Heroic Proportions (2017)
 
Johann Sebastian Bach
Prelude & Fugue in E-flat Major "St. Anne", BWV 552
 
César Franck
Pièce héroïque
 
Samuel Barber
Adagio for Strings, op. 11
 
WORLD PREMIERE RECORDING
Eric R. Stewart
Sonetto
 
Healey Willan
Introduction, Passacaglia & Fugue, B. 149
 
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“this recording demonstrates that the “wunderkind” [Felix Hell] has emerged as a mature performer, who plays these oft-recorded pieces with technical assurance and rhythmic verve and imagination... excellent recorded sound captures the instrument’s richness and warmth. What really saves the recording is Hell’s playing. His Bach and Franck are clean, energetic, and committed... Hell maintained my interest [in the Willan] with a performance that unfolds logically and is imbued with an exciting forward momentum... I have grown to like this recording very much.”
Delcamp, American Record Guide
 
“Every now and then comes an organ recital that is perfectly satisfying in every respect. This is one occasion. Here we have one of the great young organists of our time playing an engaging program consisting of two staples of the literature, a fine transcription of a work for strings, and two works of recent vintage that already have the label “modern classic” stamped on them. Superb sound recordings allow us to optimally hear every contrapuntal strain and nuance.”
Phil Muse, Audio Society of Atlanta
 
 
“What might we expect from a CD of organ music entitled “Heroic Proportions”? Might it be pieces which require heroic virtuosity from the player? Or might it be music which calls for a heroically-proportioned organ? The answer is, in this case, a bit of each... [the J.W. Steere and Son instrument] is clearly an organ of heroic proportions... [Hell] is a highly capable technician, capable of rattling off reams of short-value notes very quickly indeed and one who, one suspects, rarely puts a finger, thumb or foot out of place. Accuracy seems phenomenal – and I suspect that is not the result of judicious editing – and articulation is almost dazzling in its clarity.”
Marc Rochester, MusicWeb International
 
“Barber’s Adagio...is quite affecting in this guise... [Stewart's Sonetto] is well structured and effective... The disc is well recorded...”
James A. Altena, Fanfare
 
"Hell is quite a performer: he handles all the varying works and varying styles with aplomb, his pedal work is first-rate, and he seems quite as comfortable with the grandeur of Bach as with the warmth of Barber and the more-contemporary sound of Stewart."
Mark J. Estren, InfoDad