| Lyon-born Charles-Marie Widor (1844-1937; Signum’s annotation mistakenly reports 1834) is consigned to that unhappy band of composers known chiefly for a single piece (“Widor’s Toccata”) and, outside the arcane world of organists, few people probably have much sense of his development as a composer. Yet Widor’s life spanned more than nine decades, from the time of Rossini to the time of Messiaen and, on the evidence of this handsomely-produced set with the indefatigable Joseph Nolan at the pedal-board, there is a veritable treasure trove of startling sounds to be discovered. |