My spouse is pretty tolerant of me playing Orchestral works at loud volumes but is absolutely allergic to Organ music at any volume. It reminds her of church and since she grew up in the Boston area having to endure CCD from one of the Priests later exposed in the abuse cases dramatized in the movie Spotlight she just gets immediate revulsion at the sound of the Organ; therefore my Organ music collection is pretty skimpy.
One of my favorite lps in College was E. Power Biggs playing Bach at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig. The bass in the Passacaglia and Fugue in DMinor would threaten to eject the woofer cone of my Advent 3 bookshelf speakers. I tried to find that same album in CD and it hadn’t been digitalized at the time (there were other recordings of Biggs in the same work but they just didn’t match my aural memory).
Even before meeting my wife in my forties (20th anniversary tomorrow!) I had never developed a taste for organ music after Bach. Widor and his ilk basically give me a headache, and I’ve delved into the Organ Music of Mendelssohn, Liszt, and Brahms, but this music is obscure for a reason, imo.
I have always thought that the Organ Symphony of Saint Saens was more notable for its restraint than its ability to spotlight the instrument. Romantic composers such as Strauss in Zarathustra and Holst do use it to augment low tones and imo one needs at least 1 sub in the system to really get that room filling effect
