Prelude & Fugue in C, BXV547 .................. Bach
Schmucke dich, BWV654 ......................... Bach
Herr Jesu Christ, dich zu uns wend, BWV655 .... Bach
Von Gott will ich nicht lassen, BWV658 ........ Bach
Toccata in F, BWV540 .......................... Bach
Passacagtia in C mi, BWV582 ................... Bach
Adagio in F mi, K594 .......................... Mozart
Fantasia in F mi, K608 ........................ Mozart
THE NINTH Dublin International Organ and Choral Festival got off to a cracking start last night at St Michael's Church, Dun Laoghaire.
The American organist Joan Lippincott, a jury member for the festival competition, played a programme of Bach and Mozart suited to her strengths.
It was good to hear three of Bach's Leipzig chorale preludes played with such clarity. Nevertheless, these performances were the least impressive of the recital, in as much as the playing did not have that large scale definition of shape which marked all the other pieces.
Joan Lippincott is a player who is willing to live dangerously. This showed not only ill her readiness to take technical risks: the way she held back speed in the manuals only Sections of Bach's Passacaglia BWV582 and then pressed it in the concluding fugue was, electrifying.
She rounded off his recital with the best performances I have heard in years of Mozart's Adagio in F minor, K594 (commonly called Adagio and Allegro), and Fantasia in F minor, K608. Any player who tackles these pieces is living dangerously, for they were written not for ten fingers and two feet, but for a mechanical organ. Lippincott relished the increasing compositional and technical virtuosity of the Fantasia. It was the sort of musicmaking which sent you home feeling good.
