Petite Suite

Greetings all. Here I am again with a rarely heard work. This time by Canadian organist, Gerald Bales.

In 2007 Ken Bales, Gerald’s son, sent me this piece and I was so taken with it that the work became one of my first Hauptwerk recordings. Ken had created a dry (recorded near the organ chambers) Hauptwerk sample set of a three manual Phelps Casavant organ near his home (Oshawa, Ontario). It required external reverb and, at the time, I was only aware of the possibility of “fake” reverb using external hardware. The Casavant reminded me very much of the one in St. David’s Church in Baltimore, where I was organist for 26 years.

Although the piece might have been written for an earlier 20th century Casavant, I felt that the nature of the 1965 work would come to life with a more rhythmic instrument.

Fast forward to the present. One of my most recent sample sets is that of the Sonnenorgel in Görlitz, Germany. Although it is created in the Neo Baroque style it is quite large and is complimented by an exorbitant reverberation time. Since the organ was recorded in surround sound, I intentionally limited the rear microphones to keep the recording clear.