Considering the unique and important place Mathias's music holds in the organ's repertory it's nothing short of scandalous that so little of it is currently available on disc. Hopefully his untimely death last year will prick the consciences of record companies and it's appropriate that a Welsh label has been first to act.
This isn't the complete organ music. Neither the two big early works, Partita and Variations on a Hymn Tune, nor several smaller pieces are here: I hasten to say for no other reason than lack of space—nobody could complain about the playing time of this CD. I hope Nimbus plug these gaps soon: although not in St Paul's. True, this organ never fails to send shivers down the spine—it does so spectacularly here at the end of Scott's dazzling account of Jubilate and in the dramatic cadenza (5'59'') in Berceuse—but Nimbus have kept this great hulking monster at arm's length, allowing detail to be swallowed up by the wallowing acoustic long before it has a chance to reach the microphones. How much more crisp and positive is Christopher Herrick's Vista recording of Processional made on the same instrument in 1969 (before it was rebuilt), although possibly John Scott's strict adherence to Mathias's crotchet=132 creates problems of clarity which Herrick's more stately alla marcia tempo doesn't. Similarly the swirling mass of sound surrounding Invocations seems light years away from Noel Rawsthorne's collar-grabbing incisiveness in his Ace of Diamonds recording from Liverpool's Metropolitan Cathedral—but then in both recording and performance this 1970 LP stands head and shoulders above most modern organ discs and it is to Decca's eternal shame that it has not been reissued on CD.
Scott is as fine a champion of Mathias's music as any. He is particularly associated with two of the big works here which he premiered, Fantasy in 1978 and Antiphonies in 1982, and I doubt whether either will ever receive such powerfully compelling recordings. Elsewhere, his ability to realize precisely what is on the printed page while always making it seem so fresh and instinctive results in performances which are both authoritative and hugely enjoyable. A fitting tribute to a composer who has a special place in the hearts and minds of organists.'