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page content last updated 30th January 2010

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We welcome reviews of organ related concerts/recitals, books, recordings etc.  Please send them to publications@scotsorgan.org.uk and include your name and any other relevant details.

 

 

 

Organ, Harpsichord and Piano Duets by Graeme Stevenson and Andrew Macintosh – Wednesday, January 13th 2010

Robert Lightband

 

 

To hear these musicians play together so precisely was liking them to an elderly, famous string quartet who had been playing together for 50 years.  A couple of rehearsals provided Graeme and Andrew with absolute precision throughout the concert.  Very few keyboard players would jump from organ to harpsichord to grand piano in one recital without much trepidation, but to Graeme it all looked so easy! 

 

The programme started with two organ duets for manuals only, one by Byrd and one by Benjamin Cooke.  Both were very attractive pieces.  And then we heard the Concerto in F by W. F. Bach, for organ and harpsichord.  This was a quite delightful combination, each instrument in this wonderful music setting the other off to perfection.  It is quite astonishing that other composers of the period did not use the same combination.

 

Charles-Marie Widor, if you are a Classic FM listener, wrote only work, THE Toccata.  In fact he wrote eight Organ Symphonies as well as other pieces.  In most of them there is some beautifully crafted music, which shows much original thinking in effects.  Widor only played music by Bach and himself at St Sulpice, and why not?

 

It is typical of Andrew to discover in a second-hand shop a suite of six duos for organ and piano which none of us had even heard of.  This was most charming music, perhaps the most attractive of all evening.  Widor’s own house organ was much larger than the seven stop Peter Collins organ in the University Chapel.  And here we ran into trouble.  The large grand piano in the Chapel occupies the most advantageous position from an acoustic point-of-view in the whole building and there were times when the organ was completely drowned out.  This was not Graeme’s fault; you could see he was struggling to keep the piano down as much as he could. Nevertheless, in spite of the slight imbalance, these pieces brought a most enjoyable evening to a most charming conclusion.

 

 

 

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