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SPELL-BINDING
A recital by organist Steven Grahl,
heard by MIKE WHEELER
It must be so tempting to go into a work like J S Bach's G minor Prelude and Fugue, BWV 542, with all guns blazing. Instead Steven Grahl, Director of Music at St Marylebone Parish Church, London, and Assistant Organist at New College, Oxford, returned to the scene of his early musical training (as Head Boy Chorister, then Organ Scholar) focusing on the work's pace and energy rather than more monumental qualities, and it paid off in an invigorating performance (Derby Cathedral, Derby, UK, 1 August 2012).
Franck's Pastorale, Op 19, is not your average rustic idyll; it doesn't sound all that typical of Franck either, if it comes to that, with its often fairly static harmonies...
Copyright © 3 August 2012 Mike Wheeler,
Derby UK
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