Unitarian Meeting Place, Hastings, Saturday 17 August 2013

The third in the current series of concerts brought not only an impressive range of organ music but songs performed by Soprano Gaby Manoukian. Her beautiful voice filled the building with the same ease we have come to expect from the Snetzler organ and her warm tones seemed to surround us.

The afternoon opened with Gordon Young’s familiar Prelude in Classic style but then went straight into an early work unknown to most of us. Richard Jones was a contemporary of Handel but is almost unperformed today. His Toccata in D Minor proved to be impressive and gave Stephen the chance to display a strong range of colour. Bach’s Short Prelude and Fugue in C minor was given a breathy, gentle quality in contrast to the previous pieces.

Cesar Franck’s Andantino is a strange work and even those of us familiar with the composer could be forgiven for not recognising it as part of his canon. Almost tongue-in-cheek in places, its lightness works well and made a suitable link to Samuel Wesley’s Sonata in Eb, with its Mozartian fluidity. Possibly the only really serious work of the afternoon was Buxtehude’s refined chorale prelude on Vater unser in Himmelreich.

Gaby Manoukian joined Stephen to sing Beethoven’s Ich liebe dich, her tone quickly settling into the ambiance of the building and mirroring the organ in impact. Her rendition of Mendelssohn’s Auf flugen des Gesanges made us wish we could hear far more.

Stephen continued with Mendelssohn, giving us the Andante religioso from the fourth sonata, a fine bridge between the airy lightness of the song and Matthew Camidge’s upbeat Concerto No2 in G minor. A gentle voluntary by Francis Linley, another Handelian contemporary, paved the way for Gaby Manoukian’s final song, a moving rendition of Amazing Grace. Singing unaccompanied for some of the verses, her voice seemed at one with the building and those of us gathered to listen. It was as much an act of worship as art. Please come again!

Stephen has always had the uncanny knack of turning any organ into a Wurlitzer and did so again in the final two pieces by Lyn Larsen. In Sorrento he even managed to create a Wurlitzer tremolo!

The final concert is during Hastings Week on Saturday 19 October. BH