Dances of Life and Death (Jehan Alain and Maurice Durufle)

"Whitehead plays with clarity and authority. Registrations are well chosen and he achieves a good mélange of colours"
- MusicWeb April 2005

This recording was inspired directly by the remarkable Oberthür organ in Auxerre Cathedral. Built in 1986, it falls midway between the French classical and Romantic traditions, and renders homage to the music of Maurice Duruflé, so beloved of its builder, Dominique Oberthür. The grandeur of the acoustic and the visceral excitement of the battery of chamade reeds suggested immediately to me a recording of the Trois Danses of Jehan Alain, allowing them a spacious rhetoric which has not always been heard before.
- William Whitehead, 2005

Organist William Whitehead has gained a reputation for his engaging and inspiring interpretation of the organ repertoire. He has held a number of prestigious organists' appointments in the UK and is currently Director of St Mary's Church in Bourne Street, London and a council member of the Royal College of Organists. William Whitehead makes his debut on the Chandos label with this recording.

The disc contains a transcription for organ of Duruflé's orchestral piece Danse lente, the first ever such transcription, for which the Duruflé Association has granted William Whitehead sole performance rights.