All Saints Church, Hastings, 11 July 2016

Daniel Cook got the new series off to a blazing start last night with a powerful and authoritative reading of Bach’s Fantasia and Fugue in G minor BWV542. Performers for the rest of the series are going to have to be exceptional to match the sense of musical line and responsive registration he brought throughout the evening. Staying with the baroque period we heard the rather austere Voluntary for Double Organ by Purcell, with its fine range of steely tones.

Moving forward rapidly to the romantic era we then heard Bairstow’s elegant Scherzo in Ab, with its plethora of soft tones in the opening section, and Stanford’s Intermezzo on an Irish Air which proved to be gently wistful. Daniel Cook has recorded all of Stanford’s organ works and it is a pity they are not more widely known, both for their musical delights and their challenges to performers.

The first half concluded with three of Parry’s Chorale Fantasias. Daniel Cook was able to demonstrate his exemplary pedalling in O God our help and brought us to the interval with a furious attack on The Old Hundredth.

The link between Bach and Mendelssohn was made very clear in his performance of the latter’s Prelude and Fugue in C minor, which opened the second half. It has a grandiose flair which seemed in keeping with the darker tonalities of Reger’s Ave Maria. The main work in the second half was a finely sculpted reading of Franck’s First Chorale, which produced some unusual registration even as it blazed towards its climax.

In slightly lighter vein the evening moved to a close with Gigout’s jolly Scherzo and the familiar Carillon de Westminster by Vierne.

Next week brings Daniel Moult with works by Widor, Mozart, Handel, Francaix and Britton.