Comfortably within the realm of ‘absolute’ music is the slow movement of Brahms’s third Violin Sonata, a rapt Adagio which uses the lower end of the violin’s range to particularly lyrical effect. The transfer of the solo melody to the Choir Open Diapason and Viola is a relatively simple one: the brilliance of Lemare’s transcription lies in the re-arrangement of the piano accompaniment; particularly in his prescription of delicate 16-, 8- & 4-foot stops to suggest the timbre of the piano played pianissimo with the sustaining pedal. Here, as in his orchestral transcriptions, Lemare is not straightforwardly mimicking the sound of the original instrumentation: instead, he discovers an alternative that works within the organ’s own sound-world.

from notes by Robert Quinney © 2006