Fourteen different items made up this programme, which ran rather longer than the hour-and-a-quarter advertised. It showed the skill of the choir in singing works spanning four-and-a-half centuries. Nearly all the choir members stood very still, and did not indulge in distracting movement; thus, the audience can concentrate on the music. Most of the items were conducted by visiting Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, Dr Richard Marlow, who is retired from the position of Director of Music at that College. On the whole the balance and blend of the choir was good, though occasionally the sopranos were too prominent. There...  Read More »

Nicholas Grigsby is Director of Music at Wanganui Collegiate School, and a fine organist.  This event was obviously designed to showcase the brilliant new two-manual organ at St. Paul’s Lutheran church.  It is a small but incisive instrument. Grigsby covered only the early years of Bach’s career, and illustrated his talk with illustrations from archives and published scores, as well as at the organ.  He stated that Bach must have taken on board many influences in his youth.  Part of a long lineage of musical Bachs, some of whom would have been important influences, he nevertheless is known to have gone...  Read More »

Each one of these recitals was given for free at the Wellington Town Hall, both showing off the resplendent grandeur and variety of tones of the Town Hall's recently refurbished organ. Of the two recitals I enjoyed John Wells' as a whole better, largely because of the programming, though both his and Douglas Mews's recitals had some very fine and interesting things in them. Each featured  some resplendent Bach, Wells treating us to the old warhorse the Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (which showed off the organ excellently) and Douglas Mews the A Minor Prelude and Fugue BWV 543,...  Read More »

This was the third year that Anglican Cathedral has presented Messiaen’s Christmas celebration on the big organ. Though it didn’t draw as big an audience as Messiah a week earlier at the other cathedral, the Happy Few enjoyed a commanding and brightly coloured account of Messiaen’s early masterpiece. It was written in the year of my birth, though I was much older that he was at its composition (28) when I first got to know Messiaen – probably over 40. Though the organ at St Paul’s is capable of producing the characteristic sounds of the English organ, it is strong...  Read More »

The second to last in the approximately monthly series of 12.45pm recitals was by the cathedral’s director of music, Michael Fulcher. In his notes to the programme he remarked how his idea to focus on the passacaglia (and its cousin the chaconne) had awakened him to its scope, which he thinks can easily fill four full programmes. There will be more next year. Nothing could better illustrate the depth and sheer intellectual potential of the organ repertoire than the many works over the centuries that have been built on the renaissance courtly dance in slow triple rhythm. It has not...  Read More »