BENGT HAMBRÆUS, Orgelwerke, 1977–2000. Bärenreiter 7792. Bengt Hambræus (1928–2000) was a practicing organist who evolved from neo-romanticism, through serialism, to 1960s-styled avant-gardism, and who held important cultural and academic posts, first in his native Sweden, and later in Canada. This edition comprises nearly all his later organ works in a huge 227-page facsimile, complete with composer explanations, editorial remarks, and relevant stoplists. Antiphonie (1977) exploits the vast antiphonal possibilities at St. Paul Cathedral, London, in a root-centered, non-developmental style; Voluntary on a Swedish Hymn Tune (1981), written for a neo-Renaissance instrument, exploits meantone temperament and tasti spezzati, again in root-centered style; Variations sur un thème de Gilles Vigneault (1984) is less severe, more rhythmic, and not without humor in relation to the subject-theme; Le Passacaille errante (1985) purports to confront Handel's G-minor Passacaglia with unforseen predicaments, but the process is surgical; Missa pro organo in memoriam Olivier Messiaen (1992) is a dull, diatonic affair, based in part upon an improvisation at McGill University, and is really two works insofar as each of the five movements comes with an alio modo; Organum Sancti Jacobi (1993), written for the restoration of the historic Arp Schnitger at St. Jacobi, Hamburg, purports to treat stylus phantasticus as if from an "opaque filter," quoting Buxtehude and Bruhns, but within an essentially stagnant tonal environment; Meteoros (1993) exploits single sonorities with such tenacity that the departure from these sonorities becomes almost dramatic in itself; Triptyque (Nénies, Péripétie, Dithyrambe) (1994), commissioned by the 1994 Calgary International Organ Festival, features additive sonorities, vehement runs, note clusters, MIDI solos, pedal solos, powerful unisons, anguished trills, and Dies irae fragments; A solis ortus cardine (1995) adheres closely to the ancient subject-theme, and the several variations, ironically, pose no contradiction to its archaic modality; FM 643765 (1997) alludes in its title to Felix Mendelssohn, whose opp. 64, 37, and 65 are quoted at length; Riflessioni (1999) similarly offers-up huge chunks of Reger, Bruhns, Reubke, Buxtehude, all in a protracted dead earnest.