Together, these M.P. Möller organs (dedicated in 1965 and updated in 2001) house 9,393 pipes ranging from a 64-footer to one foot, four keyboards and 157 stops, each providing a specific sound. Candela took full advantage of these far-reaching sonic resources, playing works from different eras by Naji Hakim, Richard K. Fitzgerald, J.S. Bach (two wondrous chorale preludes), Jean Langlais and Marcel Dupré. Hakim’s exciting “The Embrace of Fire” thrashed about with conflicting and echoing layers of sonorities. But most of Sunday’s music was based on ancient church hymns.
Full review here.
Back in the 1990s I heard Naji Hakim give a recital on the newly-restored Willis organ of the Royal Albert Hall. He had succeeded Olivier Messiaen as titulaire at la Trinite on the recommendation of Messiaen's widow, and among other things played his recent composition 'Le Tombeau d'Olivier Messiaen'. He was also given a theme (a Scottish folk-song) in a sealed envelope on which he proceeded to improvise for twenty minutes.
Back then he was the only organist in Paris who was a composer as well as an improviser, carrying on the tradition of his teacher Jean Langlais (who had been told by the ecclesiastical authorities that his music was no longer relevant to the post-V2 Church; the philistinism of the 1960s and 1970s beggars belief).