“Fickley's previous Bach forays have come in for some rave reviews, and this latest venture is no less deserving of the highest praise. Indeed, this is some of the most absorbing Bach playing you can ever come across. An inspired undertaking that will surely rank with the last twenty-five years' best recordings in the genre.”

 

-Music & Vision 4/16
 

 

“Imagining Bach playing his own music as well as Todd Fickley plays it on this disc, is there any wonder that his contemporaries esteemed him most highly as an organist? When hearing musicality of this quality, one does not interrupt the player’s concentration to inquire about the provenance of a piece: one merely sits back, listens, and enjoys.”

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-Voix des arts 4/15

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“Fickley gives really splendid readings of these works...listen to some of the most enthralling Bach organ playing you are likely to hear anywhere by anyone” 

 

-Fanfare Magazine 7-8/15

 

 

“Organist Todd Fickley blasted the roof off as needed, here [Saint-Saens’s Organ Symphony] and in two shorter motets by Franck and Dupre.” 

 

-The Washington Post 10/12

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“[Fickley] deftly captures the essential character of the contrapuntal Bach, the profound Bach and the religious Bach. His playing is precise and accurate and he always makes you forget that technique is even an issue in these challenging works.”

 

-Robert Cummings, Classical Net

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“More than just a “performance,” [in Handel’s Messiah] the Consort conveyed a daunting musical experience, giving a full measure of the music’s profundity and displaying the whole range of sacred and universal human feeling. The orchestra and chorus, from which the soloists were drawn, were well-balanced and completely at one with each other and with Fickley’s exciting, compassionate conducting (sometimes from the harpsichord). Choral diction was precise and the singers perfectly balanced and engaged with the orchestra. Much of the afternoon’s passionate beauty was due to this mutual sensitivity of conductor and musicians. Of particular delight was Fickley’s resort at times to a sharp, defining pulse, his double-dotted rhythms creating, for example, a driving sense of command and zestful rhythmic pulse. His fluid legato gestures expressed other moments of high reverence or sheer grief. [...]The audience was emotionally overwhelmed, applauding as if forever. Not a seat in the church’s sanctuary was empty.”

 

-Cecelia H. Porter, 5/17

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“What we have is as optimal an account of the music as artistry and science can give us.”

 

-Audio Club of Atlanta, 3/16

 

 

“...as an interpreter, Todd is right up there with the very best: intuitive and inventive, and very well served by the Hauptwerk technology...”

 

-”Pipedream” NPR Radio Broadcast 1/16

 

 

 

“Mr. Fickley is not a limelight-seeking organist like Virgil Fox: rather, he is clearly one whose scholarship and dedication equal his technique.”

 

- Voix des arts, 4/15

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“Fickley’s interpretations display considerable imagination and liveliness. They are not just literal regurgitations of the score. There is plenty of inflection of the rhythm and tempo and a variety of articulations depending on the character of the music”

 

- American Record Guide, 9-10/15

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“...at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall...Mr. Fickley’s uniquely different 
D minor Toccata and Fugue proved an excellent and, in fact, exhilarating way to end the evening.”

 

-Communities Digital News 3/16

 

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“Todd Fickley strikes me as the very model of a modern organist, by which I mean his playing is clean, straightforward, technically secure, and sharply focused in the manner of a Simon Preston or Peter Hurford.” 

 

-Fanfare Magazine 7-8/15

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