Monday 12 August
Stephen Disley may still be recovering from a recent wrist injury but there was little sign of this in his fluid articulation throughout his All Saints concert. The only slight indication was the shorter second half and the larger number of short pieces which allowed brief times of recovery between works.
He opened with Charpentier’s familiar Prelude to a Te Deum with extrovert reeds in play, a fitting contrast to the relaxed but finely ornamented reading of Bach’s Air on a G string which followed. The more demanding exigencies of Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in C minor BWV537 were given an impressively steely organo pleno, before the more relaxed short works by Fiocco. The last of these, he admitted, was not actually by Fiocco but proved twinklingly pretty nonetheless.
Liszt’s Consolation seemed rather lost amidst the brightness around it, but Daquin’s Le Coucou raised the temperature again. Guilmant’s March on a theme of Handel sounded far more like Mendelssohn than the baroque master, but the fiery fugue had the Willis working at full capacity.
The second half opened with Karg-Elert’s Nun Danket before a wonderfully English rendition of Thalben-Ball’s Elegy. This floated gently in a post-Elgarian haze with rich cathedral-like registration.
Bach’s Piece d’Orgue brought possibly the finest playing of the evening before Guy Bovet’s tongue-in-cheek Le Bolero du Divin Mozart. The final from Langlais’ Triptyque brought the evening to a close. The work may be more demanding on the ear but the quality of articulation and registration was, as it had been throughout, captivating.
A brief Tudor dance served as an encore to a thoroughly satisfying concert.
Next week Charles Andrews from All Saints, Margaret Street, will give the seventh concert in this 25th anniversary season. BH