1981 Ahrend organ at the Église-musée-des-Augustins, Toulouse, France

These days we’d probably just call it ‘getting off’, but years ago when a great performer let loose his imagination, you found yourself transported to marvelous new musical worlds. On our next Pipedreams program, we celebrate multiple opportunities for unfettered inventiveness in a varied collection of inspired works from the German Baroque, by Buxtehude, Bach, Bruhns, and Reincken. And we’ll hear how more recent composers Leo Sowerby in America, Percy Whitlock in England and Louis Vierne in France play with the expanded resources of the 20th century pipe organ. From felicitous demonstration of a rank of flute stops, to exploration of the full sonic potential of great instrument and some great players we enter the world of unfettered imagination, where music can take us up, up, and away. Be mesmerized by the masters, soar with the eagles, as we take off on Flights of Fantasy, this week on Pipedreams.

Composers old and new create music of awe and expectation that preludes the Christmas festival.

…between Marseille and Toulouse, we audition some of the instruments to be visited during our spring tour in the south of France.

Women performers and composers make vital contributions to the tradition of the organ.

Celebrating a recent recorded summary of historic instruments and young performing talent in France.

An extravagantly colorful autumn collection of recent recordings in review.

Profound and soulful meditations, songs of sadness and shipwreck on themes of Titanic import.