Sonata No 8 (exc) - Guilmant
Concerto Grosso in C minor Op 6 No 3 - Corelli/Billington
Prelude and Fugue in E minor BWV548 - Bach
Toccata Op 21 - Fernando Germani
Funerailles - Liszt/Kynaston
Sonata Eroica - Jongen
The second George Hewson Memorial Recital was given on Sunday by the English organist Nicholas Kynaston, who was organist of Westminster Cathedral from 1960 to 1971 (he was appointed at the age of 19). He has been organist of the Athens Concert Hall since 1995.
The opening movement of Guilmant's Sonata No. 8 showed how clearly he was prepared to relish the girth and dynamic range of the cathedral's Willis instrument, re stored in 1995 to a soundworld in the spirit of its original design.
That spirit, of course, does not readily accommodate the music of the baroque era. On this occasion, the lightly-handled arrangement of the Corelli Concerto Grosso retained more of the flavour of its time than did Bach's Wedge Prelude and Fugue, where lumbering mass and rhythmic slippage took their toll.
The Toccata by Fernando Germani (one of Kynaston's teachers) provided more pliable material, in the mould of organ recital showpiece. Liszt's Funerailles loses in both pathos and dramatic impact in the transition from piano to organ - Kynaston's recently-reissued Carlton recording presents the case for his transcription more strongly than did his St Patrick's performance.
The most rewarding playing of the evening came in the ardently romantic Sonata Eroica by Joseph Jongen, one of the best-known Belgian composers of the first half of the 20th century. From the melodramatic rhetoric of the opening, Kynaston took firm hold and, with sonic splendour, made the most of the composer's indulgent rhapsodising.
