{"id":4293,"date":"2018-04-26T07:52:37","date_gmt":"2018-04-26T06:52:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.larkreviews.co.uk\/?p=4293"},"modified":"2018-04-26T07:52:37","modified_gmt":"2018-04-26T06:52:37","slug":"rfh-international-organ-series-william-whitehead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/?p=4293","title":{"rendered":"RFH International Organ Series: William Whitehead"},"content":{"rendered":"

Royal Festival Hall 24th<\/sup> April 2018\u00a0<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Having been thwarted by adverse weather conditions for the last recital it was especially good to be back in the Royal Festival Hall for this occasion.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

William Whitehead\u2019s programme contained items that may be regarded as Bach- inspired as well as just a little from the master himself.<\/p>\n

A wonderful example of the \u2018fantastic style\u2019 of his teacher Buxtehude, Nicolaus Bruhns\u2019 Praeludium in E minor <\/em>\u00a0opened the preceedings with flair as loud florid outbursts contrasted with more contained introspective moments. This served as an excellent introduction to a short but key section of the evening\u2019s recital.<\/p>\n

William Whitehead has been curating The Orgelbuchlein Project<\/em>, which is now almost complete. A number of composers have been approached to produce their own treatments of the planned for but never completed remaining chorales of Bach\u2019s book. Two of Bach\u2019s short chorale settings were played between premieres of Errollyn Wallen\u2019s Ach, was ist doch unser Leben?<\/em>, Kalevi Aho\u2019s Herr Gott, erhalt uns fur und fur <\/em>and Thierry Escaich\u2019s Gott Vater, der du deine Sonn<\/em>. The composer of the first of these was present with us for the performance. The widely diverging styles and the contrast with Bach\u2019s settings made for a very special listening experience, emphasising the ongoing tradition of composers throughout the centuries adapting and re-working these carriers of the Christian faith.<\/p>\n

Two movements from Schumann\u2019s 6 Fugues on the name BACH<\/em> followed and Parry\u2019s Fantasia & Fugue in G <\/em>brought the first half to a close in grand style.<\/p>\n

The second half contained just one work \u2013 another large scale Fantasia & Fugue – \u00a0on \u2018Ad nos, ad salutarem undam\u2019<\/em>. This tour de force was followed up with a beautifully contrasting encore \u2013\u00a0 Elegy <\/em>by Parry, freshly rediscovered and about to be published.<\/p>\n

A well-constructed and engaging programme, played with apparent ease and made all the more approachable by the occasional controlled introductions and explanations by Mr Whitehead \u2013 a feature I have often hoped for at these concerts. Humorous mention was also made about the lack of the organist\u2019s \u201ccatwalk\u201d \u2013 an earlier staging malfunction necessitating the evening\u2019s performer to make a shorter (and easier) entrance from console level.<\/p>\n

The next concert in this series opens the 2018\/19 season with Stephen Cleobury and other musicians in a programme of Howells & Vierne on Wednesday 19th<\/sup> September.<\/p>\n

Stephen Page<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Royal Festival Hall 24th April 2018\u00a0 Having been thwarted by adverse weather conditions for the last recital it was especially good to be back in the Royal Festival Hall for this occasion. William Whitehead\u2019s programme contained items that may be … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4293"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4293"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4293\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4295,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4293\/revisions\/4295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.larkreviews.wickedlemon.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}