After aging the past 24 years, Nils Henrik Asheim’s work “Salmenes bok” (“The Book of Psalms”) has now been released. The hour-long work was written for the dedication of Oslo Cathedral’s new Ryde & Berg organ in 1998. It features both organs in the cathedral (with Kåre Nordstoga on the choir organ and Asheim playing the main organ) to create a surround sound around the choir singing 21 texts from the biblical Psalms in a rich tonal language equally rich in contrast. The result is a unique listening experience, a magical fusing of voices and organ.

Trumpeter Tine Thing Helseth's album of Magical Memories was recorded during the coronavirus pandemic and intended as a positive statement, suggesting childhood memories that bring strength at a difficult time. The memories are Helseth's own; she heard her mother play the trumpet with an organist in church and loved the combination. It's a simple and direct concept, but it conceals several challenges that Helseth has successfully surmounted on this lovely release. First of all, in Helseth's own words, "There is nothing as difficult to play as a really simple melody – a simple, unadorned, honest melody coming from within. It's magic!" She offers traditional Norwegian folk melodies and classical favorites, and she's right; to make these more than ordinary is difficult, but she pulls it off with really charismatic performances of the likes of "Solveig's Lullaby" from Grieg's Peer Gynt.

Little Organ Book, in which a beginning organist is given instruction in performing a chorale in a multitude of ways, and also in mastering the use of the pedal, since in the chorales offered here the pedal is used to its full extent. Glory be to God alone, thereby may we our knowledge hone.

In his ninth and tenth of a total of fourteen releases of Bach’s collected organ works, Kåre Nordstoga pulls together much of what was not collected from the composer’s side — preludes and fugues.

Bach on the Silbermann cathedral organ in Arlesheim, Switzerland, performed by Oslo Cathedral organist Kåre Nordstoga! Andreas Silbermann, brother of the more famous organ builder Gottfried Silbermann, originally built this organ. The cathedral’s acoustics are superb, and although the organ has been rebuilt over the years, it still has the unique warmth and clarity of sound that was the hallmark of the baroque masters. On the first of the two CDs, we find all of Bach’s transcriptions for organ. Three are Bach’s arrangements of violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, and Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar originally wrote two others. He died at age 21, and is perhaps best remembered by music historians because Bach — while he was organist at the ducal court in Weimar — transcribed the compositions for organ and cembalo.

The second and third discs in the series featuring Bach’s complete organ works were recorded in Arlesheim Cathedral. The organ was originally built by Andreas Silbermann, brother of the more famous organ builder, Gottfried Silbermann. The cathedral’s acoustics are superb, and although the organ has been rebuilt over the years, it still has the unique warmth and clarity of sound that was the hallmark of the baroque masters. On the first of the two CDs we find all of Bach’s transcriptions for organ. Three of them are Bach’s arrangements of violin concertos by Antonio Vivaldi, and the two others were originally written by Prince Johann Ernst of Saxe-Weimar. He died at age twenty-one and is perhaps best remembered by music historians because Bach, while he was organist at the ducal court in Weimar, transcribed the compositions for organ and cembalo.

"Bach - Sonatas" is the fourth recording in Kåre Nordstoga's series of Bach's complete organ works. The main works on this double-CD are the six "Trio Sonatas".