Brighton Year-Round 2025
John Collins Organ Recital St Nicholas Church, Brighton
John Collins
Genre: Live Music, Music
Venue: St Nicholas Church, Dyke Road, Brighton
Festival: Brighton Year-Round
Low Down
Organist John Collins returns to St Nicholas with one of his unique historically informed organ recitals. He performed the same recital only last week at the Chapel Royal. Here though the setting, organ and acoustics are special.
Another exceptional recital from the unique John Collins. We’re lucky to have such a scholarly yet consummate recitalist.
Review
Organist John Collins returns to St Nicholas with one of his unique historically informed organ recitals. He performed the same recital only last week at the Chapel Royal. Here though the setting, organ and acoustics are special.
He begins commemorating the 400 years since the death of Orlando Gibbons (1583-1625) at 42 proclaimed “the best finger in England” which rapturous use of metonymy might raise eyebrows now. Gibbons is still one of the greatest unsung giants of British music.
His imposing Prelude in E minor gives in to a Fantazia of four parts. This too is minor-keyed and solemn – much of Gibbons is dark-hued and serious. One recalls Byrd naturally – Gibbons derived forms from Byrd and the continent – though Gibbons is knottier, more complex with the early shadow of the baroque naturally expressed. As the Fantazia moves into the light of the major, the contrapuntal resolution is both dizzying and exhilarating.
A Fantasia in C follows, with a unexplained different spelling originating in its transcription source. This is as the key suggests a four square major white keyed radiance. Gibbons still inflects this with sharps and accidentals as again the work seems to progress upwards into a kind of exaltation.
Dutch composer Anthony van Noordt (c. 1620-75) born 60 years after Jan Sweelinck and the English exiles like Peter Phillips and John Bull, reminds us that Flemish and Netherlands music still flourished in the Dutch Golden Age. His Fantasia No 4 in E minor uses more trumpet stops than the Gibbons, is perhaps slightly more showy. It is though a punchy minor-keyed work. Not light years from the Gibbons if inhabits a baroque world of brighter colours even as a fundamentally serious Fantasia.
Johann Froberger (1616-67) has an uneasy connection with Gibbons. His son Christopher Gibbons (1615-1669) kicked him physically out of his organ loft for some mistake. A pupil of Frescobaldi (1583-1623) he begins the great German tradition of keyboard music. His a toccata III in C from 1656 is post-Frescobaldi a sobering down of the touch-off of the Italian model Frescobaldi pioneered. It’s mobile and virtuosic.
His Ricercare IV also in C is another Frescobaldi form made different in Froberger’s colours. Even C major is a little breaker. It’s latter part breaks into a more joyous movement and you can see why Froberger single-handedly started a great tradition.
We move centuries and way south to Gaetano Valerj (1760-1822). A contemporary of Mozart, Cherubini (exactly) and Beethoven his bright flute-stopped Sonata Rondo in F (Flauto in Ottavo) seems both from an operatic world and one of pure light Rococo. The pursuit of pleasure and happiness that pulses from this delightful sorbet of a piece certainly follows some heavy beef.
A very slight recessional back to seriousness isn’t too marked in William Waylord (1725-70) and his Voluntary in B flat. In the tradition of older contemporaries like John Stanley this bright trumpet Fuga clearly marks how far English organ music has come in a century
Slighter and more entertaining perhaps, a touch of theatre and the fashionable sermon have crept in. And a sense of occasion.
William Boyce (1711-79) is more acclaimed and more substantial. Known more for other genres than the organ, he still wrote for it though Stanley his junior by two years specialized in the organ (as well as a little orchestral work). His Voluntary in G is strikingly brief, followed by a perky Moderato with Box Humans and Swell giving a parlando or speaking tongue. So the organ almost sings an aria. It’s quite operatic. Boyce composed much vocal work and you can imagine this set to words.
John Alcock Jr (1740-91) was a more thoroughgoing organ composer. His Voluntary in D Adagio (Diapason) sounds minor keyed. Though it sports the clear outlines of the period, there’s the thew and thrust of a serious musical tradition. Its second movement Moderato (Trumpet and Echo) it boosts some remarkable effects. Call and refrain where one side of the organs stops are played antiphonally against each other. It’s a moment when you think this kind of organ composition might lead the way across the continent: where the organ was a little in the doldrums against the bright 18th century.
Francesco Mariner ((1720-89) is a new name to me. His Pastorella No 5 in G is, as you’d expect with a title like that, pure Rococo-classical. Yes but there’s a bit of weight to it too. It affects trumpets rather than flutes which is unexpected (perhaps the other Pastorellas featured them). Its also substantial and quirky, with some enharmonic slips worthy of Domenico Scarlatti. Whom Mariner might have known by reputation.
With it’s stretto matches and processional air, it’s a bright assertive and weighty Wurlitzer of a piece and as with much else of Collins, a thrilling discovery.
Another exceptional recital from the unique John Collins. We’re lucky to have such a scholarly yet consummate recitalist. Collins remarked on the extreme cold of the organ; and worried that this hampered his efforts. Another organist dismissed this, and Collins can rest satisfied that his championing of the composers is as undimmed as it is unrivalled. He’ll be back at an as yet unspecified time next year.
