The pipes have arrived

St. Bartholomew’s Anglican Church inaugurates an exquisite new organ

St. Bartholomew’s Anglican is among the most exquisite and intimate of Ottawa churches. Sharing these qualities, the new Létourneau organ, inaugurated Sunday afternoon, is almost as fine to behold as it is to hear. The pipe case is made of solid, lustrous walnut arranged to allow the rose window to be seen from anywhere in the sanctuary. The console of two manuals and a standard pedal set is similarly lovely.

It is the first entirely new pipe organ to be installed in Ottawa in a generation. With a judicious array of 16 stops, its sound fits the tiny sanctuary of St. Bartholomew like a hand in glove. Matthew Larkin, music dir- ector of Christ Church Cathedral, was the obvious choice to perform the inauguration. Not only is he one of the best organists around, he collaborated in developing the instrument’s final specification. (A busy man, Larkin had spent the previous two evenings in St. Matthew’s, another Anglican Church, accompanying the Seventeen Voyces in their screening of Nosferatu, the original vampire movie.)

He began the program with an especially imposing work of J. S. Bach, the Contrapunctus XI from the Art of the Fugue. The Contrapunctus achieves its power through the imagination and integrity of the writing more than an overwhelming volume of sound. At the same time, Larkin struck a most affecting balance of the two.

Trumpeter Nicholas Cochrane joined Larkin in two works, Alan Hovhaness’s Prayer of St. Gregory and the second movement from Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto. This gave the listener the chance to hear the difference between an actual trumpet and the sound of an organ trumpet. The eight-foot trumpet on this instrument, the only reed stop it has, sounds particularly agreeable. In William Boyce’s Voluntary, it danced most fetchingly above the gentler sounds of the flute stops.

Larkin did a wonderful job in employing the organ’s timbres in Franck’s Prélude, Fugue and Variation.

His rendition of Healey Willan’s Passacaglia and Fugue no. 2 made a convincing case for the work, though it’s probably safe to say that Willan’s music in general is esteemed mostly by church musicians.

St. Bartholomew’s has a maximum capacity of 210 souls (225 before the organ was installed). It’s unlikely to become a regular venue for organ recitals, but if you ever have the chance to hear the instrument, don’t pass it up.