No need to be brassed off at final organ recital in series

There was no need to be brassed off at Wednesday’s Caird Hall organ recital, last of this summer’s series.

Brass was to the fore, not only the organ’s magnificent tuba stop but also the trumpets and cornet of guest artiste Eoin Tonner. He and city organist Stuart Muir conjured up a programme that brought the four-concert series to a fine conclusion.

Such was the form of the concert, the only recognisable composers for organ music were Alfred Hollins – the man who designed the hall’s Harrison organ – and Noel Rawsthorne. But those who had attended the previous concerts would have had their fill of the great organ composers.

However different the performers’ choice of music, they all had one thing in common: they knew how to exploit the many colours and sounds that can emanate from the hall’s marvellous instrument. Wednesday night was no exception.

The first part of the programme was an alternation of music from Handel’s Water Music and voluntaries from Stanley, Travers and Dupuis, the last of which didn’t fill me with enthusiasm.

What did appeal was the organ/ trumpet combination in Handel’s Let the Bright Seraphim, an arrangement by Philip Cranmer that worked a treat.

After this blaze of Baroque, Stuart and Eoin toned things down a bit and entered a reflective mood. Probably the best of these four pieces was a work I’d never heard, Dom Andrew Moor’s delightfully soothing Prelude On Eventide.

But then the tempo was upped via Peter Graham’s helter-skelter variations on The Lily Of The Valley – it was a close call but parity won in the end – and Lefebure-Wely’s March In F. The concert ended as it had started in Baroque mode with Eoin being joined by brother Calum in the first movement of Vivaldi’s Concerto For Two Trumpets.

No brass fanfares as such, but plenty fine fare for the fair-sized audience to enjoy.