About the album "Musikk for stille stunder" by Per Sigmond and Ian Richards
Ian Richards came to Norway at the age of 24 to work as an organ player. He has since become a musical institution all by himself, giving concerts in many countries in Europe as well as in Kristiansand where
he lives. I have been lucky enough to play with him on many occations through the years, and for a period quite frequently especially at funerals. I was thrilled when he agreed to record some of the music in this
genre in order to release an album and to do a concert series.
The recording took place in Lund Kirke in Kristiansand, Norway. That is, the organ was recorded there and the flügelhorn was recorded later in my studio in Grimstad. This may seem like a strange way to record
classical church music, but it was done like that mostly for practical reasons. Not having a full staff of recording technicians (I was the only one), it was really hard to make a good technical recording in
a church room with two very loud instruments playing simultaneously. For that type of recording the balance must be absolutely right at recording time; if you get it wrong there is no way to "fix it in the mix" afterwards.
There was no "recording-bus" where a sound-engineer could listen to the balance between the instruments and adjust the microphone placements and the arrangements in the church-room. It is also hard to get both musicians
playing perfectly at the same time (especially not when the flügelhorn-player gets tired after numerous re-takes). We would have to spend many days of recording to get it all right, and there simply wasn't time.
So we took the practical decision to record the organ by itself first. We could then have recorded the flügelhorn on site afterwards, but instead I recorded the reverberation of the room (the impulse response)
and took it home with me. This way I was able to sit in peace and quiet in my studio for several days recording the flügelhorn. The "church-sound" for the flügelhorn could then be re-created using a convolution-reverb machine.
This way of doing it worked out really well for our setup (and budget).
To record organ in a church is a challenge in itself. The organ is a huge instrument that fills the whole church; the sound is all around you as you sit in the room. In order to try recreate that feeling, I went
for a recording-technique called "Jecklin-disk" where you place two omni-directional microphones on each side of a disk of sound-absorbing material. Those are the only microphones used to record the organ.
This setup was used on all tracks apart from one (Jesu Joy of Mans Desiring), where a "spaced stereo pair" was used (the stereo-pair just sounded better on that particular track).
The album came out on CD and online services, and has turned out to be my most streamed on Spotify. Many people have told me they find the music relaxing and soothing.
It has been a joy to do this project with Ian and an honour to record such beautiful and timeless music.
Per Sigmond, november 2025.
