Four Chorale Preludes - Andrew Johnstone
Fugue in A flat minor - Brahms
Commotio - Nielsen
Composer-organists are a distinctive breed. Andrew Johnstone, who last Wednesday lunchtime gave the final recital in the Pro-Cathedral's September series, exemplifies an international tradition which can be traced back through composers such as Rheinberger and Karg-Elert in Germany, and Tournemire and Langlais in France.
They wrote music rooted in the Baroque and Renaissance periods, when the organ truly was the king of instruments. Johnstone's Four Chorale Preludes are an Arts Council commission to mark David McConnell's retirement as the council's financial officer. Their language is traditional, but their self-conscious exploration of hymn melodies dating from around 1600 to the 1980s, and of so many historically-rooted contrapuntal techniques, make them of this time.
Brahms was doing something comparable when, in 1864, he produced his Fugue in A flat minor for organ, though his harmonic language and melancholy expression are distinctively Romantic.
Through long-line, measured playing, Andrew Johnstone caught those qualities impeccably. The highlight of this recital was a rare opportunity to hear Nielsen's Commotio.
Completed in 1931, the year of the composer's death, this is a long sequence of sections, lasting over 20 minutes, which draws on the praeludium style of Nielsen's 17th-century compatriot, Buxtehude. It distils the counterpoint which underlies so much of Nielsen's music, and it is hard to think of any large organ work written by a non-organist which is so idiomatically written for this instrument. I wondered whether its fantasia sections would sound even more effective with a looser, more-surging rhythm.
But this was a rewarding, exact performance of an exacting piece.