Dame Gillian Weir
26th October 2005
by Brian Moore
I was fortunate in being able to go to the Inaugural Organ Concert at the Royal Albert Hall in June 2004. This celebrated the £1.5 million overhaul of the organ and I wrote about it in the February 2005 issue of the KCOA Journal. On that occasion the organ featured in concertos as well as solos.
The 26th October was not to be missed as it was the first public recital on the restored organ, when it could be heard again in more detail. The orchestral canopy was raised so that its majestic height was fully revealed, making the console and the organist appear quite diminutive when seen from the circle. How could such a seemingly small figure control so vast an instrument?
I have read that before deciding on registration Dame Gillian plays a chromatic scale on each stop. This is no small feat on the largest organ in the country which has a range from barely audible delicate stops to a massive 112 decibels, the equivalent of a passenger jet on take-off. The enormous power is needed to fill the vast space of the Albert Hall, but it is rarely oppressive.
We were treated to playing of stunning virtuosity, with carefully chosen registration which perfectly suited the music and gave us the opportunity of hearing the full resources of the organ. In the first movement of the Elgar Sonata the organ sounded suitably heroic and English, whereas in the Liszt Fantasia, which is based on a chorale-like melody from Act 1 of Meyerbeer’s opera Le Prophète, the tutti was very much reed dominated. The Viole chorus of the Orchestral division came into its own in the opening of Nimrod, and the effect of the enclosed Tuba as specified in the transcription was absolutely thrilling.
In the Howells the full ringing power of the glorious Great primary chorus was revealed, and Dame Gillian used suitably perky and bright registration in Ives’ humorous Variations on America (our National Anthem). Needless to say, the Bovet and Vierne were an absolute tour de force, and for her encore Dame Gillian played the Toccata in D major* by Marcel Lanquetuit
The organ has never sounded better, and Paul Hale has given a full description of it in the Organists’ Review. For anyone interested this has been reprinted in the notes accompanying the first recording of the restored organ by Dame Gillian. The items marked* above are included on her CD (Priory PRCD 859), but be warned - good though this is, if you only have a modest but good hi-fi like mine, it cannot prepare you for hearing the splendour of the real thing! The organ seems to say “Listen and understand me and I can do anything you want!”
The Recital Programme
Edward Elgar Allegro maestoso (from Sonata for Organ in G Major Op.28)
Franz Liszt * Fantasia on Ad Nos, ad Salutarem undam
Edward Elgar * Nimrod (from Enigma Variations) trans. Sir William Harris
Herbert Howells * Rhapsody in C sharp minor Op. 17 No.3
Franz Liszt * St. François de Paule marchant sur les flots trans. Lionel Rogg
Charles Ives Variations on America
Guy Bovet Hamburger Totentanz (from Trois Préludes Hambourgeois)
Louis Vierne Final (from Symphony No. 1 Op. 14)