‘The freshness and simple joie de vivre that Herrick brings to all Bach’s music makes this cycle a winner’, says the Gramophone review of this sixteen-CD set. ‘Christopher Herrick and the Hyperion team deserve the warmest praise for devoting the past decade to a Bach cycle that has provided such scintillating and compelling listening.’

These CDs are all recorded on Metzler organs in Switzerland: ‘Herrick has been presenting a different instrument from this fine builder in each of his Bach recordings and every one is a revelation,’ says the BBC Music Magazine’s Top 1000 CDs Guide. The Good CD Guide in turn describes his playing as ‘scholarly, erudite, infinitely rewarding and so easily communicative one is barely aware one is absorbing some of the most complex and intellectually demanding ideas.’ No wonder Hyperion have now issued these discs as a Box Set.

The nine Organ Fireworks albums, recorded on great organs all over the world, continue to fascinate organ lovers and critics with their ‘varied mix of familiar and unfamiliar repertoire’. The Gramophone continues ‘…the strengths of this hugely enjoyable and downright spectacular series lie in consistently first-rate recordings of some of the world’s most aurally stunning instruments, and Herrick’s playing, which can only be described as unfailingly brilliant.’ Altogether, including the 2002 release of Organ Dreams 3 from Truro Cathedral’s truly magical and unspoilt 1887 Willis organ, Hyperion has released 30 CDs by Herrick.

The year 2003 will see the fruition of a special Herrick/Hyperion project to record the keyboard works of Holland’s greatest composer, Sweelinck. The recording was made in Sweden last summer on a breathtaking, scholarly reconstruction of the 17th-century Stockholm German Church organ and is to be released this year.

Herrick’s busy concert schedule takes him to all corners of the globe. Recent highlights of his career include the New York complete Bach 14 day marathon, his own ‘Organ Prom’ in the BBC Henry Wood Promenade Concerts at the Royal Albert Hall, opening the Stockholm International Organ Festival, giving inaugural concerts on the Rieger organ in Christchurch Town Hall, New Zealand, dedicating numerous organs in North America including last year a 96 stop Letourneau organ in Edmonton’s new Winspear Centre Concert Hall, and -during the ‘Bach Year’ 2000- performing numerous all-Bach programmes in Festivals and Bach series all over the world.

During Herrick’s ten years at Westminster Abbey he played for many Royal and State occasions and gave over 200 recitals. Since 1984 he has enjoyed a highly successful international career as a freelance concert organist, performing to enthusiastic audiences and critical acclaim worldwide.