Both the organ and the organist here are new to me. We are given a specification (three manuals, 46 speaking stops) but no other information about the instrument, while a brief paragraph tells us that Bruno Mathieu was born in Paris in 1958 and studied with Langlais and Marie-Claire Alain. This outstanding recording, on the other hand, reveals a vividly colourful and uncompromisingly full-throated instrument and a player with a strong feel for the music and a keen sense of its dramatic potential. The Third Symphony begins with a surge of power and the kind of empirical gesture which forces one to sit up and take note, and Mathieu holds the listener’s attention with playing of great character, the frequent colour changes and crescendos and diminuendos measured with absolute precision. His fondness for the dramatic gesture does tend to weigh the music down somewhat and by the time we reach the big pedal statement of the theme (5'26'') the momentum has slowed drastically. The problem is that this is not an isolated incident: the third movement suffers an almost fatal arrest around 3'05'', while the glittering finale of the Sixth Symphony loses its momentum almost as soon as it’s under way.
I wish I could recommend this disc unreservedly; the recording is far preferable to Priory’s (for Simcock’s Sixth) and on a par with Herald’s (for Filsell’s Third), the organ sound more compelling than Sanger’s Sixth (Meridian) and not far behind the matchless Latry Third (BNL).
I’m no mathematician so I can’t work out the possible permutations of pairings of six symphonies but I’m sure there can’t be that many. Nevertheless the record companies seem to have conspired to ensure that none of the sets of Vierne symphonies is compatible. There are 11 Third Symphonies and six Sixth Symphonies available but none – other than this – which couples them together.'