David Adams (organ)

Some of the most stimulating organ recitals in Dublin in recent years have been provided by David Adams. This first ever winner of the Dublin International Organ Playing Competition - there were no first prizes awarded before his success in 1986 - has spent a long time toiling on foreign soil. But he's now living in Dublin again and his recital on Sunday showed him at the top of his very fine form.

There's a broad range of pleasures to be encountered in his performances. He's a strong communicator of individual musical styles, which ranged on this occasion from Bach to Marcel Dupre, taking in along the away Mendelssohn, the little-known Hein rich Kaminski (1886-1946) and Jehan Alain.

His playing breathes with an easy flexibility which ensures that small-scale patterning never becomes mechanical or rigid. One could readily see some of the reasons why he would feel a special affinity for the Drei Choralvorspiele of the Nazi-suppressed Kaminski - pieces full of flourishes and tempo modifications gauged to work against the tyranny of beat and printed barline.

Adams is a broad-visioned player who takes in the whole as readily as the parts. This helps make his Bach - which on this occasion included the Fantasia and Fugue in C minor, BWV537, and the sombrely passionate chorale prelude Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland, BWV659 - particularly rewarding.

In Mendelssohn's Sonata in D, Op. 65 No. 5, he shaved a layer of sentimentality off Victorian England's favourite composer, putting a jaunty spring into his step. And at the end of an already cherishable evening he handled the notespinning flamboyance of Du pre's Prelude and Fugue in G minor, Op. 7 No. 3, with irrepressible joie de vivre.