SIGFRID KARG-ELERT, Triptych (Legend–Gregorian Rhapsody–Marche pontificale), op. 141. Breitkopf & Härtel 8757. The later organ music of Sigfrid Karg-Elert (1877–1933) is so masterful that one can understand why the composer did not enter into the experimental, atonal orb of some of his contemporaries. It is regrettable that, to many organists, he is known primarily by just a single and unrepresentative chorale movement. The "Legend" is a lush fantasy, rich in motivic invention and textural variety, with not a hint of formalism. The "Gregorian Fantasy" uses no actual chant, but takes for its trajectory a modal presto, a modal quasi chorale, and a modal fugue subject, all wonderfully assimilated into a hyper-Romantic, chromatic-tonal milieu. (The fugue, in particular, does not assert itself as such, but is almost a natural outgrowth of the prevailing contrapuntal texture.) The "Marche pontificale" is neither pontifical nor especially march-like, but is introspective and even dark at times, beginning with a quiet four-note basso ostinato that later gives way to a succession of other themes and episodes, reserving the fortissimo for the coda only.