Why organ music

Early Telarc digital organ recordings sound quite bright to me as well, I don't think you're alone there. For Bach, I like the Christopher Herrick cycle on Hyperion, which is pretty well-recorded. The Hell recording is quite good, and the kid is a terrific organist, full of excitement. Be aware, though, that the recording is in a comparatively dry venue, won't sound like a recording in a great cathedral by any means. Much of the program for RR was also recorded on Felix's own label from a concert I attended at the Sacred Heart Basillica in Newark a few years ago, when Felix was 17--that's a pretty good facsimile of the Sacred Heart acoustic, worth picking up online.

Interesting observation. While CDs can, in theory, get the bass notes better than all but the best-cut records, I believe that you're right. Maybe the reason is in part that the recorded space for most organs is a big part of their sound and is usually quite reverberant. This can lead to some overtones becoming a bit strident and bright in the frequency range where digital has its weaknesses, perhaps? Also, I find that redbook digital's inability to capture the last "tail" of a note's decay realistically often makes CD organ recordings sound a bit unnatural. I will say that I have heard a lot of very good recordings of organs on CD, most of them being more recent recordings. And the SACD recordings I have of organs sound very close to analog recordings, with better bass reproduction to boot.