Reviews Charles Huddleston Heaton in The Diapason:
Fans of the previous recordings will know they are in for a musical treat, both in the performances and the unusual repertoire involved, such as Juhan Aavik's Fantasie or Gustav Hagg's Adagio. Followers of the estimable duos previous CDs will expect balance, repertoire and musicianship to be first-rate, as certainly is the case here. The first six selections are recorded on the Aeolian-Skinner organ at St. Stephen's Episcopal Church, Richmond, the remaining four on the Austin at Reveille United Methodist Church. A setting of "That Lonesome Valley," a commission to Wilbur Held by the AGO for a Region V convention, is elaborate and musically worthwhile, as is a beautiful version of Fosters "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," arranged by Leo Dubensky. An exuberant A la Valse by Victor Herbert (dedicated to Fritz Kreisler) concludes this musical disc.

An International Collection presents nine compositions for violin and organ by composers of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries and whose countries of origin span a third of the globe: Estonia, Italy, The Netherlands, Armenia, Sweden, Germany, Ireland, England, and the United States.

Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936): Aria *
Juhan Aavik (1884-1982): Fantasie, Op. 130 (1955) *
Cor Kint (1890-1944): Hymne, Op. 8 *
Eduard Ivanovich Baghdasaryan (1922-1987): Three Medieval Chants *
Gustav Hägg (1867-1925): Adagio, Op. 34 (1909) *
Günther Raphael (1903-1960): Largo aus der Violinsonate, Op. 12, Nr. 1 für Violine und Orgel (1924)*
Derek E. Healey (b. 1936): Sonata for Virginia, Op. 94 (2004)+
   Virginia Dare: Her Pavan • Jig • Fantasy: Croatoan • Finale: a debt repaid
Wilbur Held (b. 1914): That Lonesome Valley (2007)+
Stephen Foster (1826-1864): Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair *
Victor August Herbert (1859-1924): A la Valse
* * 1951/1968 Aeolian Skinner organ, Op. 1110, St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church, Richmond, Virginia
+ 1954 Austin organ, Op. 2218, Reveille United Methodist Church, Richmond, Virginia

Respighi: Aria, Op. 31
Ottorino Respighi (b. in Bologna, July 9,1879; d. in Rome, April 18, 1936) began violin and piano lessons as a young child. Between 1891 and 1901 he was a student of violin, viola, and composition at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna. During the winters of 1900-01 and 1902-03, while working in Russia as an ochestral violist, he had a few lessons with Rimsky-Korsakov. In Italy, Respighi was employed as an orchestral player and began to be recognized as a composer. For a short time he taught at the Liceo Musicale in Bologna and in 1913 was appointed professor of composition at the Liceo Musicale di S Cecilia in Rome. The passionate and operatic Aria is the final work in Sei Pezzi per violino e pianoforte, Op. 31, the only one of the set to have organ as an alternate accompaniment.

Aavik: Fantasie, Op. 130 (1955)
Juhan Aavik (b. in Holstre, Estonia, Jan. 29, 1884; d. in Stockholm, Nov. 26, 1982) studied trumpet and music composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory where Alexander Glazunov was one of his composition teachers. Aavik was appointed music director and conductor at the Vanemuine Theatre in Tartu, Estonia, in 1911, and subsequently held the same positions at Tallinn’s Estonia Theatre from 1925-33. From 1928-1944 he was professor and director of the music conservatory in Tallinn. Aavik promoted Estonian song festivals for many years and continued doing so in Sweden after he emigrated there in 1944. His important multivolume history of Estonian music was published in Stockholm between 1965-1969. Aavik’s interest in Estonian folk music is evident in the motivic design, harmonic movement, and lyricism of his music. The wide emotional range of Fantasie, Aavik’s only work for violin and organ (alt. piano), is achieved with a highly sectional structure and strongly contrasting timbres which are balanced by a conservative harmonic scheme.

Kint: Hymne, Op. 8
Cor (Cornelis) Kint (b. in Enkhuizen, The Nethlerlands, Jan. 9, 1890; d. in Hilversum, July 8, 1944) moved to Amsterdam in 1906. Three years later his expertise as a violist earned him a position in the Concertgebouw Orchestra although he was only 19 years old. In 1911 he co-founded the Holland String Quartet and performed with that ensemble until 1922. From 1923 until his death he taught violin, viola, and viola d’amore at the conservatory in Amsterdam. An internationally recognized performer and authority on viola d’amore, Kint also edited a number of 18th-century compositions for that instrument. He was a prolific composer, primarily of works for strings and keyboard, including organ and harmonium. Hymne (manuscript dated October 20, 1915) was published in 1919 by Seyffardt’s Muziekhandel, Amsterdam, and is available in a new Boeijenga edition. Written in a conservative, Romantic style, the solo part is particularly gratifying for the violinist.

Baghdasaryan: Tri srednevekovykh pesnopeniia (Three Medieval Chants)
Eduard Ivanovich Baghdasaryan (b. in Yerevan, Armenia, Nov. 14, 1922; d. in Yerevan, Nov. 5, 1987) received his education at the music school in Tbilisi, Georgia, and also graduated from the Yerevan Komitas Conservatory with a double major in piano and composition. From 1951-53 he studied in Moscow at the Armenian Culture House. In 1953 he was engaged in collecting Armenian folk songs which he later arranged for choir. Appointed to the composition faculty of the Romanos Melikian Music School in Yerevan, Baghdasaryan subsequently joined the Yerevan Conservatory faculty and became a professor in 1981. He was named a veteran artist of the Armenian SSR in 1963. Tri srednevekovykh pesnopeniia (Three Medieval Chants) for violin and organ was published in 1982 in a compendium of music by Soviet composers. In an earlier edition (Yerevan, 1977) the set was titled, “Preludes,” and included an arrangement for violin and piano.

Hägg: Adagio, Op. 34
Gustaf Wilhelm Peterson Hägg (b. in Visby, Sweden, Nov. 28, 1876; d. in Stockholm, Feb. 7, 1925) studied at the Stockholm Academy of Music and earned an organist diploma in 1896. During a tour of Germany and France he developed a close relationship with Charles-Marie Widor and Alexandre Guilmant. A prominent Swedish organist, Hägg was also highly respected as a teacher and composer. He was Otto Olsson’s predecessor as professor of organ at the Royal Academy of Music in Stockholm and organist at the historic St. Clara’s Church in central Stockholm (Åkerman & Lund organ, 1906-07). Hägg became a member of the Royal Academy of Music in 1906 and in 1915 was awarded a Swedish royal medal, Litteris et Artibus. Adagio, Op. 34 was published in Johannes Diebold’s collection Orgelstücke moderner Meister: Neue grössere und kleinere Orgelstücke zur Übung sowie zum gottesdienstlichen und Konzertgebrauch unter gütiger Mitwirkung hervorragender Orgelkomponisten der Gegenwart (Leipzig, Otto Junne, 1909).

Raphael: Largo from the Violin Sonata, Op. 12, No. 1
Günter Albert Rudolf Raphael (b. in Berlin, Apr. 30, 1903; d. in Herford, Germany, Oct. 19, 1960) was the grandson of the composer, Albert Becker, whose home the Hungarian violinist, Joseph Joachim, visited frequently. His father was director of music at St. Matthäus-Kirche in Berlin, the church in which Dietrich Bonhoeffer was ordained in 1931. String music filled the Raphael household; both his mother and daughter were violinists, and he was a violist. Raphael attended Berlin’s Hochschule für Musik from 1922–25, studying composition, organ, and piano. From 1926 to 1934 he taught at the State Conservatory and at the Kirchenmusikalisches Institut in Leipzig until serious illness and politics intervened. In 1948 Raphael received the Franz Liszt Award for composition, seventy years after the same award was bestowed on his grandfather. In 1949 Raphael was appointed to the Duisburg Conservatory and in 1956 to the faculty of the Peter Cornelius Conservatory of Music in Mainz and to the Cologne University of Music. The title “Senator of Honor” was granted posthumously in 1968 at the Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy University of Music and Theatre in Leipzig. The renowned Thomaskantor and organist, Karl Straube, said of him, “I . . . admire him as one of the greatest talents among the younger generation of German musicians. The compositions which I am familiar with, all works of great scope . . . testify clearly and unmistakably to a talent of the highest order!” The composer himself transcribed the accompaniment of this highly chromatic and polyphonic “Largo” movement of his Violin Sonata, Op. 12, No. 1, for organ in 1924.

Healey: A Sonata for Virginia, Op. 94 (2004)
Derek E. Healey (b. in Wargrave, England, May 2, 1936) was a student of Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music, London, and of Boris Porena and Goffredo Petrassi in Italy. Now retired from teaching, his impressive career included positions at the Universities of Victoria, Toronto, Guelph and Oregon, and the RAF School of Music in Uxbridge, England. Of this work, composed for the Murray/Lohuis Duo, Healey wrote: