Reviewed by Steven Whitehead

Let us start with the full title: ‘Organ Music Of Christopher Boodle Played By Neil Weston At Spencerville Seventh Day Adventist Church, Maryland, USA’. The composer was born in Gloucester in 1952 and writes organ music with a distinctive flavour for which exuberant is an apt description. We start with a rousing “Fanfare For The Millennium With Canons”. Next is “Jazz-Fantasy On An American Spiritual” which is “Go Tell It On The Mountain” like you have never heard it before. Then we have a “Scherzo” which tips its hat, musically speaking, in the direction of Beethoven and a “Christmas Sleigh-Ride” by which point you may be feeling that you can have too much of a good thing. Fear not. After “Toccata Éclante” we can draw breath with the “Little Organ Book”, eight short pieces written for organists of moderate ability. And we finish with a “Carillon Symphony” that will delight bell-ringers as well as organists. Neil Weston does full justice to Christopher Boodle’s compositions and we should be grateful to him for bringing these exuberant pieces to our attention.

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