Brighton Fringe 2025
John Collins Organ Recital St Nicholas Church, Brighton
John Collins
Genre: Live Music, Music
Venue: St Nicholas Church, Dyke Road, Brighton
Festival: Brighton Fringe, Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
John Collins returns with another historical survey of European organ music.
Again an unique presentation of lesser-known organ music.
Review
John Collins returns with another historical survey of European organ music.
I’ve not heard his Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) before, and we’re used to this “first finger in the land” on harpsichord or clavichord. But if course he was an organ player first. A fitting reminder of the 400th anniversary of his untimely death. A great undervalued composer
His Prelude in G and two fantasies in A minor and C are remarkable late Renaissance pieces as Europe itself turned to the baroque. Free flowing with sections after the first Prelude, they follow Byrd and Bull with a mystic touch of their own. Grave contemplative works.
Pedro de Araujo (ca.1640-1704) a mid baroque born composer is also from an Iberia that like Britain skid behind the times from it’s Renaissance and polyphonic height. His Obra de 7 Tom de Passo Solti is strikingly old fashioned and recalled an earlier era.
Anthony van Noordt (ca. 1620-95) from a similar era is a little more receptive to undercurrents though the Netherlands too slid into a cultural blackwater from its heyday.
His publication of 1659 includes 10 multi-verse Psalm Settings and six strictly contrapuntal four-part Fantasias. This, his Fantasia No. 2 in D minor from that set, is sombre, resonant, and a reminder of the musical links between Britain and Netherlands, despite the silly wars: both harked (musically) to an earlier age. Whereas the Netherlands in 1659 was itself enjoying a golden age of art and of course an embarrassment of riches in other arenas; as Britain was in literature – and trade. Hence the wars.
Allesandro Scarlatti(1660-1725) whose terminal tercentenary falls this year is best known for his ground-breaking cantatas, mini operas composed when Rome banned the full scale thing. He composed opera for Naples but also concertos and like his even more famous son, keyboard music. Here his Toccata con Fuga inG develops from the Frescobaldi tradition. The latte like Gibbons born 1583 lived to 1643 the year that also took the older Monteverdi. This Scarlatti work is bright-toned, public, a delight in an audience rather than a call to contemplation. Toccata literally means a “touching-off” and this touches fire in its openers to joy and exuberance.
Andres de Sola ((1634-96) contributes a slightly more forward looking Registro alto dem 1 Tom, tinged (I think) with pastoral regret.
William Welland (1725-70) another tercentenarian is obscure today. In the Anglican tradition he contributes Voluntaries. They’re refreshingly dark. The A minor Op 2/10 (Flute), opens brightly dark, followed by the C minor Op 2/5 (Full Swell & Vox). In both these works there’s a sprightly melancholy. The latter almost winks with an alla marcia quality. The Rococo sentiment works well with these exquisite hidden gems.
Anonymous (British) contributes finally No.10 in D from 12 Voluntaries and Fugues for Organ and Harpsichord. It truly blows away in full bright-eyed D major all the accretions if centuries. Handelian in its clamour and celebration it also employs a Fugue alongside its own Fugue companions. This Fugue is splendidly Handelian too in its strut and arrival. What a pity we don’t know its modest author.
Again an unique presentation of lesser-known organ music. Collins is back in late November.
