Guy Bovet draws inspiration from Italian opera

Played with panache, fantasy and humor, the twenty-one varied pieces on this CD are inspired by Italian opera, without taking themselves too seriously, just like the organist himself! A perfect antidote to gloom, Guy Bovet forces a smile with his naughty registrations and subtleties in music typical of lyric theater towards the end of the 19th century. From the very moment he hits the keys, his spontaneity gives the impression of witnessing a real show in which he is the attentive accompanist for absent singers!

Guy Bovet's passion for the Italian organ comes as no surprise; in fact, he collaborated with Manufacture d'Orgues de St-Martin S.A. to specify a unique "Italian-style" instrument, which he inaugurated himself in Dombresson, Val-de-Ruz (NE) in 2004.

The beautiful seating of Giuseppe Carabelli's case on the gallery of the parish church of Saint Eusebio, in Castel San Pietro, Ticino, is well illustrated in the booklet for which our organist has provided the notes in four languages. The recording places us close to the 1771 instrument, built by father Giuseppe Serassi and son Andrea. While the sympathetic sounds of the two-hundred-and-forty-year-old mechanical action are clearly audible, it's the breathtaking virility of the pipes that is striking. There's a heady fullness in the full range, authority in the pedals and a veritable kaleidoscope of sonorities available in the solo registers, which sing as well as they do at the opera! In the Sei Versetti per il Gloria by Vincenzo Petrali, then known as the "Prince of the Organ", the organist gives his all, varying the "orchestration" of timbres, even in the middle of a phrase.

By the age of fourteen, Verdi had already been appointed titular organist in his native Roncole. Transcriptions of pieces from the Traviataand Sicilian Vespers andAïda for the Solemn mass by Carlo Fumagelli are nowadays more entertaining than appropriate for a mass. Purists are reminded that Puccini, on summer vacation in his birthplace, also transcribed highlights of his own operas for organ, so that the people of Lucca could hear his latest successes. So, green light for a second Gallo CD by Guy Bovet at Castel San Pietro or Dombresson!

Guy Bovet at the Castel San Pietro organs. Works by Vincenzo Petrali, Guy Bovet, Carlo Fumagalli. VDE-Gallo 1379