Organ CDs with really deep bass

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.

Here are a couple more recommendable organ CDs with fine music, fine performances, excellent sound and really deep bass that will keep your subwoofer occupied:

Michael Murray, organ; Encores a la francaise and Poulenc Organ Concerto (with Atlanta Symphony Orchestra, Robert Shaw, cond.); Telarc CD-80104. This features the organ at Symphony Hall, Boston, in the encores, and the Aeolian-Skinner organ in the Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, in the Poulenc.

Michael Murray, organ; Jongen Symphonie Concertante (with San Francisco Symphony, Edo De Waart, cond.) and Franck, Fantaisie and Pastorale; Telarc CD-80096. This features the Ruffati organ in Davies Symphony Hall, San Francisco, about which the CD notes claim: "said to be the largest concert hall organ in the world." As Rcprince notes in one of his posts above, there is also a fine Dorian CD with Jean Guillou playing the organ in Meyerson Center, Dallas (with the Dallas Symphony Orchestra under Mata) that is an excellent version of the Jongen, very well recorded and with deep bass.

And thank YOU, Texasdave! I'll be on the lookout for those you recommend.