foot stops; my system doen't go low enough to hear it, although I remember some queaziness in my stomach listening to it, so there may be some truth to the rumor.

On the use of an electronic 32 foot stop, we use a tone generator for the 32 foot stop of our small organ in my church. When we got the thing (it's really a large speaker, which you amplify with an amp with a level control), I put it on a wheelbarrow and wheeled it around the church working with our organist to find the spot it would best integrate with the rest of the organ. We wound up putting it above and behind the choir loft, adjacent to the church offices and a large meeting room. When our organist, who loves deep bass, set the amplifier to figure the proper level, he initially didn't realize how sensitive the driver was, and when he played the first 16hz low C he knocked all the pictures off the walls in the meeting room and offices and drove the church staff out of the building fearing that an earthquake had occurred (any of you had that problem integrating a subwoofer?)! It may be cheating, Texasdave, but it actually does work quite well, and is a nice alternative for an organ that doesn't have the space in its chambers for a true 32 foot pipe.

When I do want to shake my house I use Telarc SACD 60579 "The Sound of Glory" Morman Tabernacle Chior. This is not exclusively organ music, but they do have one monster organ there in Salt Lake City, and most of the stops were pulled out on some of the selections. This is a Hybrid disc, so it will work on a regular CD player, although I have never used it that way.

Eldartford, thanks for the tip about the Telarc Mormon Tabernacle CD. I'll check it out.

Thanks for the additional information, Rcprince. I regularly attended organ concerts in the National Cathedral outside Washington DC back in 1963-64. I was quite impressed by this mighty organ (in fact it was the experience of hearing concerts played on this organ that got me hooked on organs and organ music), and if I remember correctly I got a specification of it at the time; I believe it's an Aeolian-Skinner organ, and I'm pretty sure it does not have a 64-foot pipe. Like you I would have guessed that the huge Wanamaker organ in Philadelphia would be a likely candidate to have such a pipe. I seem to remember years ago encountering a reference to some continental European organ(s) with such a pipe. Anyone know more about this?

I love your story about the pictures coming off the walls and the staff exiting the building when the 16 Hz tone was generated at your church! This rig really sounds like a kind of super subwoofer and amp, basically pretty much like what we audiophiles use, although no doubt larger and more powerful--would that be correct? Speaking of knocking the pictures off the walls, I haven't had that happen, but when I play the bass warble tones on any of the three Stereophile Test CDs (very useful, I've found, in finding the optimum positions for speakers and subwoofers and setting levels), I've noticed that when I get down to the 25 Hz and 20 Hz warble tones, I start to get a significant (clearly audible) amount of rattling, shaking, and buzzing of various objects in the room. To a lesser extent I also occasionally get this with some pipe organ recordings (had it happen just yesterday, in fact, with Christopher Herrick's Organ Fireworks volume 9 on Hyperion, a CD that could certainly be added to the list of recommendable, well-recorded organ CDs with really deep bass).

Some that I've found to be quite revealing:

JS Bach:
Toccatas, Fugues, Fantasia, etc. (Works for Organ, vol. 4)
Kevin Bowyer (organ)
Nimbus (1993)

Chorale Preludes, Preludes, Fugues, etc. (Works for Organ, vol. 8)
Kevin Bowyer (organ)
Nimbus (1996)

Toccatas and Fugues, BWV 538, 540, 564, 565; Passacaglia in C min., BWV 582
Christopher Herrick (organ)
Hyperion (1990)

Trio Sonatas 1-6, BWV 525-530
David Sanger (organ)
Meridian (1991)

Orlando Gibbons:
Keyboard Music ("The Woods So Wild")
John Toll (harpsichord and organ)
Linn (2002)

Thanks, Cpdunn99, for your recommendations.

Here are two more recommendations for organ CDs that I've found outstanding.

1. Michael Murray, Bach, The Great Organ at Methuen (Mass.), Telarc CD-80049. In my opinion this is one of the greatest organs in the USA, and it has an unusual history. Built by the Bavarian firm of Walcker in 1857-63 for the Boston Music Hall, it was the first concert organ in the country. In 1884 it was dismantled to give stage space for the new Boston Symphony Orchestra. In 1897 it was purchased by a wealthy gent who commissioned a lavish new music hall in Methuen Mass. for it, where it was installed and rededicated in 1909. It must be one of the very few organs in the world that enjoys its own music hall built especially to house it. It was revised and rebuilt by the famous G. Donald Harrison of Aeolian-Skinner in 1947. Today it has four manuals, 84 stops, 115 ranks, and more than 6,000 pipes (including two 32-foot pedal pipes).

The description of the tonal qualities of this organ in the CD notes (uncredited, but I suspect by Murray) is so apt, so right-on-target that I'd like to quote it: "Neither wholly romantic nor wholly classic, the Methuen organ partakes of both styles of instrument and is suited to both styles of music. Its beauties include a unique mellowness that comes only to well-built flue pipes and only after decades of seasoning, and a miraculous blending of 8' foundations, whose harmonics interweave like the colors of a tapestry. The tutti is overwhelming, not abrasive. The mixtures are bright, not shrill. The foundations are full-bodied but remain, in even the most complex polyphony, clear. Accordingly, the Methuen organ is renowned as one of the world's artistic treasures." Indeed, it's a rare beauty.

Why this magnificent organ isn't better known and hasn't been more frequently recorded is a mystery to me. I used to have an old mono Columbia LP of Biggs playing a recital on it. If there are other presently available recordings of it, I'd like to know about them.

2. Michael Murray, Bach, The Organs at First Congregational Church, Los Angeles, Telarc CD-80088. This Skinner-Schlicker instrument is a very large organ in a very large church. Actually it is two organs at opposite ends of the nave, with twin consoles, four manuals, 214 ranks, "including several of 32-foot pitch" (I don't have the specification). Again, a superb big organ. This recital includes the ubiquitous Toccata and Fugue in D Minor BWV 565, in a performance as stirring and satisfying as any I've heard (and anyone who's an organ buff has heard a great many!).

To my ears both these Michael Murray Telarc CDs have it all: a master organist playing major Bach works on two magnificent instruments, both with exemplary sound: full, rich, clear, and vivid, with excellent, natural bass. If you relish organs and organ music, it doesn't get much better than this. Together with the Murray "The Young Bach" CD on Telarc described in one of the posts above, these are three of my "desert island" organ CDs.